Making Sense of Vladimir Putin’s Long Game

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The authors imply that the same impulses motivate the Russian people, and that the president is leading a popular movement. Nothing could be further from the truth. Putin is an opportunist, a kleptomaniac, a thug and a mafia boss. If he were leading a popular movement, he would allow free elections. But he does not, preferring killing, poisoning and imprisoning anyone who dares to stand against him. Vladimir Putin is motivated only by survival.

Restoring Greatness

The current crisis revolves around Ukraine, which Putin contends is not only an integral part of Russia but more resonantly the site of the original Kingdom of Rus and the wellspring of the Russian peoples. Incidentally, the word “Rus” is cognate with “rower” and refers to the Vikings who came to the region from present-day Sweden in long boats. In 882, Kyiv was taken by Prince Oleg who established the first Rus dynasty.

This conquest is embedded in Russian consciousness, and many Russians consider Kyiv and the surrounding lands as an essential part of the motherland. However, over a long and complicated history, Ukraine has had many different rulers. For generations, Ukraine and Russia have had separate identities, and even Joseph Stalin, at the end of World War II, that Ukraine was independent and should be granted separate membership with a vote at the UN. Most Ukrainians have always longed for independence from Moscow’s rule.

A stronger influence on Putin’s and many Russians’ thinking is the humiliation wrought by the Germans in 1917 with the enforcement of the Brest Litovsk Treaty. In 1917, Vladimir Lenin was determined to get Russia out of the Great War at any price. The Germans exacted crushing terms and took the Baltic states, Ukraine and Belarus from Russia. It was a disaster.

Fast forward to 2022, and the borders of that treaty are almost identical to the current borders of NATO, plus Ukraine and Belarus. If Ukraine were to join NATO (or the EU), then from Putin’s point of view, Moscow would be back at its lowest point of the past 200 years and, worse, Germany would have prevailed after all.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union still actively haunting the Kremlin’s collective consciousness — President Putin it the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century” — many Russians have sympathy for the contention that the West has taken unfair advantage of ¸éłÜ˛ő˛őľ±˛ąâ€™s weakness and betrayed alleged promises made to Mikhail Gorbachev at the end of the Cold War regarding NATO’s eastward expansion. Putin is naturally determined that the final act — Ukraine’s absorption into the West — does not happen on his watch.

What is more, he thinks he has identified an emotional, nationalistic issue which he can use to divert the Russian population from his failures. But Russia is, in fact, on the back foot, trying to avoid another humiliation, not restoring its greatness.

Weakness and Decline

Looking south, Russia has lost many of the territories it gained during the wars with Turkey and Iran in the 19^th century. Armenia and Azerbaijan have not joined NATO, but Georgia would like to. Here too, Putin is trying to fend off more humiliation.

Moving east, the Taliban victory in Afghanistan is another disaster for the Kremlin. One of the main reasons, or the least bad option at the time, for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 was to halt the rise of militant Islam that threatened to infect the Muslim states of the USSR, principally Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. You can bet Moscow is worried sick about the effect on its near abroad and the possibility of the Chechens, Dagestanis and Tartars rising up again with Taliban support. 

Even farther east, Putin is on dangerous ground. Just over 8 million live in the , which, at nearly 7 million square kilometers, makes up over 40% of ¸éłÜ˛ő˛őľ±˛ąâ€™s territory. The regional capital Vladivostok sits on land taken from China in 1860 and is regarded by Beijing as one of the , along with Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Migration from China into the region has been an issue for decades, prompting nationalist nightmares of a .

Putin may be cozying up to China, but from a position of weakness. Russia cannot cope with a hostile Beijing that may eventually want to recover territory, or more. Putin may be pursuing friendship and alliances with China but he is dancing to Xi Jinping’s tune.

Vladimir Putin’s failures have led Russia into economic and national decline. The population is shrinking and is to drop to 135 million in 2050 from today’s 146 million. is about $1.7 trillion, lower than Italy’s and minuscule compared to the US at over $20 trillion. The economy is wholly dependent on oil and gas exports in a decarbonizing world. Moreover, it is laden with punitive sanctions. There is not one single Russian company that has any sort of global presence to rival the likes of Coca-Cola, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Volkswagen, Samsung or Rolls Royce.

Still Dangerous

Much is made of the bungled reform of the Russian economy after the fall of the USSR, but Putin has now been in power for over 20 years and has done nothing — in fact, worse than nothing — to rectify matters. Instead, he has enriched himself and his henchmen enormously. Putin is now one of the , with critics estimating a fortune of some $200 billion. Meanwhile, in Russia is a little over $10,000 per annum, ranked 81^st in the world by the World Bank, below China.

Putin has one overriding motivation — to stay in power. His crimes are so enormous that he fears terrible retribution should he ever lose his grip. Like all totalitarian dictators, he knows that he can only be replaced by whoever kills him.

