World roundup: December 17 2024

Stories from Israel-Palestine, Myanmar, Ukraine, and elsewhere

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PROGRAMMING NOTE: Just as a reminder, Thursday’s roundup will be our last regularly scheduled roundup for 2024. I will be taking an end of year break and will return to our usual schedule on January 7. Thanks!

TODAY IN HISTORY

December 17, 1398: The Turco-Mongolian warlord Timur decisively defeats the Delhi Sultanate. The battle at Delhi is less notable than what came after, which stands as one of the most brutal sacks of a major city in world history. Over the next several days Timur’s forces ravaged Delhi, looting whatever they could and killing anyone who inconvenienced them—to the tune of tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands dead. Even with India’s tremendous wealth it was decades before the city fully recovered from the damage.

December 17, 2010: A Tunisian street vendor in Sidi Bouzid, named Mohamed Bouazizi, sets himself on fire to protest mistreatment by corrupt municipal authorities. Public outrage over Bouazizi’s case sparked the Tunisian Revolution, which in turn helped to spark the Arab Spring movement.

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

While I am very hesitant to make too much of this, there does seem to be a rising sentiment that the Israeli government and Hamas are on the verge of reaching a Gaza ceasefire agreement. That sentiment rose so high on Tuesday that there were rumors that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself was heading to Cairo, potentially to wrap up negotiations. As it happens, Netanyahu spent the day celebrating Israel’s new occupation in southern Syria (more on that later), but still hopes for a deal seem high and there were Israeli negotiators in Qatar on Tuesday so the process is continuing. The BBC quoted “a senior Palestinian official involved in the indirect negotiations” on Tuesday who claimed that those negotiations have entered a “decisive and final phase.”

According to Ha’aretz this momentum toward a ceasefire is the result of a breakthrough along a related diplomatic front, the effort to secure normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia. By “breakthrough” I mean that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has allegedly returned to his pre-October 7 position on the subject—specifically, that he’s willing to normalize relations in return for something less than Israel’s full recognition of Palestinian statehood. Much less, in fact—Ha’aretz says that MBS wants Israel to offer “a vague commitment to a ‘path towards Palestinian statehood,’” or in other words nothing.

I have to say we’re firmly in “I’ll believe it when I see it” territory here. MBS may not personally care one way or the other about Palestinian statehood, but he’s taken a very strong public position on the issue in recent months that will be difficult for him to walk back without looking foolish. So if he has signaled some sort of agreement behind the scenes I think at the very least he’s going to demand a lengthy interval after a ceasefire goes into effect before he’ll be prepared to make any move toward normalization. Which he may not have, because the US-Saudi security commitment that would come along with normalization is more likely to pass the US Congress with Joe Biden in the White House than it will be once Donald Trump takes office and Democrats suddenly start to have qualms about US policy in the Middle East. Ha’aretz’s reliance on “sources close to Netanyahu” also doesn’t inspire much confidence in the reliability of their scoop.

For a possible reality check we can turn to Axios’s Barak Ravid, who reported based on comments from “three Israeli officials” on Tuesday evening that “a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal is not imminent” and there are still “big gaps” between the Israeli and Hamas positions. One of Ravid’s sources characterized recent optimistic statements from Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Israel Katz, as “exaggerated” and warned that the optimism “misleads the public and creates false illusions.” So all of this talk about momentum and breakthroughs and secret Israeli-Saudi deals may just be smoke and mirrors.

TURKEY

At Foreign Affairs, analyst Gönül Tol highlights the big winner of the political upheaval in Syria:

Chief among the rebel forces that ended Assad’s rule on Sunday is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a Sunni Muslim group that was previously affiliated with al Qaeda and is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, and the United Nations. Despite those designations, Turkey has provided indirect assistance to HTS. The Turkish military presence in the northwestern Syrian town of Idlib largely shielded the group from attacks by Syrian government forces, allowing it to run the province undisturbed for years. Turkey managed the flow of international aid into HTS-run areas, which increased the group’s legitimacy among locals. Trade across the Turkish border has provided HTS economic support, too.

All this has given Turkey influence over HTS. In October, [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan quashed plans for a rebel offensive in Aleppo; when rebel forces launched their campaign late last month, they likely did so with Erdogan’s approval. For years, Assad had been dragging his feet as Erdogan sought to mend ties with Damascus and repatriate the millions of Syrian refugees whose presence in Turkey undermined support for his ruling party. With Assad’s regional allies weakened by the Israeli campaign in Gaza and Lebanon, and Russia distracted in Ukraine, Erdogan saw an opportunity to force the Syrian leader to the table.

