In and out of the Syrian Disaster: John McCain and The yahoo school of US foreign policy

McCAIN On Syria Sep 6, 2013 guaranteeing Russia and Iran will not act in Syria:

House of Saud losing its head over Syria

RT

Clear evidence that the Syrian conflict has reached a critical stage comes with the Saudi announcement that it is willing to send troops to Syria – along with the UAE and Bahrain – to help try and overthrow Assad under the pretext of fighting ISIS.

Just four months ago, the fate of the Assad government appeared all but sealed. After four years of unremitting conflict its army was battered and over stretched, struggling to hang on to main population centers in the east of the country despite the help of its allies, Iran and Hezbollah.

Polyglot opposition forces, dominated by various jihadi groups, in particular Jahbat al-Nusra, were slowly but surely gaining ground. Supplied via Turkey’s porous border, time was on their side as the question began to look more one of ‘when’ as opposed to ‘if’ Assad would fall. Such an outcome would have spelled utter disaster both in terms of the carnage that would ensue and a refugee crisis that would make the current one seem like child’s play by comparison.

An abyss of reaction

Along with Libya, Syria would have descended into an abyss of reaction with Lebanon and Iraq at serious risk of joining it. The likelihood of a major regional conflict erupting as Iran found itself more isolated and threatened than ever would be huge, especially as by this point the impotence of Washington when it came to exerting influence over its regional allies would be fully exposed. Even worse, the proliferation of terrorism across the world would be guaranteed: buoyed with success, foreign fighters would return to their countries of origin determined to wreak mayhem.

Saudi invasion of Syria: The bluff that could ignite World War III 

The aforementioned scenario and grim forecast underpinned the decision by Moscow to militarily intervene at the request of the government in Damascus. It was an intervention pregnant with risk, involving stakes that couldn’t be any higher, yet one that was absolutely necessary given the alternative.

Would the future of the region be sectarianism and marked by medieval butchery? Or would the forces of non-sectarianism prevail to provide hope of a return to stability and modernity?

Russia’s role and the disastrous record of Western intervention

Four months on, Russia’s action has completely transformed the situation on the ground. ISIS in the northeast close to the border with Turkey is being pushed back by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), made up of various components in which the Kurds of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) are dominant, supported by Russian airstrikes.

Combined with the loss of Ramadi and Sinjar in Iraq, and with its illicit oil trade via Turkey being interrupted by relentless Russian pressure, ISIS no longer appears the invincible entity it did just under a year ago.

The main focus of the conflict is currently taking place in and around Aleppo, the last major opposition stronghold and a city whose fortunes have acted as a barometer of the shifting balance of forces threatening Damascus throughout. Opponents of Russia’s intervention in the West have extended themselves in accusing Moscow of being more concerned with ensuring the survival of the Assad government than fighting ISIS.

The idiocy of this line of argument is instantly apparent when we consider that it is ISIS and al-Nusra that would be the major beneficiaries of the collapse of the Assad government. It bears repeating: there is no Western-style democratic alternative waiting in the wings to take power in Damascus; and certainly not one capable of forestalling Syria’s destruction in the event of the collapse of the Assad. This line of thinking has already resulted in Iraq being turned into a failed state in 2003, followed by Libya in 2011.

The yahoo school of US foreign policy

Yet despite this recent history of disastrous Western intervention, apologists for more of the same continue to occupy positions of influence in Washington. In advance of the Geneva peace talks in January, since suspended, US Senator John McCain issued a statement in conjunction with his Senate colleague Lindsey Graham. It reads in part: “We support the decision of the High Negotiations Commission to send a delegation to Geneva in order to advance a political solution in Syria, which will peacefully transition from the Assad regime to a democratic, pluralistic government which respects the dignity of all Syrians.”

The notion that a “democratic, pluralistic government” could successfully replace the Assad government at a time when jihadi groups committed to the country being turned in a mass grave is simply grotesque, if not perverse. Indeed, it is just about as perverse as McCain calling for an “end of Gadhafi’s rule and the beginning of a peaceful and inclusive transition to democracy that will benefit all Libyans" back in 2011.

John McCain is of course a special case, a product of the yahoo school of US foreign policy, wherein the world with all its complexity and challenges is reduced to the simplistic narrative of a low budget cowboy movie. Only when such people understand that the world is not a giant chessboard upon which governments are pieces they can move around and remove as they wish, will it begin to emerge from the chaos that has emanated from Washington in the form of US unipolarity over the past decade and more.

The poison of sectarianism

But let us now return to our friends in Riyadh, this clutch of medieval potentates responsible for spreading the poison of religious sectarianism across the Islamic world, who also happen to be the West’s closest Arab ally. When they aren’t massacring civilians in Yemen, the Saudis are engaged in a frenzy of head-chopping at home. In their wider objective of establishing a Sunni state in Syria they’ve been joined by their Gulf state partners and Turkey, where Erdogan continues to harbor ambitions of neo-Ottoman grandeur. The result has been the prolongation of the conflict and its mounting human cost.

