World roundup: March 19 2024
World roundup: March 19 2024
Stories from Israel-Palestine, Myanmar, Haiti, and elsewhere
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TODAY IN HISTORY
March 19, 1220 (or thereabouts): Genghis Khan’s Mongol army sacks the city of Samarkand.
March 19, 1279: A heavily outnumbered Mongol (Yuan) fleet defeats a Song Dynasty fleet at the Battle of Yamen, today in China’s Guangdong province. Despite the disparity in numbers, the Yuan were able to blockade the Song fleet in Yamen’s harbor until it ran out of food and water, and then once the Song were desperate enough to attack the Mongols engaged in a ruse to drawn them into an engagement unprepared. In the wake of the defeat, the young Song Emperor Zhao Bing committed suicide, bringing the Song Dynasty to an end and leaving China entirely in Mongolian hands.
March 19, 1962: French and Algerian forces begin a ceasefire under the newly agreed Évian Accords that would mark the end of the fighting in the Algerian War of Independence. The Accords laid out the terms of Algerian independence while preserving some French commercial and military interests, and were put to an April referendum in France and a July referendum in Algeria, winning approval in both countries.
INTERNATIONAL
A new report from the Swiss firm IQAir finds that only ten countries and territories around the world met or exceeded World Health Organization standards for PM2.5 air pollution last year. “PM2.5,” according to The New York Times, “refers to solid particles less than 2.5 micrometers in size: small enough to enter the bloodstream” and “is the deadliest form of air pollution.” According to the study air quality is particularly bad in Central and South Asia, where the four worst performing countries (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Tajikistan) are located.
MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
Writing for +972 Magazine, Ori Kol argues that even the US government’s thus-far modest efforts at sanctioning West Bank settlers may lay the groundwork for significant changes to the settlement movement:
Biden’s executive order leaves much room for further action, with its sights set on individuals involved in “directing, enacting, implementing, enforcing, or failing to enforce policies … that threaten the peace, security, or stability of the West Bank.” The wording here is such that the restrictions could easily be expanded to encompass far more organizations and individuals than those named so far. After all, the settlement enterprise has always been a joint project of Israel’s government, army, and legal system working in unison.
With the State Department hinting at more forceful measures ahead, sanctions could soon implicate vast swathes of the Israeli state, including ministers, municipal bodies, and high-ranking security officials. They could also threaten the settler movement’s funding sources — including tax-exempt donations from the U.S., which are a lifeline for even the more “mainstream” settlements.
Moreover, Israeli banks — which have long operated in the West Bank and supported settler projects — could be forced to make sure that they aren’t handling money used by sanctioned settlers or outposts. If so, the relationship between the country’s largest financial institutions and one of the most powerful groups in the Israeli body politic would shatter, with unknown implications.
The latest U.S. measures targeting two outposts — Moshe’s Farm and Zvi’s Farm — leave further room for interpretation. How will the sanctions affect the companies working with these outposts? The suppliers who deliver materials to the farms? The NGOs that send volunteers to help guard them? These questions will likely be answered in the coming weeks and months.
In other news:
Serious fighting continued to rage in and around Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital on Tuesday, for the second straight day. The Israeli military (IDF), which launched a new assault on the hospital while claiming that Hamas has begun using it as a command base (for at least the second time, if we take the IDF’s word for it), says that it’s killed 50 “militants” over the past two days. There too, though, we’re taking the IDF’s word for it. A claim of 50 dead seems reasonable but whether they’ve all been militants is a question that will probably never be independently answered. It’s unclear how many people have been killed or wounded in the vicinity of the hospital, in large part because they can’t be brought to the hospital for treatment under the circumstances.
Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, is accusing the Israeli government of launching this latest Shifa attack in an attempt to “sabotage” the ceasefire negotiations that are underway in Qatar. That may be overstating things, both in terms of the likelihood of an agreement and the effect the hospital assault might have. Despite some cautious optimism from the mediators and unconfirmed reports that Hamas leaders have softened their demands there’s not much indication that these talks will succeed.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu figuratively told US President Joe Biden to get bent on Tuesday for what seems like the 20th time this month, assuring Knesset members that whatever the substance of his Monday phone call with Biden might have been he has no intention of calling off the forthcoming IDF assault on Rafah. At some point you’d think Biden would get tired of this back and forth, but that assumes he sincerely wants to talk Netanyahu out of what is likely to be a catastrophic operation from a humanitarian perspective. More likely what he wants is to be able to say that he tried to talk Netanyahu out of it.
The IDF is acknowledging that a projectile fired from the Red Sea region, presumably a Houthi missile, slipped past Israeli air defenses and landed near the port city of Eilat late Sunday. They’re investigating the air defense failure. The projectile struck an unpopulated area so it didn’t cause any casualties or damage.
