World roundup: August 8 2024

Stories from Iran, Libya, Russia, and elsewhere

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TODAY IN HISTORY

August 8, 1967: Five Southeast Asian states—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand—found the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The new bloc succeeded the three member (Malaya, the Philippines, Thailand) Association of Southeast Asia with the aim of encouraging regional peace and economic interaction. ASEAN was intended as a specifically anti-communist institution, overlapping somewhat with the US- and UK-backed Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) until that institution dissolved in 1977. ASEAN now includes 10 members, with Papua New Guinea and East Timor both in some stage of accession.

August 8, 1988: Hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of protesters engage in demonstrations and civil disobedience across Burma (Myanmar if you prefer) to protest the ruling Burma Socialist Programme Party’s repression, corruption, and economic mismanagement. The BSPP came to power following a 1962 coup and led a military government that purged itself of much of its leftist/socialist element in the 1970s. The 8888 Uprising, as it’s known, briefly sparked a move toward elections that ended with a military coup in mid-September and the imposition of a new junta. With the partial exception of the country’s 2011-2021 experiment in semi-civilian governance, the military has remained in power to the present day.

INTERNATIONAL

After 13 record-setting months in a row, July 2024 was not the hottest July ever. Congratulations to everyone involved! The European Union’s Copernicus climate agency announced the milestone on Thursday. Unfortunately, the difference between this July and last July comes down entirely to the fact that last year’s El Niño is no longer a factor. The underlying problem of climate change is only getting worse.

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

US Central Command head Michael Kurilla has visited Israel twice this week amid preparations for an Iranian attack that is probably (but not definitely, see below) forthcoming. He arrived for the second of those visits on Thursday around the time that a detachment of US Air Force F-22s was also arriving. They join considerable naval assets in what you might call the Pentagon’s “Operation We Really Wish You (Israel) Would Stop Assassinating People In Foreign Capitals But We Will Continue To Protect You From Any Repercussions If You Do.” I know it doesn’t roll off the tongue but I’ve never been good at naming things. The F-22s in particular are supposed to deter Iran for some reason that would probably make sense to me if I worked in a think tank and Lockheed Martin was paying part of my salary.

One assumes Kurilla was there only to talk about defensive preparations and potential next steps, and not about the steps the Israeli government has taken to bring the Middle East to the brink of a massive war. I doubt he brought up the dozens of civilians the Israeli military (IDF) keeps slaughtering each day, or the fact that it’s now ordering yet another evacuation of parts of Khan Younis because it doesn’t bother to secure the places where it does the slaughtering when, hey, you can always come back and do the slaughter all over again. I also assume he wasn’t there to talk about the systematic abuse, including rape, of prisoners in IDF detention facilities, or about the fact that the morality of raping prisoners has apparently become a topic of debate in Israeli society and media. He probably wasn’t sent to discuss the Israeli finance minister’s belief that it would be “right and moral” to starve everyone in Gaza “to death” or his lament that “the world won’t let us.” The US government doesn’t actually care about any of those things. But I digress.

Elsewhere, the Israeli government on Thursday revoked the credentials of eight Norwegian diplomatic staffers who have been working on Palestinian consular affairs. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz cited Norway’s decision to recognize Palestinian statehood and its support (I’m unsure what support it’s given) to the South African government’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. The European Union and United States both criticized the revocation and the Norwegian government says it is considering next steps.

IRAN

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation met in Saudi Arabia on Thursday and released a statement in which it held the Israeli government “fully responsible” for the “heinous attack” that killed former Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last week. Even the Saudis called the assassination a “blatant violation” of Iranian sovereignty. The OIC statement didn’t say anything about Iran’s potential retaliation and there’s some reason to think that member states—especially those in the potential line of fire, like Jordan—may have tried to talk Iranian officials down from a major attack against Israel.