Saudi Arabia ready to take part in any US-led ground operations in Syria – military spokesman

However their duplicity has redounded, as Erdogan faces a tide of refugees fleeing the fighting in Aleppo and the Saudis realize that Washington is unsurprisingly unwilling to risk being sucked into a second Middle East quagmire since 9/11.

This is where we arrive at a probable motive behind the ludicrous idea of Riyadh sending troops to Syria. It bears all the hallmarks of an attempt to force the hand of the Obama administration into upping US involvement as a bulwark against Russia’s role in changing the contours of the conflict on the ground. It bears emphasizing that any Saudi intervention would be rolled out not with the stated aim of fighting ISIS but instead overthrowing Assad. This is the ultimate goal of the Saudi kleptocracy, one that has brought them to the very brink of insanity, reflected in the threat to send its own soldiers to certain slaughter.

In their gilded palaces the Saudi regime knows that time is running out. The patronage it has long relied on from the West to ensure its security is no longer providing it with the surety it once did. Of all the regional players involved in the conflict in Syria, the Saudis are least able to count on the loyalty of their own troops. Fighting poorly armed rebels in Yemen is one thing, facing battle-hardened forces supported by Russian air power in Syria is another altogether.

The likely result, if such an eventuality came to pass, would not be the overthrow of Assad in Damascus but rather regime change in Riyadh.

Neocon Militarists Jolted in New Hampshire

Did Bashar al-Assad win New Hampshire? Trump & Sanders Mideast Policies

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – –

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders won big in New Hampshire on Tuesday. Caution is in order, since that state is demographically not very much like the rest of the United States, and both candidates are Northeasterners with advantages there. US journalism dreams of a presidential election campaign for 3 years of every four, then when they finally get their wish and there is an electoral contest, they are in an amazing hurry to declare it over after the first primary.

So what foreign policies did the good people of New Hampshire vote for? Trump has been called a populist, but on foreign trade I would argue that he is a throwback to mercantilism, desiring to use the power of the state to gain trade advantages. Sanders is a Social Democrat on the Scandinavian model, who sees himself as in the FDR tradition. Let’s look at some major issues and contrast the billionaire bully and the New New Dealer.

Syria

Trump :

In a way, Tuesday night was a good night for Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad.

On Syria, Trump opposes overthrowing al-Assad, on the grounds that we can’t know what would take his place, and it might be worse (say, Daesh/ ISIL).

He also appears sanguine to let Vladimir Putin handle Syria. He said last November that he would cooperate with Putin in defeating Daesh (ISIL, ISIS). (The Obama administration may be in the process at the moment of coming around to this few and making its peace with a Russia-dominated Syria if that means the end of the civil war and of the refugee crisis.)

Trump’s campaign issued a statement thanking Putin for his own praise of Trump and saying:

“I have always felt that Russia and the United States should be able to work well with each other towards defeating terrorism and restoring world peace, not to mention trade and all of the other benefits derived from mutual respect.” 

Trump has a sharp critique of China and US trade policies with China, which he accuses of stealing American jobs. But he appears to feel that the US and Russia are more complementary economically and is not as threatened by Moscow.

His creepy relationship with Putin puts me in mind of 19th century German Chancellor Bismarck’s secret treaties with the Tsars.

Sanders 

Sanders does not exactly agree with Trump about al-Assad, but he comes close. Sanders warns that an abrupt overthrow of the current Baath regime in Damascus could be destabilizing and says that Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) must be the priority. He takes a long view on moving al-Assad out:

“Yes, we could get rid of Saddam Hussein, but that destabilized the entire region. Yes, we could get rid of Qaddafi, a terrible dictator, but that created a vacuum for ISIS. Yes, we could get rid of Assad tomorrow, but that would create another political vacuum that would benefit ISIS.

So I think yeah, regime change is easy, getting rid of dictators is easy, but before you do that you’ve got to think about what happens the day after. And in my view what we need to do is put together broad coalitions to understand that we’re not going to have a political vacuum filled by terrorists, that in fact we are going to move steadily and maybe slowly toward democratic societies. In terms of Assad, [he’s] a terrible dictator, but I think in Syria the primary focus now must be destroying ISIS and working over the years to get rid of Assad. That’s the secondary issue.” 

Iran 

Trump 

Like the other GOP candidates, Trump opposes the UN Security Council deal with Iran on limiting its nuclear program to civilian purposes. But at least early in his campaign, he differed from his rivals in that he would not pledge to simply tear it up. Rather, he said, he would rigorously enforce it:

“I’ve heard a lot of people say, “We’re going to rip up the deal.” It’s very tough to do [that] … Because I’m a deal person. And when I make deals … I will police that deal. You know, I’ve taken over some bad contracts. I buy contracts where people screwed up, and they have bad contracts. But I’m really good at looking at a contract and finding things within a contract that, even if they’re bad, I would police that contract so tough that they don’t have a chance. … And the problem is, by the time I got in there, they will have already received the $150 billion.” 