IRAQ
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters reportedly battled a Turkish military unit in northern Iraq’s Duhok province on Tuesday in a clash that left at least one Turkish soldier and six PKK members dead according to Turkish officials. The Turkish military retaliated with airstrikes against PKK positions but there’s no indication as yet of casualties. The previous day, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan appeared to issue a threat to Iraq’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party, which has longstanding ties to the PKK and is one of the two ruling parties in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Turkish military has occasionally attacked PUK security forces but it’s unclear whether Turkish leaders are prepared to escalate beyond that or how the Iraqi government might respond if they did.
YEMEN
A group of Houthi fighters blew up a house in Yemen’s Bayda province on Tuesday, killing at least nine people (all members of one family) and seriously damaging a number of surrounding homes, after the owner of that house allegedly lured a group of their comrades into an ambush the previous day. Two Houthi members were killed in that incident. The Houthi-run administration in northern Yemen disavowed the house bombing, characterizing it as an “irresponsible reaction” by those fighters to the ambush.
IRAN
According to The Wall Street Journal, the European Union is internally split on the question of imposing new sanctions on Iran:
The European Union is pushing back against a French-German drive to target Iran with sanctions over its provision of missiles and other military hardware to its regional allies, with senior EU officials saying new sanctions could undercut diplomacy with Tehran.
France, Germany, the Netherlands and five other EU countries wrote last month to EU foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell, saying the bloc should adopt a sanctions regime that allows them to target “Iranian actors which arm, fund, advise and instruct” pro-Iran regional militias, as well as the groups themselves, according to a letter seen by The Wall Street Journal.
Borrell’s response, which EU officials said was backed by Washington: Don’t do it now. U.S. officials declined to comment.
Instead of moving to sanctions right now it sounds like EU leaders this week will affirm an intention to sanction Iran if it supplies ballistic missiles to Russia. It’s possible Iran has already supplied ballistic missiles to Russia but there’s no substantial evidence to support that claim as yet.
ASIA
ARMENIA
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan appears set to make a significant concession to the Azerbaijani government in an attempt to avoid a war:
Delimitation discussions [over the Armenia-Azerbaijan border] appear stuck at present over Azerbaijan’s demand that it gain control of eight villages in border areas currently under Armenian jurisdiction. Pashinyan in comments to journalists signaled a willingness to unilaterally hand over four of the disputed villages. In doing so, he also suggested a practical way of settling the boundary between the two states. His initiative appears intended to deprive Azerbaijan of a pretext to launch new military action to seize territory, including any assault that could cut Armenia’s direct access to Iran.
“The de jure border that existed at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union was reaffirmed by the [1991] Alma-Ata declaration and not only by that declaration, but also by the agreements held in Prague on October 6, 2022,” Pashinyan said at a March 12 news conference.
Four of the disputed villages – Baghanis Ayrim, Lower Askipara, Kheyrimli, and Gizilhajili – were on the Azerbaijani side of the border between the two former Soviet republics and were occupied by Armenian forces in the 1990s, during the first Karabakh war, which concluded in 1994 after the signing of the Alma-Ata declaration.
Citing the Alma-Ata and Prague agreements, Pashinyan acknowledged that “the former administrative border, which existed during the Soviet Union, is somewhat beyond that present administrative border.” He went on to call for both states to reaffirm the frontier defined by the Alma-Ata agreement.
Pashinyan has suggested that Azerbaijani officials may be preparing to go to war over those villages imminently. Even with this offer the problem of the other four villages remains. All are, or rather were, Azerbaijani exclaves surrounded entirely by Armenian territory, products of the Soviet Union’s complicated internal border structure. This wasn’t a big deal when Armenia and Azerbaijan were both subordinate republics in a single larger state, but it’s been a source of tension ever since that larger state’s dissolution left both republics independent.
MYANMAR
Local media in Myanmar is reporting that military airstrikes killed at least 25 people, all members of the country’s endangered Rohingya community, and wounded another 25 in Rakhine state on Monday. The reports can’t be confirmed but they are credible enough to have drawn a statement of concern from United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Tuesday. The Rohingya are certainly no strangers to military violence but under the circumstances it’s unclear why Myanmar’s ruling junta would target one of their villages when Rakhine state is currently embroiled in a rebellion by the Arakan Army (which comes out of Rakhine’s Buddhist community and is if anything even more hostile toward the Rohingya than the military). It’s possible the village was targeted unintentionally.
AFRICA
LIBYA
The Libyan government on Tuesday closed its largest checkpoint along the Libya-Tunisia border, at Ras Jedir, after it was attacked by what Libyan officials called “outlaw groups.” The Tunisian government has also reportedly closed the checkpoint from its side because of the violence. These appear to be smuggler groups, who have effectively controlled Ras Jedir amid Libya’s internal chaos. Now Libyan authorities are attempting to assert control over the region and that apparently isn’t going over very well.
SOUTH SUDAN
The UN’s South Sudanese mission issued a report on Monday finding that the number of people affected by violence in that country spiked by some 35 percent over the final quarter of 2023, as compared with the previous quarter. A rise in inter-communal violence was cited as the prime cause for the increase. South Sudan is supposed to hold an election sometime this year to cement the political reconciliation process begun in a 2018 peace agreement that ended (more or less) the country’s civil war. This level of violence could threaten that election.
