World update: August 30 2019
Stories from Syria, Afghanistan, and more
I’m unlocking tonight’s update because FX is taking a Labor Day weekend break and will return on Tuesday. Thanks and have a good weekend!
TODAY IN HISTORY
August 30, 1363: The navies of two competing factions of the Red Turban rebels vying to replace the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty—one led by Zhu Yuanzhang and the other by Chen Youliang—begin a five week battle on Lake Poyang. When it was over, Chen Youliang was dead and Zhu Yuanzhang’s faction established itself as the main rebel group opposing the Yuan. Zhu and his forces eventually overthrew the Yuan and he took the throne as the Hongwu Emperor, the first ruler of the Ming Dynasty.
August 30, 1922: The Republican Turkish army defeats an occupying Greek force at the Battle of Dumlupınar in western Anatolia. In their victory the Turks destroyed the better part of an entire Greek corps and began driving the rest of the Greek army toward the western Anatolian coast. The Greek position was untenable and they withdrew completely in mid-September.
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
According to the Russian government, the Syrian military will begin a unilateral ceasefire on Saturday morning in northwestern Syria. The Russians and Syrians made the most of their last day in combat, then, capturing the town of Tamanah in southeastern Idlib and conducting airstrikes on Maarat al-Numan and Idlib city.
The United Nations is preparing to carry out a voluntary evacuation of the estimated 12,700 people remaining at the Rukban displaced persons camp in southern Syria. Conditions at the camp are “abysmal,” according to the head of the UN humanitarian operation in Syria, Panos Moumtzis, and the UN and Red Cross have determined that at least a third of the camp’s inhabitants want to leave. Those who do evacuate will be taken either to government-controlled territory, where they could be subject to things like conscription (for the men, at least), or to rebel-held territory in northern Syria. For those who remain, and many camp inhabitants do seem like they want to stay, the UN is planning to bring in humanitarian aid. Rukban is located in a cordon of territory around the US military base at Tanf that the US has declared a no-go zone for anybody aligned with the Syrian government. But US officials have steadfastly refused to provide any assistance to the people there, and the Jordanian government won’t let them cross the border for fear of violent extremists slipping across with them.
The Iranian oil tanker Adrian Darya-1, which (as the Grace-1) was detained in Gibraltar last month and released earlier this month, may be heading to Lebanon but the US government is convinced it’s going to Syria. The ship has changed direction multiple times and has successively approached Greece, Turkey, and now the Turks say it’s going to Lebanon while Washington says it’s heading for the Syrian port of Tartus. Another theory says that the Iranians are trying to transfer the vessel’s oil cargo to Syria via a hard to track (but also dangerous) ship-to-ship transfer. The Iranians say they’ve sold the oil on board the ship but haven’t said who bought it. The US Treasury Department on Friday blacklisted the ship and sanctioned its captain, but the Trump administration may take further steps—it’s threatened to do so if the vessel appeared to be approaching Syria.
YEMEN
A suicide bomber killed six Southern Transitional Council fighters in Aden on Friday, in an attack that was later claimed by the Islamic State. It’s unclear why they conducted the attack other than to exploit the current chaos in Aden and maybe exacerbate it. Overall Aden was reportedly fairly quiet on Friday after days of fighting between the STC and pro-government forces that seem to have left the southern separatists in control of most of the city.
IRAQ
Iraq’s Mandaean community is struggling to maintain its political prerogatives and its very existence in the face of drastically dwindling numbers:
Between 2003 and 2019, 90% of the Mandaean religious minority left Iraq, according to Sattar Jabbar Helou, who heads the sect worldwide. This migration has had a profound impact on the Mandaean community in Iraq.
Neglected by the Iraqi government and even the international community, "the UN, the US and the EU rarely show concern for the future of the Mandaean minority, while unfairly focusing on the challenges facing Christians and Yazidis,” said Nadia Fadel Maghamiss, director of the Divan for Endowment of Mandaeans in Iraq.
Mandaeans fear the implications of such statistics on their dwindling community in Iraq. They fear extinction and political marginalization, as political demands in Iraq are often linked to demographics.