Aside from bargaining harder with Iran, Trump does not say how his policy would be different from the present one. He doesn’t appear to have suggested using military force against it and his main knock on Tehran is that they got a better deal from Obama than they should have.

Sanders 

Sanders supports the Iran deal onto which President Obama signed, though he said it did not achieve everything he would like. His main reaction was to say that war should be the very last option. If Iran cheats on the deal, he says, he’ll respond with new sanctions first.

Iraq 

Trump 

Trump doesn’t seem to have that much to say about Iraq proper. He has complained about Bush’s Iraq War and said he would have fired the former president (though his claims to have strongly opposed that war at the time appear exaggerated). He complains that Bush gave Iraq away to Iran, but does not have any practical suggestions in the aftermath.

With regard to Daesh, Trump says he would bomb the oil fields in the terrorist organization’s control. The Pentagon is already pursuing that strategy, which is more complicated than it sounds. Trump’s notion that oil wealth fuels Daesh is incorrect, since it has a long history and has thrived even when it did not have such resources.

Sanders

Like Trump, Sanders does not seem to have an Iraq policy per se, though he really was opposed to the 2003 US invasion and occupation of that country.

With regard to Daesh, Sanders is reluctant for the US military to get directly involved in the region again.

Instead, he hopes a local coalition of Sunni Arab powers will form a coalition to take on Daesh. He put the onus on Saudi Arabia:

“Now if this is such a crisis to the region—Saudis have a big air force, you know. They have a lot of F-16s, why aren’t they involved? Why isn’t Kuwait involved?… We went to war to put the Kuwaiti government back. Where are they? Where are the billionaires in Qatar? If these guys in the region think that ISIS is such a great threat, they gotta put some skin in the game.” 

Saudi Arabia has in fact done almost nothing against Daesh. Its efforts are being put into fighting a tribal rebellion in Yemen and into overthrowing Bashar al-Assad in Syria (a goal Sanders thinks should be much postponed). 

Sanders has also sometimes talked about Jordan taking the lead, but that is ridiculous. Jordan is a small country of 6 million and can’t be deploying major military force in Iraq or Syria. It has engaged in some bombing raids alongside the US and that’s about all you can expect.

So both of these anti-Establishment candidates are relatively non-interverntionist. They are sanguine about Bashar al-Assad remaining in power. With regard to the Iran deal, both have said they would honor and police it, though Sanders endorses it while Trump denounces it. They differ on Daesh in Iraq, though both oppose a big new US infantry and army force in the region. Trump wants to bomb its oil fields and take away its petroleum. Sanders wants to have Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other Sunni regional powers form a coalition and take care of Daesh for the US. Neither plan is in the least practical.

One from the right, the other from the left, both Trump and Sanders can be seen on Middle East foreign policy as reactions against the Neoconservative militarism of the Bush era, which Obama has only partially rolled up. The actual Neoconservatives are clustered around JEB!, and Sheldon Adelson is backing Rubio. Neither showed well last night.

—–

Related video added by Juan Cole:

Bernie Sanders Victory Speech, New Hampshire Primary Feb. 9, 2016 [FULL]

Russian Air Force, Syrian army, Hezbollah are pushing north to fully surround Aleppo

Hezbollah and Shia militias from Iraq and Afghanistan, all directed by senior officers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, are leading the ground battle on the regime side, while Russian jets continue a week-long blitz from above.

Opposition fighters in Aleppo’s besieged east have said they are counting on the military support of Arab states, which announced they will send ground forces to Syria to save them from defeat at the hands of Russian bombers and pro-Assad militias.

With the war now in a decisive phase, rebel groups said they cannot hold ground without similar weapons and manpower to those of the Assad loyalists who continue to narrow a gap around the north of the city, while thousands more refugees made their way to the Turkish border.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE all committed over the weekend to sending ground forces to join the conflict. However, the extent of their mooted commitments has yet to be confirmed amid sustained pressure from allies, including the US, to keep any deployment largely symbolic.

GUARDIAN

Clinton’s War in Kosovo - How is it working out Today? Relevance for Tomorrow

“It is hard to know the roots of this (Hillary Clinton) record of disaster. Is it chronically bad judgment? Is it her preternatural faith in the lying machine of the CIA? Is it a repeated attempt to show that as a Democrat she would be more hawkish than the Republicans? Is it to satisfy her hardline campaign financiers? Who knows? Maybe it's all of the above. But whatever the reasons, hers is a record of disaster. Perhaps more than any other person, Hillary can lay claim to having stoked the violence that stretches from West Africa to Central Asia and that threatens US security.”