The rebels’ whirlwind success came as a surprise. Now, Assad is out of the picture altogether, and Erdogan is getting ready to cash in on his years-long investment in the Syrian opposition. Iran and Russia—Turkey’s main rivals in Syria—are chastened; a friendly government could soon be set up in Damascus, ready to welcome back refugees; and Assad’s departure could even open a window for remaining U.S. troops to leave, fulfilling a long-sought goal of Ankara’s. If it can avoid the potential dangers ahead, Turkey could end up a clear winner in Syria’s civil war.

SYRIA

As I mentioned above, Netanyahu spent much of Tuesday touring the parts of the Golan that the Israeli military has occupied since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government a bit over a week ago. He even held a performative security briefing on Mount Hermon, the region’s (and Syria’s) highest point. While Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders are maintaining the pretense that this occupation is only temporary, it sure seemed like they were surveying their latest conquest.

Netanyahu playing soldier on Mount Hermon on Tuesday (Ma'yan Toaf/Israel GPO/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)

In Damascus, meanwhile, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham leader and de facto Syrian head of state Ahmed al-Sharaa announced that he’s going to disband the various militant factions that participated in the rebellion against Assad and that their fighters will be “trained to join the ranks of the defense ministry.” Pretty much everything Sharaa is doing right now is at least partly connected to his drive to shed the terrorist/extremist label, and turning these extremist insurgent groups into something resembling a cohesive, centrally controlled military is definitely a step in that process. HTS has also taken steps to reincorporate members of the former Syrian government back into society, announcing a general amnesty for military conscripts and opening “settlement centers” for ex-officials to register with the new authorities. That process could potentially lead to investigations into anyone accused of wrongdoing under Assad’s rule but is also the conduit by which amnesties would be issued.

The US State Department claimed on Tuesday that the ceasefire it’s brokered between the Syrian Democratic Forces group and the Turkish government (along with its Syrian proxies) has been extended through at least the end of this week. That comes after reports that Ankara had abandoned the deal and that its forces were massing around the Kurdish/SDF-held town of Kobani in northern Syria. The Wall Street Journal has additionally reported on indications of a Turkish military buildup along the Syrian border similar to the one that preceded Turkey’s 2019 invasion of northeastern Syria.

It sounds like the Qatari government has gotten involved in this situation, as Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani made an apparently impromptu visit to Turkey on Tuesday and it was shortly after his meeting with Erdoğan that the US announced the extension of the ceasefire. Qatar’s economic influence over Turkey could make it an important contributor to subsequent negotiations. SDF leader Mazloum Abdi took to social media on Tuesday to propose creating a demilitarized zone in and around Kobani that would presumably include the nearby tomb of Suleyman Shah, an important site for Turkey as Suleyman Shah was the grandfather of Ottoman Empire founder Osman I. That offer is unlikely to satisfy Turkey’s demands on its own, but it could buy time for more diplomacy.

ASIA

PAKISTAN

Gunmen shot up a police station in northern Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Tuesday, killing at least two people and wounding three more. Authorities unsurprisingly attributed the attack to the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), though to my knowledge there’s been no claim of responsibility as yet. In another part of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a roadside bomb killed three more police officers who were serving as security for a polio vaccination team. Here too there’s been no claim of responsibility but this is the sort of thing that the TTP does regularly.

MYANMAR

The Karen National Union rebel group says that its forces seized the village of Manerplaw from the Myanmar military on Tuesday. Aside from its location near the Thai border, Manerplaw is significant because it once served as the KNU’s headquarters and was considered a viable site for the capital of a Karen state before military forces captured and then depopulated it in 1995. Myanmar forces have reportedly withdrawn from the village but are still battling to recapture it.

AFRICA

LIBYA

While the future of Russia’s military presence in Syria remains a mystery, Al-Monitor’s Beatrice Farhat reports on indications that Moscow is shifting at least some of its Mediterranean footprint to Libya:

A Syrian security official stationed at Khmeimim [airbase] told Reuters on Saturday that a Russian cargo plane had left for Libya the day before, and more flights were expected, adding to the growing speculation that Russia may be moving some of its military assets out of Syria.

The following day, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s crisis situations department said in a statement on its Telegram channel that a Russian air force flight from Khmeimim had evacuated some Russian diplomatic personnel from Damascus, as well as diplomats from Belarus, North Korea and Abkhazia, returning to Moscow on Sunday.

In a similar vein, two of the US officials who spoke to CNN on Monday suggested that Russia may be moving some of its naval assets from Syria to Libya. According to flight records and satellite imagery cited by CNN, cargo planes registered to Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations have arrived at Libya’s al-Khadim base, located east of Benghazi, at least seven times in less than a week.