EGYPT
Sea levels have risen high enough to “threaten building foundations” in the city of Alexandria. So that seems fine. Alexandria is also being affected by upstream dams on the Nile, which are preventing necessary sediment from traveling downstream and are thereby causing the city and its surrounding land to sink. Also fine.
IRAN
The International Atomic Energy Agency issued a new report on Friday that highlights the extent to which Iran has begun violating the 2015 nuclear deal in response to Donald Trump’s decision to totally abrogate it. And it turns out they haven’t gone terribly far in this respect. The Iranians are enriching uranium up to 4.5 percent, higher than the 3.67 percent allowed under the deal but not by much, and have exceeded the deal’s limit on the amount of enriched uranium they’re allowed to stock, but only by about 40 kilograms. If the concern is Iran racing to build a nuclear bomb, neither of these violations get it appreciably closer to that outcome. Additionally, they haven’t interfered with IAEA inspections work.
ASIA
AFGHANISTAN
The Washington Post says that Donald Trump has sidelined National Security Advisor John Bolton and the entire National Security Council when it comes to Afghan policy, due to Bolton’s staunch opposition to negotiations with the Taliban. In general, according to the Post, Bolton’s influence with Trump is waning due to his opposition to pretty much any diplomacy, including Trump’s relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his stated desire for talks with Iran (which includes his apparent acquiescence to a European push to offer Iran a “line of credit” to bolster its economy). Making things worse is the penchant Bolton and his NSC staff seem to have for leaking to the press when they don’t get their way.
Happier times in Iraq (White House photo via Wikimedia Commons)
Bolton apparently isn’t the only person in the administration feeling uneasy about the deal negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad is negotiating with the Taliban. One actually not unreasonable concern is that hardline Taliban elements could reject any deal and either continue fighting on their own or throw in with either al-Qaeda or Islamic State-Khorasan Province to continue fighting. Of course the solution that Bolton and company would offer for this problem is just to leave US forces in Afghanistan in perpetuity, which isn’t really a solution, as the last 18 years have shown.
PAKISTAN
Thousands of people rallied in Islamabad and across Pakistan on Friday to protest India’s move to revoke Kashmir’s constitutional autonomy. They were led by none other than Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who said some things about fighting until Kashmir is “liberated” and “until our last breath” that, in the context of the nuclear weapon-enhanced India-Pakistan relationship, seem a little worrisome.
INDIA
India’s economy is still showing weakness:
India’s economic growth decelerated sharply to a six-year low in the most recent quarter, heightening concerns about the head winds facing one of the world’s largest economies.
India’s gross domestic product expanded by 5 percent year-on-year in the three months that ended in June, a poor performance for an economy that has regularly notched growth above 7 percent in recent years.
Until this year, India was considered the world’s fastest-growing major economy. But growth has slowed markedly as consumers spend less and demand for exports decreases. Car sales have declined by double-digit percentages over the same months in 2018.
The latest GDP figure was “definitely much lower than what we expected,” said Dharmakirti Joshi, chief economist at Crisil, an Indian ratings agency whose majority shareholder is Standard & Poor’s. Of particular worry was the weak activity in the manufacturing sector and the slowdown in private consumption, which Joshi described as the “bulwark of the Indian economy.”
CHINA
Hong Kong authorities arrested several activists on Friday, including Joshua Wong, on a variety of charges related to recent protests that have gripped the region. Wong, easily the most prominent of those arrested due to his activism , hasn’t been at the forefront of this year’s protests (he was in prison when they began) but has publicly criticized the way Hong Kong police have handled them.
Reuters reports that the Chinese government has stymied Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam’s efforts to quell the protests. A few months ago, when the demonstrators were still mostly angry about a controversial extradition bill being considered by Lam’s government, she suggested withdrawing the bill from the legislative agenda and was overruled by Beijing (the bill still hasn’t been withdrawn, only suspended). If true it illustrates how little autonomy Lam really has to govern Hong Kong.
NORTH KOREA
The US Treasury Department on Friday levied sanctions against two individuals and three firms accused of helping North Korea conduct ship-to-ship oil transfers at sea and thereby evade UN prohibitions.