BACKGROUND:

After the Iraq Liberation Act came the 1999 Kosovo War, in which Bill Clinton called in NATO to bomb Belgrade, in the heart of Europe, and unleashing another decade of unrest in the Balkans. Hillary, traveling in Africa, called Bill: “I urged him to bomb," she told reporter Lucinda Frank. 

TODAY:



RELEVANCE:

Hillary Is the Candidate of the War Machine

HUFFINGTON POST

JEWEL SAMAD via Getty Images

There's no doubt that Hillary is the candidate of Wall Street. Even more dangerous, though, is that she is the candidate of the military-industrial complex. The idea that she is bad on the corporate issues but good on national security has it wrong. Her so-called foreign policy "experience" has been to support every war demanded by the US deep security state run by the military and the CIA.

Hillary and Bill Clinton's close relations with Wall Street helped to stoke two financial bubbles (1999-2000 and 2005-8) and the Great Recession that followed Lehman's collapse. In the 1990s they pushed financial deregulation for their campaign backers that in turn let loose the worst demons of financial manipulation, toxic assets, financial fraud, and eventually collapse. In the process they won elections and got mighty rich. 

Yet Hillary's connections with the military-industrial complex are also alarming. It is often believed that the Republicans are the neocons and the Democrats act as restraints on the warmongering. This is not correct. Both parties are divided between neocon hawks and cautious realists who don't want the US in unending war. Hillary is a staunch neocon whose record of favoring American war adventures explains much of our current security danger. 

Just as the last Clinton presidency set the stage for financial collapse, it also set the stage for unending war. On October 31, 1998 President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act that made it official US policy to support "regime change" in Iraq. 

It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.

Thus were laid the foundations for the Iraq War in 2003. 

Of course, by 2003, Hillary was a Senator and a staunch supporter of the Iraq War, which has cost the US trillions of dollars, thousands of lives, and done more to create ISIS and Middle East instability than any other single decision of modern foreign policy. In defending her vote, Hillary parroted the phony propaganda of the CIA: 

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members... "

After the Iraq Liberation Act came the 1999 Kosovo War, in which Bill Clinton called in NATO to bomb Belgrade, in the heart of Europe, and unleashing another decade of unrest in the Balkans. Hillary, traveling in Africa, called Bill: “I urged him to bomb," she told reporter Lucinda Frank. 

Hillary's record as Secretary of State is among the most militaristic, and disastrous, of modern US history. Some experience. Hilary was a staunch defender of the military-industrial-intelligence complex at every turn, helping to spread the Iraq mayhem over a swath of violence that now stretches from Mali to Afghanistan. Two disasters loom largest: Libya and Syria. 

Hillary has been much attacked for the deaths of US diplomats in Benghazi, but her tireless promotion of the overthrow Muammar Qaddafi by NATO bombing is the far graver disaster. Hillary strongly promoted NATO-led regime change in Libya, not only in violation of international law but counter to the most basic good judgment. After the NATO bombing, Libya descended into civil war while the paramilitaries and unsecured arms stashes in Libya quickly spread west across the African Sahel and east to Syria. The Libyan disaster has spawned war in Mali, fed weapons to Boko Haram in Nigeria, and fueled ISIS in Syria and Iraq. In the meantime, Hillary found it hilarious to declare of Qaddafi: “We came, we saw, he died." 

Perhaps the crowning disaster of this long list of disasters has been Hillary's relentless promotion of CIA-led regime change in Syria. Once again Hillary bought into the CIA propaganda that regime change to remove Bashir al-Assad would be quick, costless, and surely successful. In August 2011, Hillary led the US into disaster with her declaration Assad must “get out of the way," backed by secret CIA operations. 

Five years later, no place on the planet is more ravaged by unending war, and no place poses a great threat to US security. More than 10 million Syrians are displaced, and the refugees are drowning in the Mediterranean or undermining the political stability of Greece, Turkey, and the European Union. Into the chaos created by the secret CIA-Saudi operations to overthrow Assad, ISIS has filled the vacuum, and has used Syria as the base for worldwide terrorist attacks. 

The list of her incompetence and warmongering goes on. Hillary's support at every turn for NATO expansion, including even into Ukraine and Georgia against all common sense, was a trip wire that violated the post-Cold War settlement in Europe in 1991 and that led to Russia's violent counter-reactions in both Georgia and Ukraine. As Senator in 2008, Hilary co-sponsored 2008-SR439, to include Ukraine and Georgia in NATO. As Secretary of State, she then presided over the restart of the Cold War with Russia. 

It is hard to know the roots of this record of disaster. Is it chronically bad judgment? Is it her preternatural faith in the lying machine of the CIA? Is it a repeated attempt to show that as a Democrat she would be more hawkish than the Republicans? Is it to satisfy her hardline campaign financiers? Who knows? Maybe it's all of the above. But whatever the reasons, hers is a record of disaster. Perhaps more than any other person, Hillary can lay claim to having stoked the violence that stretches from West Africa to Central Asia and that threatens US security.