SOMALIA
A drone strike near Mogadishu killed at least 22 people and wounded another 21 on Tuesday, in what The Washington Post is reporting was a Turkish operation. The Turkish military has carried out drone strikes in support of Somali security forces in the past, but what’s a bit strange about this strike is that there was no fighting reported in the vicinity at the time. Somali forces and al-Shabab fighters did clash nearby on Monday. At least 15 of the casualties were children.
EUROPE
UKRAINE
The Russian military says its forces captured the village of Orlivka on Tuesday. Orlivka is situated just west of Avdiivka, so the Russians are continuing to make some gains in the area following their seizure of that town last month.
MOLDOVA
The Moldovan government said on Tuesday that it’s expelled an unnamed Russian diplomat over the conduct of the recently-concluded Russian presidential election. Moscow opened six polling stations in Moldova’s separatist Transnistria region, despite official Moldovan opposition. Presumably the Russian government will retaliate for this expulsion at some point.
AMERICAS
COLOMBIA
The Gulf Clan, Colombia’s largest criminal gang, announced on Tuesday that it has accepted an invitation from President Gustavo Petro’s government to open peace talks. With an estimated 9000 fighters in its ranks, the Gulf Clan is one of Colombia’s largest armed groups and the threat it poses to rival groups has reportedly been an obstacle in terms of their willingness to engage in their own peace talks with Petro’s government. However, because the Gulf Clan is legally considered a criminal organization rather than a political/ideological one it’s not covered by the law under which Petro has been able to negotiate with, e.g., the National Liberation Army (ELN) and ex-Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) factions. So Colombian authorities may have to develop a workaround to make these talks possible.
MEXICO
A new poll from Mexico’s Reforma newspaper finds that former Mexico City mayor and ruling MORENA party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum remains the prohibitive favorite to win the June 2 presidential election. The survey has Sheinbaum at 58 percent support, well ahead of joint opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez at 34 percent. Reforma’s previous poll, in December, had Sheinbaum ahead 54-29. Meanwhile, MORENA’s quest to win at least a two-thirds majority in the Mexican Congress is up in the air, as the party has 56 percent support in the Reforma poll with 16 percent of voters undecided.
HAITI
The Caribbean Community’s proposed Haitian presidential council is almost ready for its big unveiling. According to CARICOM, six Haitian political blocs have submitted the names of their representatives—a seventh, the Pitit Desalin party, has rejected the council and refused to participate—and 2 at large members (from “civil society” and the religious community) are also apparently ready to go. The council will be tasked with appointing a new prime minister to replace the outgoing Ariel Henry, a new cabinet, an electoral commission, and a “national security council.” Whether it will have any legitimacy, seeing as how it’s been created by CARICOM essentially without Haitian input, remains to be seen.
Of note, every member appointed to this council is required to support an international military intervention—also organized without much Haitian input—to deal with the insurgency that’s currently gripping Port-au-Prince. If you’re starting to sense a theme here, specifically the conviction that Haitians mustn’t be allowed to actually govern their own country, you’re not alone. You might also be interested in this week’s American Prestige interview, which covers that exact subject:
UNITED STATES
Finally, The Washington Post recounts the political decisions that have put the bloodshed in Gaza squarely in Joe Biden’s lap:
The previously unreported meeting [involving a group of “top foreign policy officials from the Biden administration and previous ones” held at the White House on October 27] shows that discrepancies were emerging far earlier than publicly known between the Biden team’s internal doubts about Israel’s conduct and its ironclad external support. At nearly every turn, President Biden and his aides defended the Jewish state, even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defied the U.S. on everything from protecting civilians to allowing aid delivery to accepting a Palestinian state.
The Israeli Embassy in Washington denied claims that Israel Defense Forces hit targets with insufficient intelligence, saying the IDF is committed to “international law” and “applies a thorough legal process in the selection of targets and invests significant resources to minimize harm to civilians.”
This article, based on interviews with 20 administration officials and outside advisers, examines how Biden, more than five months after the Oct. 7 attacks, has found himself deeply entangled in a war he does not want and that threatens to become a defining element of his tenure. His allies privately acknowledge that it has done him significant damage domestically and globally and could easily become his biggest foreign policy cataclysm.
Biden’s strategy from the outset rested on a central trade-off: that if he showed Israel unequivocal, even defiant, support early on, he could ultimately influence its conduct of the war. Some administration officials now concede the strategy is heading toward failure, and in private talks, they voice a striking frustration and uncertainty about how the war will end.
Regular readers may by now have picked up on the fact that I believe these stories about the Biden administration’s alleged frustrations with the Israeli government are carefully curated horse shit, meant to dodge responsibility for the political and moral abomination that Gaza has become. Still I think this story does indicate that even the Biden administration realizes that its Gaza policy is now indefensible, which is in itself a noteworthy development.