AFRICA
SOMALIA
Although it faces frequent US airstrikes and an African Union mission dedicated to its destruction, al-Shabab continues to survive due in no small part to its lucrative protection racket:
Interviews with a dozen business owners in Mogadishu reveal al-Shabab’s quickly growing ability to tax the country’s most lucrative businesses, which analysts and former government officials say earns the group tens of millions of dollars per year, which it uses to fund its attacks on government and military targets, as well as on those who refuse to pay up.
In most of rural Somalia, al-Shabab is in firm control and operates a parallel government. It has its own courts, road tolls and tax collection. But that system is spreading into Somalia’s capital, undermining the legitimacy of the U.S.-backed federal government in the only city that government reliably controls.
“It is a very scary situation,” said Somali Finance Minister Abdirahman Beileh. “We have not been able to address it. It is the number one problem in this country.”
EUROPE
SERBIA
The State Department is likely to appoint Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Palmer as its new envoy to the Balkans. He’ll mostly be responsible for trying to nudge Serbia and Kosovo back into negotiations with one another, but it’s unclear how much of an effect he can be expected to have:
For some experts, Palmer’s anticipated appointment is a welcome development in a region often overlooked by top U.S. policymakers, at least since the intensive efforts made to end the deadly conflicts in the 1990s. Diplomats warn that Russia and China are expanding their influence in the Balkans, and resolving longstanding disputes in the region would help the countries move closer to the EU and Western institutions.
“The appointment of a new special envoy for the Balkans clearly indicates the United States is getting much more involved in this issue in a formal way,” said Daniel Vajdich, a foreign-policy expert who follows the region and worked on European issues as a staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and on Republican presidential campaigns. “In my view this increases the likelihood we’re going to find some sort of solution to this issue before the end of the Trump administration.”
But successive efforts by top EU leaders, including foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini, to help ease tensions between Serbia and Kosovo have so far been unsuccessful. European leaders have been hesitant to discuss adding new members to the EU, a key economic and political incentive for Serbia and Kosovo to strike a final deal, leaving some experts skeptical that a dialogue will go anywhere.
ITALY
Five Star Movement leader Luigi Di Maio almost single-handedly wrecked his party’s coalition talks with Italy’s Democratic Party (PD) on Friday, when he laid out a list of policy demands and appeared to suggest that Five Star would not compromise on any of them, even those that aren’t acceptable to the Democrats. PD leaders reacted fairly incredulously to Di Maio’s performance, which may have been less a challenge to the Democrats and more a bit of showmanship to appease Five Star party members who are uneasy about the potential coalition. The party’s official platform for negotiations doesn’t appear to be nearly as inflexible and omits Di Maio’s demand that the PD accede to a law that penalizes ships that rescue African migrants at sea. Nevertheless, the possibility of a successful coalition negotiation seems a bit less certain than it did just a day earlier.
AMERICAS
UNITED STATES
Finally, I give you Donald Trump:
Hey, sorry your rocket blew up. Best wishes!
The tweet itself is no big deal, but that photograph is a heck of a lot more detailed than anything anybody else has passed around in discussing Iran’s apparent failed satellite launch. Which means it was probably taken by something to which only the US government would normally have access:
It was not entirely clear where the president's photo came from. [Federation of American Scientists fellow Ankit] Panda believes it was most likely taken by a classified U.S. satellite. But Melissa Hanham, deputy director of the Open Nuclear Network at the One Earth Foundation, believes that the resolution is so high, it may be beyond the physical limits at which satellites can operate. "The atmosphere is thick enough that after somewhere around 11 to 9 centimeters, things get wonky," she says.
That could mean it was taken by a drone or spy plane, though such a vehicle would be violating Iranian airspace. Hanham also says that the European company Airbus has been experimenting with drones that fly so high, they are technically outside the atmosphere and thus operating outside national boundaries. But she says she doesn't know whether the U.S. has such a system.
Whatever it was, it’s a safe bet the US intelligence community would’ve preferred Trump not tweet one of its pictures. It looks like Trump took a photo of a photo, probably from a presentation of some sort. That little redaction in the top left suggests that it was cleared for public release and Trump didn’t just hit send the instant he took the photo. But that doesn’t mean anybody (other than Trump) actually thought it was a good idea to make the image public.