Follow Jeffrey Sachs on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JeffDSachs

Hats Off to Jersey Fats for Gouging, then Trouncing Rubio

"You weren't even there to vote for it. That's not leadership. That’s truancy.” - Chris Christie

Why Chris Christie’s beatdown of Marco Rubio was the only moment from the GOP debate that mattered

The moment when Saturday night’s Republican presidential primary debate was effectively over came long before the seven candidates left the stage at the St. Anselm’s College Institute of Politics in Manchester.

About 30-odd minutes in, ABC’s moderators, the frankly abysmal Martha Radditz and David Muir, turned the klieg lights onto Gov. Chris Christie and Sen. Marco Rubio. What transpired next was one of the best pieces of debate-stage political theater in recent memory (which isn’t saying much; although I’d bet guys like Carl Diggler had fun).

And if it’s possible for a moment from a debate to have a lasting impact on a presidential campaign — which recent history suggests is no small question — I’m guessing that the gleeful whooping Christie proceeded to administer to Rubio will be remembered as one such moment. Before I explain why, though, you’ll have to let me set the scene.

Going into the debate, neither Christie nor Rubio were especially likely to come out of next week’s New Hampshire primary with a win. According to the polls, overall, New Hampshire remains what it has been for much of this primary: Trump territory. The real game, then, was over which “establishment” candidate — Rubio, Bush, Christie, or Kasich — would finish second (or conceivably third, if Cruz was the runner-up).

After parlaying a third-place finish into first-place momentum in the Iowa caucuses — with a lot of help from the media, by the way — Rubio was the most likely second-place finisher. Which explains why Christie, who has basically been living in New Hampshire for the past year, started hammering the senator as a novice with no accomplishments; a nice guy, sure, but also a rookie. It explains Bush and Christie’s unofficial, temporary détente, too.

It was bound to be dramatic, therefore, when Christie and Rubio were first pitted against one another. Still, even if we acknowledge that the matchup of these two abnormally telegenic politicians (in the broadest sense of the term) was bound to make for better television than the somnambulant, passive-aggressive, I’m-not-mad-I’m-just-disappointed nonsense Dr. Ben Carson was laying on Sen. Ted Cruz, the results were extraordinary.

Things got started when Rubio was asked to respond to Christie’s allegation that, after experiencing the presidency of Barack Obama, who was elected as a first-term U.S. senator, it would be especially unfortunate if the Republican Party were itself to nominate Marco Rubio, a first term U.S. senator, for the White House. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,” Christie had said (bettering his former benefactor, George).

Rubio’s comeback was pretty good, if a little obvious in its intent: He argued that experience was overrated; if it mattered, Vice President Joe Biden would be a good candidate for commander-in-chief. He then argued that an unspoken premise of the criticism — that Obama has failed in part due to his inexperience — is faulty. Obama knows exactly what he’s doing, Rubio said. The president is not a fool; he’s a menace.

Christie wasn’t having it, dismissing Rubio’s Biden straw man and recommitting to his initial attack. Rubio’s a nice guy, a smart guy, Christie said; but the simple fact is that he’s never had to make an important decision. This got a noticeable round of applause from the audience. And perhaps that’s why Rubio then proceeded to self-destruct.

What Rubio’s next five or so minutes such a disaster wasn’t really what he said — but the fact that he had already just said it. Looking mighty flummoxed, Rubio tried to parry Christie’s second attack by pivoting once again to Obama, hoping to bring the crowd around to his side by using generous helpings of ideological red meat to help their tribal identification overwhelm their intellect. It had already failed, but he was doing it again. Worse still, his second answer was almost a verbatim repeat of his first.

Remember: The knock on Rubio has always been, essentially, that he’s a lightweight. He’s young, pretty good-looking, and he exudes the kind of Kennedy-esque earnest, “idealistic” machismo that seems to send a thrill up the legs of the Republican Party’s aged voter base (as well the aging ranks of the elite political press). As they once said of that cherubic whippersnapper Al Gore, Rubio is an older person’s idea of a young person. There may not be much there there, in short.

Well, it’s hard to imagine anything Rubio could have possibly done that would more immediately, and humorously, affirm the caricature. Here he was, really being challenged for the first time  — and by Christie, a world-class bully, no less — and he was wilting. He was like an artificially intelligent robot confronted with a logical question his programming couldn’t handle. I worried for a moment that my stream of the debate had begun to skip.

Whether due to incompetence or pity, the moderators tried to move on. But like a really big, mean, and sadistic shark, Christie was all over it. He mocked Rubio for falling back on his talking points — something all politicians do, but rarely so conspicuously — and continued to shred the senator’s (lack of a) record, as well as tout his own hands-on experience governing New Jersey.

