“They make a desert and call it peace”
– Tacitus
15 December 2016 (Paris, France) – Omar Sanadiki, a photographer for Reuters embedded in Aleppo (his photos are the most wrenching) related this story:
Aleppo has been part of human history for some five thousand years. Abraham is said to have grazed his sheep on its slopes and donated their milk to the local poor. Your ancestor Alexander the Great founded a Hellenic settlement there. The city is cited in the Book of Samuel and Psalm 60, and for centuries its residents reflected the three great Abrahamic faiths. It was at one end of the ancient Silk Road, and a major metropolis in the many empires that conquered and ruled the region. Its medieval Citadel, pivotal during the Crusades, is one of the world’s oldest and largest castles. I mean look … Shakespeare referred to Aleppo in both “Macbeth” and “Othello”!!
Now, the city is destroyed. The Old City has been gutted. The destruction has been compared to that at Stalingrad and in the Warsaw Ghetto. The savagery had become primordial.
I normally live much of my world seemingly corralled by algorithms, so when I travel to the Middle East and study the Middle East I must bring to my soul an element of chaos to a culture that continually plays its deadly, dystopian “Groundhog Day” sameness.
Washington, alongside European capitals, is reaping what it sowed in the early stages of the Syrian conflict, when it summoned neither the willpower nor the wherewithal to intervene effectively. The US and Britain made Assad’s departure central to negotiations but failed to back the forces aligned against him with sufficient muscle to make that threat real. Barack Obama drew red lines around the use of chemical weapons … but failed to police them. Well before the destruction of Aleppo, he flagged that the right of external actors to protect civilians against atrocity was an empty promise.
The fall of Aleppo marks the moment when Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian patrons have decisively gained the upper hand. It is also a moment when European and American ambitions in the country should be seen for what they are: a case study in muddled thinking. This past Tuesday, when Angela Merkel and François Hollande pledged action in the face of the “heartbreaking” humanitarian disaster unfolding on Europe’s doorstep, they were merely highlighting their impotence. Having stood by last year as Moscow intervened to save Assad’s tyrannical regime, the west has ceded influence over subsequent events. Neither Washington nor any European capital played a role in negotiating the ceasefire in which tens of thousands of civilians were promised evacuation yesterday (more on that below). Nor could western officials do much but wring their hands when Syrian government forces resumed shelling before that process had even begun.
But theirs is a pyhrric victory built on war crimes. Unable to dislodge the rebels on the ground, Russian and Syrian jets have rained bombs on them, annihilating not only armed combatants but their civilian milieu too. Ah, Tacitus. You nailed it.
And peace is the least likely of outcomes. While the rebels have been forced from their last major urban stronghold, they still number more than 100,000 and control swaths of rural Syria. The Syrian Kurds have held on to their ground. Blogged Arab-Israeli journalist Lucy Aharish:
What remains of the mainstream Sunni rebellion is now isolated and vulnerable to radicalization by better organized jihadis. Indeed, Isis has taken advantage of the assault on Aleppo to recapture the ancient city of Palmyra, underlining how difficult it will be for fragmented pro-government forces to sustain control of territory they have captured with Russian support. So long as there is no policy to address the grievances of disaffected Sunnis, Isis will attract recruits. Always has, always will.
What the sudden fall of Palmyra to Isis made clear once again is that Assad’s depleted military is now little more than a figurehead for the real forces propping him up: Russian air power, Iranian commanders and troops, Hezbollah fighters, Palestinian brigades, Iranian-trained Iraqi and Afghan militia, and Syrian paramilitary units.
And Trump? He and his advisors will struggle with the labyrinth of interests in the Middle East. For in the Middle East there exists no certainties, but a continuously evolving situation that does not allow for lasting alliances, rewards from political stances, or a clear definition of who is a friend and who is not. Today’s friend could be your enemy tomorrow and vice-versa. Often the enemy of my enemy fatally becomes my friend, albeit temporarily so. This happens because interests intersect one another and there exist no ideological common denominators, just threats that either unite or divide. Thus alliances, although unnatural, find their own peculiar logic. Donald Trump wants to reset relations with Moscow, which has forced its way back into a position of strength in the Middle East by investing firepower in Syria. Yet Russia’s main ally in that fight, and the country which has gained most from the fall of Aleppo, is on Trump’s hit list — Iran. Before Washington can build a coherent Syria policy, it will have to navigate that conundrum. And many, many, many more.
Two years ago I was in the Middle East for 2+ weeks. It was a trip bracketed by a tech conference in Tel Aviv and a tech conference in Amman. Although it was my third trip to the area, it felt like my first because I traveled extensively, across Israel and all through the West Bank, eating/shopping/talking with people in Ashkelon, Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, etc. but also Hebron, Jericho, Nablus and Ramallah. I built a solid “Rolodex” of journalist contacts. I have never been to Syria but I befriended a number of Arab journalists who have been (and still are) who had access/perspective you don’t get relying on Western media. One journalist told me the Iranians are ruthless. They love “truces” because they can use the ceasefire to achieve military targets. He noted that this week’s Russian-Turkish deal to spare the last of the opposition in Aleppo was brokered with little input from Iran or the Syrian leadership, who had controlled the battle since Russia scaled back its bombardment. Pro-Assad forces which had cornered the city’s lasted holdouts were startled by the ceasefire agreement, and were determined to transform their momentum into all-out conquest of the rebel-held areas. They wanted total destruction. So the militias resumed their offensive before dawn yesterday not long before the first of tens of thousands of trapped civilians were supposed to be evacuated. Airstrikes (believed to be Syrian) soon followed and the diplomatic “reprieve” was gone … as in all previous attempts to broker peace in Aleppo.
I won’t take the time to go through the history of the Anglo-American destruction of Iraq 1which opened the way for ISIS, compounded by the subsequent capitulation by the Obama administration. Obama remained lost in deep thought while others (the Russians, the Iranians, Hizbollah) acted decisively. Obama’s maddening naiveté … manifesting hardly for the first time during his presidency … demonstrated how poorly he understood his adversaries and emboldened them on so many fronts. Because of the natural domino effect which befalls the various middle-eastern events, the seeming convergence of interests are always a passing breeze. As my good friend and journalist Emanuele PianoIt has noted “it is not policy that alters the events, it is the events themselves that marginalize policy.” The West fully knew the role of Iran, it’s part in direct warfare on the ground and in atrocities against Sunni civilians which have only vastly inflamed sectarian tensions in the region. But “a nuclear deal” with Iran was considered paramount so our “leaders” betrayed our values and our vital interests so that a radical regime which actively sponsors radical and terrorist groups has emerged with a regional zone of influence greater than that of the U.S.
And it is also because people forget their history. Iran was once weak and impoverished after a long war with Iraq and hemmed in by hostile Sunni neighboring regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thanks to the US toppling the Taliban and Saddam Hussein regimes, Iran was free to expand and as a Shia government regime in Baghdad emerged, Iran became a regional power whose influence now stretched to Syria and even as far as Lebanon where its ally, Hezbollah was based.
But I am too holy. Remembering the track record of the U.S. and the West when it comes to desecration, we can certainly stop opining from the position of any moral supremacy. This is all, perhaps, the expected outcome after the US and Europe … causing one million unnecessary deaths and millions more displaced … created failed states in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya — ill-conceived, badly planned and poorly executed military interventions that have created a horrific “blowback” effect that will take decades to deal with. Does anybody remember Yemen? Yes, those Western bombs that are still being dropped by those lovely Saudi Sunnis onto thousands of civilians. Yep. Shared carnage abounds.
It is … bizarre. The West is exposed as incompetent, duplicitous and brazenly corrupt, with out of touch and arrogant policy makers in Washington leading to strategic confusion and defeat on the battle field. The Syrians, meanwhile, are revealed as profoundly committed … with the most ruthless, most violent, most terrifying and most competent (albeit amalgamated) military force in that region.
And gee, would now be a good time to rehash all those wonderful dinners that Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry had with Assad and his wife? When America’s left thought Assad was a future partner in the Middle East? At the very same time he was trying to develop nuclear weapons, held custody (we now know) of some of Saddam’s chemical weapons, and was arming and providing safe havens for Iraq Fedayeen that were killing American soldiers? Nah, let’s skip that part.