In Libya, Moscow has backed eastern-based military commander Khalifa Hifter and his forces against the internationally recognized government in Tripoli. However, there has been no official comment on the alleged movement of Russian assets from Syria to Libya.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

Congolese health officials have determined that a “mystery” illness that, as of early this month, had caused the deaths of between 31 and 143 people in Kwango province is a “severe form of malaria.” Authorities have begun distributing antimalarial medicines via facilities in the Panzi health zone, which has been the epicenter of the outbreak. The World Health Organization says it is sending additional treatment kits to the area. It took weeks to determine what was causing this apparent outbreak, in large part due to how remote the Panzi zone is.

EUROPE

RUSSIA

The Ukrainian intelligence agency SBU was apparently behind the assassination, via car (actually scooter) bombing, of Russian general Igor Kirillov in Moscow on Tuesday. Kirillov was commander of the Russian military’s Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Protection Troops unit and has been accused of using chemical weapons against Ukrainian forces (a charge the Russian government denies). One of his aides was also killed in the bombing. The assassination represents a major escalation on Ukraine’s part, as Kirillov is easily the highest ranking military officer they’ve killed inside Russia to date, and will surely prompt some sort of Russian retaliation.

UKRAINE

The Russian military claimed the capture of another eastern Ukrainian village on Tuesday, this one a few kilometers south of the town of Kurakhove. Russian forces remain parked on the outskirts of Kurakhove, as they’ve been for several weeks, and appear to be trying to encircle it.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is suggesting that his scheduled meeting with several European leaders in Brussels on Wednesday could include discussions about the deployment of European peacekeepers to secure a Ukraine-Russia ceasefire. The recent revival of this idea is apparently the product of US President-elect Donald Trump, who wants a ceasefire but will not commit any US forces to a peacekeeping mission. It’s still unclear which European governments are going to be willing to participate in such a mission, but it may not matter—Responsible Statecraft’s Anatol Lieven argues that the idea is likely to be so unpalatable to Russia that it will make a ceasefire agreement impossible:

On the face of it, this idea might seem to reconcile several mutually contradictory pressures on the Ukrainian peace process: The Russian demand for a treaty that will permanently bar Ukraine from NATO membership; the Ukrainian demand for Western guarantees against future Russian aggression; Trump’s determination not to put U.S. troops on the ground or make additional and permanent U.S. commitments to Ukraine; and the real need for a substantial international force to patrol an armistice line.

There is just one problem: According to every Russian official and expert with whom my colleagues and I have spoken (most recently on Thursday), the idea of Western troops in Ukraine is just as unacceptable to the Russian government and establishment as NATO membership for Ukraine itself. Indeed, the Russians see no essential difference between the two.

Seen from Moscow, such a Western “peacekeeping force” would be simply a NATO advance guard that would provide cover for the gradual introduction of more and more NATO forces. Indeed, while President Zelensky has said that Ukraine “may consider” the idea of peacekeepers, it would only do so if it is also given a clear timeline for future NATO membership. If this proposal is put forward by General Kellogg, President-elect Trump’s choice as his Ukraine envoy, in negotiations, the Russian side will therefore reject it out of hand; and if it is insisted on, the talks will fail.

Speaking of NATO, it has reportedly taken over for the United States in terms of coordinating Ukrainian military aid from the West. This is meant to secure that aid against the incoming Trump administration, though that won’t matter if Trump drastically cuts or eliminates the US contribution to the overall aid effort.

AMERICAS

UNITED STATES

Finally, TomDispatch’s Michael Klare looks ahead to Donald Trump resuming management of the New Cold War:

Gaza, Haiti, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Russia, Syria, Ukraine, and Venezuela: President-elect Donald Trump will face no shortage of foreign-policy challenges when he assumes office in January. None, however, comes close to China in scope, scale, or complexity. No other country has the capacity to resist his predictable antagonism with the same degree of strength and tenacity, and none arouses more hostility and outrage among MAGA Republicans. In short, China is guaranteed to put President Trump in a difficult bind the second time around: he can either choose to cut deals with Beijing and risk being branded an appeaser by the China hawks in his party, or he can punish and further encircle Beijing, risking a potentially violent clash and possibly even nuclear escalation. How he chooses to resolve this quandary will surely prove the most important foreign test of his second term in office.

Make no mistake: China truly is considered The Big One by those in Trump’s entourage responsible for devising foreign policy. While they imagine many international challenges to their “America First” strategy, only China, they believe, poses a true threat to the continued global dominance of this country.

Sounds like a recipe for great success all around. Looking forward to it!