Rubio tried to tu quoque Christie, noting that the governor had only grudgingly returned to the Garden State during a recent snowstorm. Christie all but rolled his eyes and laughed it off while the audience booed — at Rubio. And then, unbelievably, Rubio started to fall back into repeating the talking point (let’s not pretend Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing…) yet again. “There it is!” Christie interjected. The crowd was with him. Rubio’s emasculation was all but complete.

And, I swear to God, about 40 minutes later, he used the same line again.

Now, as I said at the beginning, this was far from the end of the night’s festivities. But I’m guessing that the whole rest of the debate put together won’t matter nearly as much as those five minutes. Because perhaps more than any other single traditional element of a presidential campaign, the response to debates — especially primary debates, and especially primary debates on a Saturday night — is influenced by the media. Sometimes it’s a negative influence, granted. But that’s influence all the same.

And the media, I promise you, is going to be obsessed with this first, most dramatic Christie-Rubio confrontation. Because not only does it make for good television and good copy (here I am, 1100 words in, and you’re still reading), but it’ll make for great late night jokes and “Saturday Night Live” skits, too. That’s thanks, in part, to its already fitting a pre-established narrative. Christie, the bully you like despite yourself; Rubio, the young, handsome and über-ambitious empty suit.

So expect Christie’s dismantling of Rubio to be the part of Saturday night’s debate that people remember — if anyone remembers any of it at all. It does not rank among the United States’ most inspirational moments of civic engagement, admittedly. But if nothing else, it showed that professional bullies like Chris Christie can provide a valuable public service every now and then.

 Elias Isquith

Elias Isquith is a daily columnist at Salon who focuses on politics and inequality. He tweets at @eliasisquith.

Russian-Backed Syrian Forces Press Aleppo, Refugees Fleeing: Centcom - Aleppo not an immediate concern for the U.S. military, since the opposition group defenders were battling the Assad regime and not ISIS.

TURKEY'S ROLE

Aleppo is about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the Turkish border, and Ankara enjoys wide influence in northern Syria. Most of the rebels' supplies flow across the Turkish border.

Russia has stepped up its airstrikes in areas close to the frontier, and opposition activists in the area say the warplanes have targeted trucks from Turkey in recent weeks.

As the fighting intensifies, thousands of people are fleeing toward the Turkish border. If the government forces surround the city, it could lead to a siege that would isolate tens of thousands of civilians and eventually force the surrender of rebels hold up inside. (ags)

Syria: The Mother of all Battles for Aleppo is Joined

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – –

Aided by a massive Russian bombing campaign and Hizbullah and Iranian (or likely actually Afghan) reinforcements, the Syrian Arab Army has broken out of the siege imposed on West Aleppo by rebel forces toward the north, and now seems positioned to besiege East Aleppo, which is under rebel control. The Lebanese newspaper al-Nahar reports on the situation based on a range of Arabic wire services.

In early October, the shoe had been on the other foot, and rebels had cut the Damascus-Aleppo road to the south, depriving regime-held West Aleppo of food and supplies, so that it could have fallen to the Free Syrian Army. Russian aerial bombardment and government troops along with auxiliaries like Hizbullah took back control of the road and allowed deliveries to West Aleppo.

But the western enclave was still besieged from the north, as were two Shiite villages, Nubl and Zahra.

In the past couple of days, the army and its paramilitary allies, especially Hizbullah, relieved Nubl and Zahra. They had been under siege by al-Qaeda (the Nusra Front) since 2012 and only survived via airdrops of food. Had they fallen, hyper-Sunni al-Qaeda would likely have committed bloodthirsty reprisals against the Shiites there, who are said to have organized pro-regime local militias.

Then on Thursday the Syrian Arab Army took Mayer and Kafr Naya, putting the army and its allies in a position to cut off the roads north of Aleppo to Turkey and so put east Aleppo under effective siege. 

Al-Nahar alleges that US military supplies have flowed to the rebels consistently during this fighting, but the small and medium weapons (including T.O.W. anti-tank weaponry) were insufficient in the face of 200 Russia air raids in a matter of hours.

It also quotes a source alleging that the Jerusalem (Quds) Brigade of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) was absolutely central to the new government advance and that its leader, Qasem Soleimani, is on the battlefield.  Al-Nahar also reported that IRGC Brigadier General Mohsen Qajarian was killed north of Aleppo during the fighting.

Steffan de Mistoura suspended the Geneva peace talks in the face of the Russian bombing campaign and advances on the battlefield. It is alleged that the latter were in part made possible because the Russians tricked the US into pressuring Turkey and Saudi Arabia to halt temporarily resupply of the Aleppo rebels while the talks were going on.

I talked a couple years ago to a journalist who had been in Aleppo, embedded with the rebels, and he told me that the rebel forces ran low on supplies every day, but that there appeared miraculously every morning shipments of ammunition. The implication was that they were being resupplied from Turkey, and very efficiently so. That resupply is now in danger.