As I noted yesterday there are indications that the Iranian government might be willing to forego, at least temporarily, a retaliation if a Gaza ceasefire finally emerges. The Biden administration has been insisting for days that the parties are on the brink of a deal probably in an attempt to delay that retaliation. The problem is that its claims are by all accounts wishcasting and there’s no real indication that an agreement is close—or, more to the point, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is prepared to stop undermining the talks. The US and mediators Egypt and Qatar on Thursday proposed a new round of ceasefire talks that would begin on August 15. The Israelis have already agreed to participate, but there’s been no response yet from Hamas. There may still be time for Joe Biden to use some of his considerable leverage to force Netanyahu to accept a deal, but it’s clear that Biden has no appetite for that so there’s no reason to expect this new round of talks to go any better than the previous ones.

ASIA

BANGLADESH

Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus arrived in Bangladesh on Thursday to take up his new post as the leader (“chief adviser” is the title he’s using) of the country’s interim government. It sounds like he may have a fairly short tenure. By law, President Mohammed Shahabuddin’s dissolution of parliament on Tuesday, one day after former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and left the country amid mass protests, started a 90 day countdown to a snap election. Under the circumstances it would not be surprising if Bangladeshi authorities tried to bend the rules a bit to establish some political stability before they organize a vote, but it sounds like Yunus intends to stick to the legal timetable. Importantly, Bangladeshi army chief of staff Waker-Uz-Zaman has already expressed support for Yunus and the transition process, so initial concerns about a potential military takeover have subsided.

Yunus at the ceremony appointing him as “chief adviser” on Thursday in Dhaka (MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP via Getty Images)

CHINA

The Biden administration designated five Chinese companies under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act on Thursday, barring them from exporting products to the United States. They join a list that now includes more than 70 firms allegedly exploiting Uyghurs and other non-Han communities in China’s Xinjiang region.

SOUTH KOREA

The South Korean government on Thursday said that it had detained a man believed to be from North Korea who apparently crossed the maritime border separating the two countries. He may have been attempting to defect but apparently authorities aren’t prepared to make that determination as yet. The individual was still being questioned at time of writing but there was no indication of any sort of response from North Korea.

AFRICA

SUDAN

The New York Times looks at the war in Sudan from the perspective of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North rebel faction:

With the war leaving Sudan’s military and militias fighting each other, the S.P.L.M. has been moving into the vacuum. We saw multiple villages that the rebels had captured — “liberated,” in their words — after they appeared on hilltops with rocket launchers before mounting attacks against government soldiers.

We traveled to the front lines of the S.P.L.M. push against the Sudanese Army, to a provincial capital called Kadugli. The rebels took us to the top of a ridge, where the city’s residents were visible on streets that the S.P.L.M. hopes to claim next.

But the S.P.L.M.’s biggest enemy may not be government forces. It’s hunger. The war has created an influx of displaced people, and now an estimated one in four people in the Nuba Mountains has fled from another part of Sudan. On our journey, we saw the graves of infants and the elderly who we were told died of hunger this year, and we encountered children and their parents stripping bushes for edible leaves. This was a challenge that the rebels told us they had never faced before, and it will ultimately test their ability to run this state within a state.

LIBYA

AFP is reporting that the government based in western Libya is preparing for a “possible attack” by forces aligned with the rival government in eastern Libya. A media outlet called Libya al-Ahrar reported on Wednesday that the “Libyan National Army,” warlord Khalifa Haftar’s militia that is tied to the eastern government, had sent units toward southwestern Libya. The previous day, Haftar’s son Saddam had suggested that the LNA was aiming to establish positions along Libya’s borders (in this case with Algeria and/or Tunisia) to provide “national security and stability in these strategic areas.” It’s unlikely that the western government is going to look fondly on Haftar’s deployment.

EUROPE

RUSSIA

The Ukrainian military’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk oblast continued into a third day on Thursday, with major activity reported around the border town of Sudzha, which is home to a key natural gas pipeline node linking Russia to Ukraine and on to the rest of Europe. Ukrainian forces have apparently been able to gain a foothold on the Russian side of the border but it’s unclear how far they’ve been able to advance beyond that. The Russian military keeps insisting that it has stopped the offensive, but each day it continues disproves the previous day’s claim and there are now unverified accounts from Russian war bloggers that have the Ukrainians moving several miles into Russian territory and potentially even threatening the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant. Kursk’s provincial government has declared a state of emergency and has asked citizens to donate blood for the wounded.

