World roundup: August 17-18 2024
World roundup: August 17-18 2024
Stories from Israel-Palestine, China, Ukraine, and elsewhere
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THIS WEEKEND IN HISTORY
August 17, 1717: Prince Eugene of Savoy’s Habsburg army successfully concludes its month-long siege of Belgrade. The garrison finally surrendered after the Habsburg forces drove off a last-ditch Ottoman attempt to relieve the besieged city. Belgrade became a Habsburg city in the Treaty of Passarowitz the following year, but the Habsburgs were forced to give the city back to the Ottomans in the 1739 Treaty of Belgrade.
August 17, 1945: Rebel leaders Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta issue a proclamation declaring Indonesia’s independence from the Netherlands. The proclamation kicked off the 1945-1949 Indonesian Revolution, and this date is annually commemorated as Indonesian Independence Day.
August 18, 684 (or thereabouts): The Battle of Marj Rahit
August 18, 1487: The garrison defending the Granadan city of Málaga surrenders, ending a Castilian-Aragonese siege that had lasted over three months. Málaga was the Emirate of Granada’s second-largest city and its largest seaport, so losing it to the Catholic monarchs was a massive defeat—one from which, it turned out, the emirate would never recover. Frustrated by the city’s refusal to surrender—even after its leaders capitulated on August 13, the garrison held out for almost another week—King Ferdinand II of Aragon either executed or enslaved most of its remaining population.
August 18, 1870: The French Army of the Rhine meets the Prussian First and Second armies under the command of King Wilhelm I at the Battle of Gravelotte in Lorraine. Tactically the battle was inconclusive—the Prussians outmaneuvered the French but the French were able to retreat in good order to Metz, and casualties were pretty even relative to the numerical disparity (the Prussians outnumbered the French by about 70,000 soldiers) between the two armies. But the Prussians were then able to besiege the French army at Metz, eventually emerging victorious in one of the most decisive engagements of the Franco-Prussian War.
MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken headed back to the Middle East over the weekend to try to bring the latest Gaza ceasefire proposal over the proverbial finish line. Given his record in negotiating previous ceasefire deals this probably means the accord is doomed, but let’s not prejudge things.
Another round of talks is supposed to take place in Cairo at some point over the coming week, and if you believe the gushing reports from the Biden administration on Friday the parties are on the verge of agreement. Unfortunately the Biden administration hasn’t earned a whole lot of trust in this particular area, and Hamas political official Sami Abu Zuhri painted a much less rosy picture of the negotiations in an interview with AFP on Saturday. He called the idea that a deal is close “an illusion” and argued that “we are not facing a deal or real negotiations, but rather the imposing of American diktats.” Hamas released a more official statement on Sunday saying that the US “bridging proposal” that had everyone so excited on Friday amounts to an endorsement of new Israeli demands that Hamas negotiators have already rejected. I guess the most upbeat interpretation of those comments is that they represent some final negotiating bluster ahead of a deal. Israeli negotiators are reportedly expressing “cautious optimism,” but at this point they don’t have much to lose—if the talks collapse, the stage is once again set for the US to blame Hamas alone for the failure.
LEBANON
The Wall Street Journal has published a piece covering the decades-long search for former Hezbollah senior commander Fuad Shukr, a saga that began when he (according to the US government) “helped plan” the 1983 bombing of a US Marines facility in Beirut. There’s at least one bit of news here, which is that the WSJ says it’s spoken to a “Hezbollah official” who says that Shukr was lured from his office to his residence (they were in the same high rise) by a mysterious phone call just before the Israeli airstrike that killed him along with five civilians (including his wife) last month. This suggests that the Israelis were able to compromise Hezbollah’s communications network somehow. Hezbollah and the Iranian government are, we’re told, investigating the apparent breach.