Rebel forces in east Aleppo, mostly locals and mostly Free Syrian Army rather than Saudi-backed Salafi Jihadis, are now in danger of falling to a regime reconquest of Syria’s largest city. This could be horrible in its reprisals and torture, and thousands of Syrians are already fleeing north to Turkey, but the border there is closed and they are willy nilly camped in the wilderness. 

At the same time, the Kurdish YPG militia has seen an opportunity to unite its Kobane enclave with Afrin to the west, north of Aleppo, and it is also moving into the area above the city, which will reinforce a blockade of rebel-held east Aleppo.

The intrepid Liz Sly at WaPo, among our more experienced and insightful Middle East war correspondents, thinks that the battle of Aleppo could, if the regime wins it, be a turning point in the civil war. The regime could win it all.

Syria’s population was only 22 million before the war, of whom a good 4 million are now outside the country, leaving 18 million. Greater Aleppo before the war had 4 million people. It may still be about that, since people have come in from the insecure countryside. That would be 22 percent of the remaining in-country population. The regime probably has 5 million under its control in Greater Damascus, another couple million in Homs and Hama, and nearly 2 million in Latakia province (which it has completely secured in the past month). That’s 13 of the 18 million, nearly three quarters of the in-country population. It is hard to see how, thereafter, Idlib (1.5 million) and Deraa (1 million) hold out (the regime has already struck into central Deraa in the past couple weeks).

The US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries appear now to have a choice of acquiescing in a Russian fait accompli in restoring Syrian regime control to much of the country, or of attempting to greatly increase rebel capabilities. The latter want anti-aircraft manpads, which the US has so far declined to supply. Liz Sly seems to think that in any case that the supply routes are being cut, and the battle will be over before such materiel can reach the FSA units, even if the US changes its mind about supplying it.

These dramatic events may have impelled the Saudis to talk about sending troops to fight Daesh (ISIL, ISIS), which controls areas east and southeast of Aleppo. The presence of Saudi troops on Syrians soil might at least give Riyadh some say in the post-war settlement and prove an impediment to a mere restoration of the status quo ante. This scenario strikes me as far-fetched and desperate; the Saudi infantry is not known for boldness.

On the other hand, given the massacres committed by the regime and its mass murder of POWs, and recent indiscriminate Russian air strikes on civilian areas, I just find it difficult to believe that it can be restored to power in any straightforward way. Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to have a Chechnya strategy in mind, with Bashar al-Assad playing Ramzan Kadyrov, the secular Chechen strong man ruling Chechnya as a comprador for Moscow after Putin crushed the Muslim fundamentalist second Chechen uprising in the early zeroes.

But Syria is bigger and more complex than Chechnya, and aside from al-Qaeda and perhaps some Gulf donors, outsiders recognized it as Russian province.

The Resistance could go underground and go on fighting, using covert tactics and terrorism, as happened in Sunni areas of Iraq during the prime ministership of Nouri al-Maliki.

The Fat Lady hasn’t sung yet, by a long shot.

—— Related video

AFP: “Syria troops advance on Aleppo, threatening siege of rebels” 

Christopher Hitchens on Abraham and Isaac Bible Fable

“Abraham and the wonderful meanings of his stories”  - Boobie

The huge global scale of female genital mutilation has been revealed in disturbing new statistics, which show at least 200 million girls and women alive today have undergone ritual cutting, half of them living in just three countries.

The latest worldwide figures, compiled by Unicef, include nearly 70 million more girls and women than estimated in 2014 because of a raft of new data collected in Indonesia, one of the countries where FGM is most prevalent despite the practice being banned since 2006.

In the analysis of 30 countries, published to mark the International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM, statistics showed women in Indonesia, Egypt and Ethiopia account for half of all FGM victims worldwide. Somalia has the highest prevalence of women and girls who have been cut – 98% of the female population between the ages of 15 and 49.

The US Ally: Turkey

Why the ‘Sultan of Chaos’ is freaking out

Picture sleepless nights at ‘Sultan’ Erdogan’s palace in Ankara. Imagine him livid when he learns the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), backed by Russian air power, started a preemptive Battle of Aleppo – through the Bayirbucak region - cutting off Ankara’s top weaponizing corridor and Jihadi highway. 

Who controls this corridor will control the final outcome of the war in Syria.

Meanwhile, in Geneva, the remote-controlled Syrian opposition, a.k.a. High Negotiations Committee, graphically demonstrated they never wanted to meet with the Damascus delegation in the first place – “proximity” talks or otherwise, even after Washington and Moscow roughly agreed on a two-year transition plan leading to a theoretically secular, nonsectarian Syria.

The Saudi front wanted no less than Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al-Islam and all Jabhat al-Nusra, a.k.a. al-Qaeda in Syria, collaborators at the table in Geneva. So the Geneva charade, quicker than one can say “Road to Aleppo!” was exposed for what it is.

And forget about NATO

Notorious Saudi intel mastermind Prince Turki, a former mentor of one Osama bin Laden, has been to Paris on a PR offensive; all he could muster was an avalanche of non-denial denials - and blaming the whole Syria tragedy on Bashar al-Assad.

The bulk of the Syrian ‘opposition’ used to be armchair warriors co-opted by the CIA for years, as well as CIA Muslim Brotherhood patsies/vassals. Many of these characters preferred the joys of Paris to a hard slog on Syrian ground. Now the ‘opposition’ is basically warlords answering to the House of Saud even for bottles of water – regardless of the suit-and-tie former Ba’ath Party ministers handpicked to be the face of the opposition for the gullible Western corporate media.

Meanwhile, the ‘4+1’ – Russia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, plus Hezbollah – is now winning decisive facts on the ground. The break down; there won’t be regime change in Damascus. Yet no one broke the news to the Turks and Saudis.  

‘Sultan’ Erdogan is wallowing in a sea of desperation. He continues to divert the gravely serious issues at stake to his own war against the PYD - the umbrella organization of the Syrian Kurds - and the YPG (People's Protection Units, their military wing). Erdogan and Prime Minister Davutoglu wanted the PYD not only banned from Geneva but they want it smashed on the ground, as they see the PYD/YPG as “terrorists” allied to the PKK.

Yet what is ‘Sultan’ Erdogan going to do? Defy the recently arrived 4G++ Sukhoi Su-35S fighters – which are scaring the hell out of every NATO Dr. Strangelove? The Turkish Air Force putting its bases on “orange alert” may scare the odd vagrant dog at best. The same applies to NATO Secretary-General, figurehead Jens Stoltenberg, pleading to Russia “to act responsibly and fully respect NATO airspace.”

Moscow is going after the Turkmen with a vengeance and at the same time providing air support to the PYD west of the Euphrates. That hits the ‘Sultan’ in his heart of hearts; after all Erdogan has threatened multiple times that a PYD/YPG advance west of the Euphrates is the ultimate red line.

An already scared NATO won’t support the folly of an Erdogan war against Russia – as much as US and UK neocons may crave it; as NATO decisions must be unanimous, the last thing EU powers Germany and France want is yet another Southwest Asia war. NATO may deploy the odd Patriot missiles in southern Anatolia and the odd AWACs to support the Turkish Air Force. But that’s it.

Pick your favorite regime change

ISIS/ISIL/Daesh, meanwhile, continues to profit from its own Jihadi highway across a 98 kilometer stretch of Turkish/Syrian border, especially in Jarablus and Al Rai across from Gaziantep and Kilis in Turkey.

Taking a cue from Israel, Ankara is building a wall – 3.6 meters high, 2.5 meters wide - covering the stretch between Elbeyli and Kilis, essentially for propaganda purposes. Because the Jihadi Highway, for all practical purposes, remains open – even as Turkish Armed Forces may apprehend the odd trespasser (always released). We’re talking about a monster smuggler/soldier scam; as much as $300 change hands for each night crossing and a noncommissioned Turkish officer may earn as much as $2,500 to look the other way for a few minutes.

The real question is why Gaziantep is not under a curfew imposed from Ankara, with thousands of Turkish Special Forces actually fighting a “war on terra” on the spot. That’s because Ankara and provincial authorities couldn’t give a damn; the real priority is Erdogan’s war on the Kurds.

This brings us to the only leverage the ‘Sultan’ may enjoy at the moment. From Brussels to Berlin, sound minds are terrified that the EU is now actually hostage to Erdogan’s Kurd “priority”, while Ankara is doing next to nothing to fight massive migrant smuggling.

When Davutoglu went to Berlin recently not only did he make no promises; he re-stressed Erdogan’s vow to “annihilate" the Syrian Kurds.

And that explains German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s own desperation. How could the alleged most powerful politician in Europe falls for such a crude extortion racket? The ‘Sultan’ wants a lot of cash, a lot of concessions, and even a further shot at entering the EU. Otherwise, he won’t turn off the tap on the grim refugee flood.

No wonder the regime change rumor mill is frantic. In Ankara? No; in Berlin.

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RT

Pepe Escobar is an independent geopolitical analyst. He writes for RT, Sputnik and TomDispatch, and is a frequent contributor to websites and radio and TV shows ranging from the US to East Asia. He is the former roving correspondent for Asia Times Online. Born in Brazil, he's been a foreign correspondent since 1985, and has lived in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Washington, Bangkok and Hong Kong. Even before 9/11 he specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central and East Asia, with an emphasis on Big Power geopolitics and energy wars. He is the author of "Globalistan" (2007), "Red Zone Blues" (2007), "Obama does Globalistan" (2009) and "Empire of Chaos" (2014), all published by Nimble Books. His latest book is "2030", also by Nimble Books, out in December 2015.