The Biden administration has disavowed knowledge of the operation and says it’s seeking clarification from Ukraine as to its aims. There still hasn’t been an official comment from Kyiv, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky all but acknowledged the incursion in his Thursday evening address, saying that “Russia brought the war to our land and should feel what it has done.” One of Zelensky’s senior advisers, Mykhailo Podolyak, echoed that sentiment in a televised interview in which he argued that the incursion should affect the Russian “perception” of the war. The size of the Ukrainian force is thought to be in the hundreds and Kyiv may be moving reinforcements over the border to maintain the advance. It’s unclear if the Ukrainians have a long-term plan here but it’s possible that this operation has already exceeded their expectations and they’re adjusting on the fly.

UKRAINE

Meanwhile, in a development that probably has greater long-term implications than Ukraine’s successes in Kursk, Russian forces are continuing their advance through Ukraine’s Donetsk oblast. They’re still moving toward the tactically significant town of Pokrovsk and there are indications that they’re moving into the town of Chasiv Yar after pressuring Ukrainian forces there for several months.

AMERICAS

PARAGUAY

The Paraguayan government on Thursday asked the Biden administration to “accelerate the departure” of US ambassador Marc Ostfield from Asunción. This was presumably in response to new sanctions the administration announced on Tuesday targeting a cigarette manufacturer with ties to already-blacklisted former Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes. The Paraguayan government summoned Ostfield on Thursday to protest the sanctions and it was after that session that it essentially ordered Washington to recall him. Ostfield is already on his way out of Paraguay, but his final exit had been awaiting US Senate confirmation of his replacement. As far as I know the administration hasn’t yet responded to the Paraguayan request.

BRAZIL

The Brazilian and Nicaraguan governments mutually expelled their respective ambassadors on Thursday. Nicaragua fired the proverbial first shot here, kicking out the Brazilian ambassador, and the Brazilian government responded in kind. The root of this spat appears to be a decision by the Brazilian ambassador not to attend events marking the 45th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution last month, though tensions were already raised over Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s efforts to secure the release of imprisoned Catholic bishop and Nicaraguan opposition figure Rolando José Álvarez. It’s possible that differences over last month’s Venezuelan presidential election—Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega has recognized Nicolás Maduro’s disputed victory while Lula has called on Maduro to release the full election results—further exacerbated those tensions.

VENEZUELA

Speaking of Maduro, his government now says it’s arrested over 2200 people since the election, I’m assuming all skeptics of the incumbent’s big win. Authorities have cracked down hard on protesters and a group that calls itself “Victims Monitor,” which according to The Washington Post “tracks homicides in Venezuela,” says it’s counted at least 23 people killed in those demonstrations, most by either Venezuelan security forces or Maduro supporters.

UNITED STATES

Finally, with the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile modernization program already an estimated 81 percent over its original budget (and rising), Responsible Statecraft’s Hekmat Aboukhater and William Hartung look at the lobbying effort keeping such a pointless and dangerous project alive:

The flood of campaign contributions from ICBM contractors is reinforced by their staggering investments in lobbying. In any given year, the arms industry as a whole employs between 800 and 1,000 lobbyists, well more than one for every member of Congress. Most of those lobbyists hired by ICBM contractors come through the “revolving door” from careers in the Pentagon, Congress, or the Executive Branch. That means they come with the necessary tools for success in Washington: an understanding of the appropriations cycle and close relations with decision-makers on the Hill.

During the last four election cycles, ICBM contractors spent upwards of $226 million on 275 extremely well-paid lobbyists. For example, Bud Cramer, a former Democratic congressman from Alabama who once sat on the defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, netted $640,000 in fees from Northrop Grumman over a span of six years. He was also a cofounder of the Blue Dog Democrats, an influential conservative faction within the Democratic Party. Perhaps you won’t be surprised to learn that Cramer’s former chief of staff, Jefferies Murray, also lobbies for Northrop Grumman.

While some lobbyists work for one contractor, others have shared allegiances. For example, during his tenure as a lobbyist, former Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Trent Lott received more than $600,000 for his efforts for Raytheon, Textron Inc., and United Technologies (before United Technologies and Raytheon merged to form RX Technologies). Former Virginia Congressman Jim Moran similarly received $640,000 from Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics.