World update: August 8 2019
Stories from Lebanon, Kashmir, and more
THESE DAYS IN HISTORY
August 7, 1819: Simón Bolívar’s victory over colonial Spanish forces at the Battle of Boyacá allows his forces to seize Bogotá and secure the independence of the colony of New Granada (roughly Colombia, Ecuador, and Panama). It’s considered one of the first key battles in Bolívar’s campaign to liberate the whole of northern South America.
August 7, 1946: The Soviet Union informs the Turkish government that its management of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus has been detrimental to other Black Sea countries (i.e., the Soviets themselves) and that it would seek to reopen international negotiations on the subject. This was the main event of the Turkish Straits Crisis and pushed Turkey to drop its neutrality and align itself with the US. It was also a key factor in the development of the Truman Doctrine, about which FX subscribers can read more here.
August 7, 1964: Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing the use of military force in Vietnam. And they all lived happily ever after.
August 8, 1264: Muslim subjects in the city of Jerez, in the Kingdom of Castile, revolt and seize control of the Alcázar of Jerez de la Frontera. This is the first major event of the 1264-1266 Mudéjar Revolt (mudéjar at this point would have referred to any Iberian Muslim who remained in a city or town that had been conquered by Christians and became a subject of one of the Christian Iberian kingdoms). The uprising was supported by the Emirate of Granada but eventually gave way. Muslim communities in Murcia and lower Andalusia were ethnically cleansed by the victorious Christians.
August 8, 1988: Hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of protesters engage in demonstrations and civil disobedience across Myanmar (then Burma) to protest the ruling Burma Socialist Programme Party’s repression, corruption, and economic mismanagement. The 8888 Uprising, as it’s known, ended with a military coup in mid-September and the imposition of the military government that ruled Myanmar until 2011 and in some ways still rules it today. So, mission not really accomplished. But it was a coming out party of sorts for future Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. This was of course well before she became complicit in ethnic cleansing.
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
The emerging deal that the US and Turkey have reached to create a safe zone in northern Syria was negotiated, notably, without the input of any actual Syrians. And it seems to be getting a mixed reception from them. The Syrian government, for example, says it “categorically and clearly rejects the agreement.” Syrian Kurds, on the other hand, seem to be keeping a more open mind, with one Kurdish politician telling AFP that the agreement “may mark the start of a new approach but we still need more details.” Details are in short supply, however. Specifically, neither the Turks nor the US have explained how wide this safe zone will be, nor have they specified whether it will be jointly patrolled by Turkish and US forces or just patrolled by the Turks. That said, the Kurds may now have to swallow whatever deal Washington has negotiated—Damascus seems to be blaming them in part for the safe zone project, so the chances of a Kurdish rapprochement with Bashar al-Assad don’t seem terribly high right now.
YEMEN
The death toll from Wednesday’s fighting between southern separatist fighters and presidential guards in Aden has been revised upward to three, and at least one more person—a bystander—joined them as the two groups continued fighting on Thursday. According to Reuters there are signs of an increasing Saudi military presence in the city, which is understandable as they move in to fill the vacuum created when the UAE withdrew most of its forces from Yemen, but could also be a sign that they’re moving to quash the infighting.
IRAQ
Turkish media is reporting that the Turkish military has killed two more people believed to have been involved in the murder of a Turkish diplomat in Erbil last month. The Turks killed them in an airstrike somewhere in Iraqi Kurdistan last week.
LEBANON
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri believes he’s close to settling the latest crisis to grind Lebanese politics to a halt. The current standoff stems from a shooting incident in the Chouf Mountains back on June 30, in which two aides to Saleh al-Gharib, state minister for refugee affairs, were killed. That led to a dispute between Walid Jumblatt, Lebanon’s most prominent Druze politician and leader of the Progressive Socialist Party, and Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, who was supposed to visit the Chouf region that day but canceled in part because of Jumblatt’s opposition.
Gharib is a member of the March 8 Alliance, along with Bassil (and Hezbollah), while Jumblatt is part of the rival March 14 Alliance (along with Hariri and his Future Movement). Jumblatt claims that Gharib’s bodyguards opened fire on a group of protesters, triggering the incident, and accused Bassil of inflaming tensions by dredging up a longstanding Druze-Christian feud in the Chouf district. Bassil and his allies, on the other hand, are suggesting that either Gharib or Bassil was the target of an assassination attempt, perhaps by somebody affiliated with Jumblatt. The conflict has made it impossible for Hariri to even assemble his cabinet, though he’s apparently feeling better after a meeting Thursday with President Michel Aoun, Bassil’s father in-law and the leader of the March 8 bloc.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
An Israeli soldier and seminary student was found stabbed to death outside a West Bank settlement on Thursday, prompting a manhunt over what Israeli authorities are characterizing as a terrorist attack. As far as I can tell there have been no arrests as yet in connection with the killing.
The US military says it’s expressed concern over a $2 billion Israeli deal with the Shanghai International Port Group that would give the Chinese government-owned firm control over Haifa Port by 2021. Haifa is a port of call for the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet, so there are security concerns at having its operations run by a company owned by Beijing. Israel has cut a few infrastructure deals with China as part of the Belt and Road Initiative, but the Haifa deal is particularly sensitive given the implications for the Pentagon. The Israeli government says it’s included protections in the Haifa port deal that would secure military operations there, but the Navy is nevertheless already rethinking its use of the facility.
EGYPT
The Egyptian interior ministry claims that its security forces have killed 17 militants in raids in Cairo and in Fayoum province. It didn’t say when the raids took place or offer details on how the alleged militants were killed except that it happened in “gun battles.” Egyptian forces have faced scrutiny from international human rights organizations for staging extrajudicial executions to look like firefights. The 17 people in question were (again, allegedly) linked to the Hasm organization, which the Egyptians claim is a violent offshoot of the banned Muslim Brotherhood. They’ve accused Hasm of involvement in a bombing in Cairo on Monday that killed at least 20 people. The bomber, whose identity Egyptian officials say they determined from DNA at the scene, is also allegedly a Hasm member.
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
At LobeLog, Esfandyar Batmanghelidj explains Dubai’s economic dependence on Iranian investment and why that may be influencing the UAE’s recent moves to reduce its tensions with Tehran:
Dubai, an entrepôt where the workers are migrants and where property is king, is especially vulnerable to global recessions. In the immediate aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2009, Dubai’s real estate market collapsed, threatening insolvency for several banks and major development companies, some of them state-linked. Abu Dhabi, which controls the UAE’s vast oil wealth, threw Dubai a lifeline with an initial $10 billion bailout, later expanded to $20 billion.
But there was a second, hidden “bailout” that helped keep Dubai afloat. When the Bush administration enacted the Iran Sanctions Act in 2006, deepening Iran’s economic turmoil under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, there was a significant increase in the already significant volume of capital flight from Iran, most of which landed in Dubai. One 2009 estimate places the total value of Iranian investments in Dubai at $300 billion.
US sanctions and Abu Dhabi’s hostility toward Iran have drastically curtailed the Dubai-Iran relationship in recent years. But with signs of another potential financial crash on the horizon and Dubai already starting to feel the effects, UAE leaders may be feeling the need to put business before politics.
SAUDI ARABIA
The Houthis say they launched two drone attacks against Saudi Arabia’s Abha airport on Thursday, while the Saudis have said they intercepted a Houthi drone. This presumably leaves at least one drone out there, though there have been no reports of an attack on the airport as far as I can tell.
An estimated 1.8 million pilgrims are in Saudi Arabia at the moment for the annual Hajj, which starts on Friday and will last for five days. Saudi authorities are cautioning pilgrims to focus on the pilgrimage and leave geopolitics aside, which seems like sensible advice. This will be the first time their new high speed Mecca-Medina railway, part of the infrastructure improvements being made as part of the kingdom’s Vision 2030 economic development plan, will be used in the pilgrimage (a visit to Medina is not technically a part of the Hajj but many pilgrims avail themselves of the opportunity to do so.