IRAQ
Al-Monitor’s Ezgi Akın has more detail on the deal the Turkish and Iraqi governments announced on Thursday that will in theory see them jointly tackle the Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK) presence in northern Iraq. Apparently in return for Baghdad agreeing to outlaw the PKK, the Turkish military is going to turn control of its base in the northern Iraqi town of Bashiqa over to its Iraqi counterpart. That base, which the Turks set up in 2015 amid the Islamic State uprising, has been the source of considerable tension between the two governments, with the Iraqis viewing it (understandably) as a major violation of sovereignty.
YEMEN
A new UN report warns that at least four districts in government-controlled parts of Yemen are careening toward famine later this year. Shortages of food and water and the spread of disease are cited as causes. According to the report, the number of “acutely malnourished children” in Yemen (excluding the parts under Houthi control) has risen by some 34 percent this year and all districts in the country are now suffering from at least “serious” levels of malnutrition.
ASIA
AFGHANISTAN
The Uzbek government sent a delegation led by Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov to Afghanistan over the weekend that is noteworthy for being the highest level foreign visit to that country since the Taliban regained control three years ago. As far as I’m aware no government in the world has formally recognized the Taliban-led Afghan government (China has exchanged ambassadors with it, effectively recognizing it, but has not to my knowledge made any formal statement along those lines). But Uzbekistan is one of several countries that has de facto recognized it and is at least working with it, which is unsurprising given that the two countries are neighbors and have a number of shared commercial and security interests.
CHINA
At New Left Review, Elizabeth Schmidt tries to get past New Cold War fearmongering and explain China’s geopolitical role in Africa:
China’s growing presence in Africa has captured global attention. As its trade deals and investments have eclipsed those of the West, politicians from the US and EU have raised the alarm: Beijing, they say, is exploiting the continent’s resources, threatening its jobs and buttressing its dictators, while casting political or environmental considerations to the side. African civil society organizations level many of the same criticisms, while also pointing out that Western countries have long engaged in similar practices. In the Anglophone media, most assessments of China’s outlook are clouded by the rhetoric of the New Cold War, which frames Xi Jinping as bent on world domination and calls on the forces of civilization to stop him. What would a more sober analysis look like? How should we understand Africa’s role in this hostile geopolitical matrix?
AFRICA
SUDAN
Sudanese Health Minister Haitham Mohamed Ibrahim issued a warning on Sunday regarding a cholera outbreak that’s caused at least 354 cases of the illness and 22 deaths. He didn’t say when or where the outbreak started. The World Health Organization has tracked over 2400 cases of cholera and 78 fatalities in Sudan from the start of the year through late July, but given the deterioration of conditions across the country due to conflict and recent flooding, a new outbreak could take hold quickly and with devastating consequences.
LIBYA
The Libyan central bank announced on Sunday that it’s shutting down operations following the kidnapping of its IT director, Musaab Muslam. It’s unclear who abducted Muslam but bank officials say that other executives have also been threatened and AFP is reporting that “a group of men, some of them armed, briefly besieged” the bank’s headquarters in Tripoli on Sunday in an effort to force the ouster of bank governor Sadiq Kabir. It would appear, then, that one or more of Libya’s myriad armed factions is trying to engineer a change in bank administration by force. The bank is the only legal outlet for Libya’s oil revenue and its closure for any extended length of time could be economically crippling.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
The AP is reporting that Allied Democratic Forces fighters carried out several attacks on groups of civilians in the eastern DRC’s Ituri province between Wednesday and Friday, killing at least 16 people in total and abducting another 20. There are fears that some or all of the abductees may also have been killed.
EUROPE
RUSSIA
The Ukrainian military says its forces have destroyed a second tactically significant bridge over the Seym River in Russia’s Kursk oblast. Targeting these bridges may help to secure the Ukrainian beachhead in Kursk, at least in the short-term, which fits with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s talk of creating a “buffer zone” on the Russian side of the border. That’s a risky plan. Even if the Ukrainians are able to defend their position in Kursk they’re undoubtedly relying on an extended supply line that could be highly vulnerable to Russian attack, and there remains the possibility of those Ukrainian forces being cut off inside Russia.