Trump will do no better. From my perspective, he has shown he recognizes only positions of convenience to suit his particular need at the moment to secure or distract attention. If there is one common thread in his attitude to foreign policy, it is to fawn on Russia and Putin, while striking a vigorous public pose against China on trade or Mexico on immigration or the removal of sanctions on Iran. These are poses, just like pretending to save American jobs by leaning on Carrier. He will find suitable gestures to show the easily bamboozled public that he has kept his election promises. But Putin will control him, Putin will convince him to moderate the rhetoric on Iran, the more so because Russia sold a large number of planes to Iran as soon as sanctions were lifted, and Putin has no intention of losing out on any future opportunities.
It is a bloody, hypocritical mess. Europe and US and NATO colluded with the jihadists (actively or passively) and EU citizens were rewarded with the Bataclan and Brussels tragedies. Most media seems to fail to mention the Turkish support for ISIS and others. And Turkey is a full NATO member.
Vladimir Putin’s Russia, of course, emerges from the rubble of eastern Aleppo as the global power that will stop at nothing to secure its seat at international top table. Turning Aleppo into a Grozny is just a ruthless means to Putin’s ends. As David Gardner (International Affairs Editor at the FT) blogged last week from the Carnegie Centre conference in Beirut:
Russia’s action in Syria is not really about Syria, or even about the Middle East. It’s about its global role — and eventually about a coalition of equals with the US. The Chinese are smiling.
His note about the Chinese is telling. A post-cold war generation was lulled into believing that order and predictability are part of the state of nature. BOING! That has certainly been badly shaken. Power is no longer where we thought it was. Trump has everyone guessing. Amid his Twitter fusillades he seems to have only one or two constants: he belongs to a club of Americans that sees global rules and fixed alliances as a subtraction from, rather than an addition to, US power. “Multilateralism is for wimps”. “Geopolitics is no different from business”. Trump wants to make deals, deals, deals!!
There was a wonderful cartoon in the FT this week:
Xi Jinping is heading to the World Economic Forum in Davos. It is his first visit. I do not think he is going for the champagne and canapés. It says something about the world. Where Trump wants the US to shrug off its global responsibilities. China sees an opportunity to grab an opening to move to center stage. Says Philip Stephens:
Think about it: China can cast itself as a guardian of global governance and the torchbearer for the open trading system. Mr Xi champions the Paris climate change accord, defends the international community’s nuclear deal with Iran and expands trade liberalisation in Asia and, hey presto, the bad guy is suddenly the good guy. As for China’s military manoeuvres in the South China Sea, it is the president-elect who now threatens to upend a decades-long Sino-US understanding that has kept the peace in the Taiwan Strait.
Classical geopolitical theory has it that, in a collision between established and rising powers, the upstart is the destabilising force. When the elites of Davos gather for their annual fest of self-congratulatory backslapping, it would be something of an irony were Mr Xi to appear as the voice for stability.
Nobody is saying that the US cannot stand its ground in a world in which might replaces rules as the currency of international relations. The US is still the sole superpower — and the reference point for everyone else’s foreign policy. On the other hand, discarding allies and making deals with the likes of Russian president Vladimir Putin is unlikely to advance US strategic interests.
I will admit I have given short shrift to a number of complex points. But what I have tried to do is show the first step to understanding the unravelling of the global order is to see that the new geopolitical landscape will not be drawn in straight lines. As Philip Stephens noted in a blog post:
There is a tidiness about multi-lateralism that disappears when shared rules are replaced by the interplay of competing powers.
The new order will be replete with jagged edges, regional pacts and overlapping, sometimes contradictory, alliances, and micro-conflicts. And chaos. As the late historian Tony Judt noted in his last book “Ill Fares the Land” (my dog-eared copy re-read this week – for the umpteenth time):
“The true sources of insecurity in decades to come will be those that most of us cannot define: dramatic climate change and its social and environmental effects; imperial decline and its attendant ‘small wars’; collective political impotence in the face of distant upheavals with disruptive local and then global impact. These are the threats that chauvinist politicians will be best placed to exploit, but precisely because they lead so readily to anger and humiliation and so easily exploited.”