ASIA
KYRGYZSTAN
The second time was the charm, apparently, for Kyrgyz security forces looking to arrest former president Almazbek Atambayev. After a botched raid on his home on Wednesday left one security officer dead and dozens of people wounded, their second, apparently much bigger, effort succeeded, and Atambayev is now in custody. The question now is how his supporters are going to react. There were reports of clashes between them and police on the road between Atambayev’s compound and Bishkek, just as there were reports of clashes around the ex president’s house while police were making their arrest. There haven’t been any reports of casualties thus far stemming from Thursday’s festivities.
Another question is what authorities now plan to do with Atambayev. Where previously he was wanted for questioning in a corruption investigation, now he may very well be charged with something relating to the initial raid.
AFGHANISTAN
Taliban leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada said in a statement released on Thursday that “the increasing blind and brutal bombings by America” have “generated a cloud of uncertainty” around US-Taliban peace talks. This is interesting insofar as the Taliban just murdered at least 14 people in Kabul on Wednesday. Regardless, it does indicate that perhaps those negotiations aren’t as close to a breakthrough as it’s seemed for the past couple of weeks.
Speaking of which, anybody hoping for a successful Afghan peace deal should probably hope the Taliban doesn’t read Foreign Policy:
At the negotiating table, the war with the Taliban may be nearing a formal end. “We have made excellent progress,” U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad tweeted on Monday, suggesting he was close to “completing a potential deal with the Taliban that would allow for a conditions-based [U.S.] troop withdrawal.” But, quietly, the CIA is making plans to leave behind proxy forces that will remain long after any formal U.S. pullout. And in the long run, these forces could be a wild card that determines that extent of Taliban influence in post-NATO Afghanistan—and possibly even the survival of the government in Kabul, which is not current party to the peace talks.
The Khost Protection Force is apparently “the most prominent” of several groups like this, and they seem really cool what with how they’re not really accountable to anybody and are free to brutalize civilians pretty much on a whim. On second thought, the Taliban probably appreciates groups like this, since their one reliable effect of their frequent excesses is to drive people away from the government and toward the insurgents.
KASHMIR
The Pakistani government insists it’s not looking to make a military response to India’s decision to revoke Kashmir’s provincial autonomy. Which doesn’t mean there’s not going to be a war, just that Islamabad is at least claiming not to want one. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Indian forces have now arrested some 500 Kashmiris since announcing the change in legal status, dozens of people have reportedly been wounded in clashes with police and many are believed to have been killed, and just about everybody else is stuck in place by an Indian security lockdown that’s closed stores and cut off communications across the region. On the plus side, a bunch of Indian men suddenly seem very excited about the possibility of marrying a Kashmiri woman. Yeah, cool, that’s not creepy or anything.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday made his first public remarks since the crackdown, promising that the legal change would bring a stronger local economy, improved security, and reduced corruption. He promised that people would want to shoot movies in Kashmir, so that’s nice. He even suggested that Kashmir could regain its autonomous statehood at some indeterminate future time, presumably after he’s changed its demographics.
INDIA
University of Westminster professor Dibyesh Anand argues that what’s happening in Kashmir is just a “dress rehearsal” for the Hindu supremacist project that Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party have planned for the whole of India:
The Hindu nationalism that fuels the BJP portrays Hindus—who make up 80 percent of the population—as involved in a long-term battle against numerous enemies: Muslims, Christians, communists, and secularists. Modi is imagined as a conquering leader who will overcome these foes, avenge humiliations suffered by the supposed Hindu nation over centuries, and rebuild a strong Hindu India where the threat of communism is extinguished; religious minorities are domesticated, expelled, or exterminated; and pluralist secularism is rejected as “minority-appeasing pseudo-secularism” while the acceptance of Hindu supremacy in India is seen as real secularism.
Kashmir has long played a critical part in this mythology.
AFRICA
ALGERIA
Carnegie Endowment resident scholar Dalia Ghanem notes that the Algerian military’s political prominence since the resignation of former president Abdelaziz Bouteflika is really more a return to the norm than something out of the ordinary:
This is not a new role for Algeria’s military. The army fought French colonialism and liberated the country in the 1960s, participated in its socio-economic development in the 1970s, answered to the nationwide protests in the 1980s and protected its territorial integrity in the 1990s. Throughout these periods, depending on the situation, the army oscillated between direct interventionism and limited withdrawal.