The Washington Post has determined that the Russian government’s relatively subdued response (so far) to this Ukrainian incursion proves that Russian President Vladimir Putin tends to “freeze” in a crisis. This is certainly possible, and I appreciate any Western media analysis of Putin that doesn’t treat him as though he were a super-genius, because the evidence doesn’t really support that. But I’d like to propose another possibility, which is that Putin and the rest of the Russian high command just don’t see this operation as that big a deal. It’s a bold statement by the Ukrainians but it doesn’t seem to be a genuine threat to upend Russia’s military plans and indeed it hasn’t even caused much of a hiccup in the Russian military’s advance through eastern Ukraine (it captured another village there over the weekend, by the way). It also ties up a large portion of Ukraine’s remaining military manpower and materiel on what mostly looks like a public relations project so far.
UKRAINE
Speaking of The Washington Post, the paper is also reporting that the Ukrainian incursion upset plans for a round of negotiations on reducing the intensity of the conflict:
Ukraine and Russia were set to send delegations to Doha this month to negotiate a landmark agreement halting strikes on energy and power infrastructure on both sides, diplomats and officials familiar with the discussions said, in what would have amounted to a partial cease-fire and offered a reprieve for both countries.
But the indirect talks, with the Qataris serving as mediators and meeting separately with the Ukrainian and Russian delegations, were derailed by Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s western Kursk region last week, according to the officials. The possible agreement and planned summit have not been previously reported.
For more than a year, Russia has pounded Ukraine’s power grid with a barrage of cruise missiles and drone strikes, causing irreparable damage to power stations and rolling blackouts across the country. Meanwhile, Ukraine has struck Russia’s oil facilities with long-range drone attacks that have set ablaze refineries, depots and reservoirs, reducing Moscow’s oil refining by an estimated 15 percent and raising gas prices around the world.
Some involved in the negotiations hoped they could lead to a more comprehensive agreement to end the war, according to the officials who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive diplomacy.
This is good news for anybody who prefers the status quo, whoever that might be. Anyway I’m sure the whole “buffer zone” thing will be worth it.
AMERICAS
VENEZUELA
Thousands of people protested on Saturday in Caracas, as well as in other parts of Venezuela and abroad, in support of the opposition’s claim to have won last month’s Venezuelan presidential election. Although Venezuelan electoral authorities proclaimed incumbent Nicolás Maduro the winner of that contest, opposition leaders say they’ve collected polling station data that shows their candidate, Edmundo González, won in a landslide. Regardless, protesting is pretty much all the opposition can do at this point.
UNITED STATES
Finally, between Israel’s many crimes and a Ukrainian invasion of Russia that might not be in Washington’s best interests, Bob Wright notes how little control the US government seems to have over its clients:
Though both Ukraine and Israel qualify as “client states,” in the terminology of international relations, and both are sometimes casually referred to as US “proxies,” it’s not shocking that the US has less than complete control over them. In both cases (Israel’s especially) domestic political forces constrain the ability of US leaders to use the leverage at their disposal.
Besides, both Ukraine and Israel have their own geopolitical interests—and both Ukrainian and Israeli leaders have their own political interests—and these often won’t align with the geopolitical interests of the US or the political interests of its leaders. So it’s natural that both Ukraine and Israel would repeatedly test the limits of American control and get away with whatever they can get away with. And the Biden administration has repeatedly signaled that they can get away with a lot. (Last year’s smaller incursions on Russian soil—conducted not by the Ukrainian military but by Ukrainian paramilitaries using US weapons and with support from Ukrainian intelligence—met with no big US protest, even though some of the paramilitaries were neo-Nazis. No doubt Ukrainian officials were mindful of that precedent as they planned this year’s incursion.)
Maybe in the future, before committing vast quantities of arms to another nation, US politicians should reflect on the fact that “proxies” have agency and inevitably have interests that diverge from those of their sponsors.
As Bob notes, it would be really great if this revelation could also be applied to US adversaries—specifically Iran, whose control over its own clients (Hezbollah, the Houthis, etc.) is similarly imperfect.