For instance, in 1978 at the death of the president, the military mediated among different civilian groups fighting for succession. The military installed a candidate chosen by consensus — and eventually returned to its barracks. But military interventionism reached its peak in 1988, 1992 — and throughout the “Black Decade,” when a bloody armed conflict between the authorities and several Islamist militant groups shook the country from 1991 until 2001.
But when Bouteflika came to power in 1999, the military pulled back from politics after securing ample budget and immunity for the human rights violations that took place during the decade-long civil war.
EUROPE
CYPRUS
The Turkish government has now sent a third ship to drill for offshore oil and gas in Cyprus’s territorial waters. This remains illegal under all but Ankara’s…oh, let’s call it “unique” interpretation of international law, but as with everything else about international law there’s really no way to enforce it and therefore it’s more a guideline than a requirement.
RUSSIA
Something odd seems to have happened on Thursday morning near the northern Russian city of Severodvinsk, which is also near one of the Russian military’s main missile testing sites. A rocket engine reportedly exploded during a test fire, killing two people. Tragic, but not odd. But shortly after the explosion there were reports of a radiation spike in Severodvinsk, reports that were denied by Russian authorities. Radiation levels came back down about an hour later, but nevertheless Russian officials have reportedly closed the area around the accident to civilian ships for the next month. So yeah, odd. The simplest explanation, probably, would be that the explosion took place aboard a nuclear powered ship or a ship carrying nuclear fuel, and there are concerns about fallout. The missile itself might have been nuclear-powered—the Russians are supposedly working on at least one nuclear-powered cruise missile. Or maybe a little from column A and a little from column B:
ITALY
Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini on Thursday finally decided to put an end to Italy’s flailing coalition government, pulling his League party out of its partnership with the Five Star Movement and calling for a new election. The League is in political ascendence, having just won Italy’s European parliamentary election, and would likely emerge from a new election in a substantially stronger position than it’s in now. His partnership with Five Star is fracturing all over the place, with the two parties most recently at odds over whether to proceed with a major rail project (Salvini got his way and the project moved forward). Salvini has much to gain and probably very little to risk losing in taking this step.
Matteo Salvini (Wikimedia Commons)
On top of that, Italian President Sergio Mattarella—who gets the final say in terms of whether and when to hold a new vote—has been signaling that any change in government needs to happen before the fall, when it will be time to work out Italy’s 2020 budget. It may even be too late for Mattarella now, in which case he could try to cobble together a different governing coalition (this would be exceedingly unlikely but is not mathematically impossible). He could also try to delay the election and install an interim technocratic government to work out the budget in the meantime, but that government would have to be able to survive a confidence vote in parliament.
AMERICAS
BRAZIL
Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes ruled on Thursday that Jair Bolsonaro’s government cannot investigate The Intercept or Glenn Greenwald for its reporting on the possibly unethical conduct of Justice Minister Sérgio Moro. The Intercept has uncovered evidence that Moro steered the prosecution of former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, preventing Lula from running for the presidency last year, when he should have been impartially presiding over it. The ruling should open more space for The Intercept to pursue its investigation.
UNITED STATES
Finally, there are a couple more personnel changes within the Trump administration worth noting. Kimberly Breier, previously Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, has resigned, the fourth assistant secretary to do so this year. It’s being rumored that Breier resigned after being dressed down by White House ghoul Stephen Miller for failing to robustly defend the administration’s indefensible agreement to dump asylum seekers in Guatemala, but she’s claiming it’s for “family reasons.” Meanwhile, President Trump is naming Joseph Maguire, Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, as his new interim Director of National Intelligence. He replaces departing DNI Dan Coats, who according to protocol should be replaced by his principle deputy, Sue Gordon. But Trump wants a “political loyalist” in the DNI job, and so Gordon is also resigning. Trump had wanted to replace Coats with Representative John Ratcliffe, before it emerged that Ratcliffe has been lying about his national security background and really didn’t have any qualifications for the job.