Putin has to play a skillful hand. He is diverting attention to overseas adventures and playing on Russian emotions. Moscow cannot possibly hope to win a conventional war, being massively outgunned by the West. Even the UK outspends Russia on defense, and ¸éłÜ˛ő˛őľ±˛ąâ€™s $48 billion is puny compared to the $768 billion by Washington.

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But Putin is still dangerous; he plays dirty and asymmetrically, using cyberattacks, election interference, irregular forces and acts of terrorism. Even a dismembered and impoverished state can wreak havoc. Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and Iran’s missile attacks on Saudi oil facilities are recent examples.

Russia is in a weakened state and becoming ever weaker. There is no grand plan for the restoration of imperial greatness or even the USSR. The game is survival and Putin’s own skin — and fortune. The West can play this game too. We have long experience of dealing with bullies, megalomaniacs and totalitarians. China too is watching carefully, and President Xi knows where his advantage lies.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post For Vladimir Putin, Survival Is All That Matters appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Harry and Meghan: In Pursuit of Wealth and Luxury

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Queen Elizabeth II and her family live atop a rigid hierarchy of rank and class awareness that pervades and rots British culture. Under the queen, there is a strict pecking order: princes, dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, barons, baronets, knights, followed by the confetti of orders of chivalry handed out to the deserving common folk who have rendered the monarch a service. A network of lord lieutenants — representatives of the queen — reside in every British county to manage the royal patronage at the local level. There are also the hierarchies of the charities and institutions — the Royal Ballet, The Royal National Theater, the Church of England, military regiments and so on — that the queen and her relatives “patronize” (in this instance, an appropriate use of that adjective).

Beyond the aristocratic titles are the untitled gentry compiled in two listings, and . These contain the names and biographies of the “good” families and are the studbooks for the anxious parents of socially ambitious children. The gentry — the old, landed families of England — know who they are and, even if they do not have titles, jealously guard their status. They also make sure their entries in Burke’s are up to date. These families all know each other, mix at the same events, attend the same schools and ensure their offspring marry each other to keep the money and land where it should be. Sometimes, even aristocratic families lose their money and are reduced to earning their living like the rest of us. But they do not lose their status. They may be poor, but they are still upper class. Bloodlines count.

When a complete outsider, Meghan Markle, turned up as Prince Harry’s girlfriend, the questions from his relatives were not about color, race or even money. The questions were: “Does she come from a good family? Do our people know her people? Is she related to the Shropshire Markles? Isn’t that a German name? Perhaps one of the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha cousins might know her?” The questions were about “family.”

None of the answers to any of the questions helped Meghan. The fact that she was beautiful, charming, poised and successful counted for little. Unfortunately for her, the Windsors and the courtiers had already decided that she came from a bad family. Not only that, but divorced and an actress — that word deliberately used rather than “actor.” The gossip picked up from the royal circles was that Meghan’s parents were “common” and “related to no one.” When no senior male relative or even family friend could be found to walk Meghan down the aisle, it just further confirmed her lack of “breeding.”

Even worse, Meghan was given the clear impression that her family was so embarrassing that only her mother could be invited to the wedding. The chatter among the Windsors and the well-connected classes was not about race but about how Harry had married so much beneath him. No wonder Meghan felt an outsider.

Kate Middleton, the duchess of Cambridge, shares much with Meghan — and she knows it. Her family is not of ancient lineage, and her relatives, if not embarrassing, are whispered in palace circles to be, “How shall one say — not our sort of people.” When they were dating, Prince William told his well-born friends to stop saying “doors to automatic” every time his girlfriend came in the room — a reference to the fact Kate’s mother had been a British Airways flight attendant and that William was obviously slumming it. Kate has become acutely aware that she has to disown her past. Meghan is her own person and not willing to do that.

Race is not the problem. The corrosive class consciousness of the British is the issue. The first step to root out this cancer is to abolish the monarchy.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post What Meghan Markle Failed to Understand About the British Monarchy appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

How did we reach this point? The story begins on May 29, 1453, a Tuesday, with the moon in its final crescent quarter. Constantinople had been under siege for months, and tens of thousands of Turks were outside its massive impregnable walls. Inside were just 50,000 remaining Greeks, including the last Roman Emperor Constantine XI, or Constantine Paleologos. There were only 7,000 armed men, outnumbered at least 10 to one by the Turks. The Greeks had fresh water and could grow enough food within the walls to feed themselves. They could hold out. However, in the early hours of that morning, a Greek raiding party left the city to harry the sleeping Turks.

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On the way back into the city through a narrow entrance, the Kerkoporta, the last Greek in forgot to lock the door. The Turks followed them, opened the main gates, and Mehmet II’s Janissaries poured in. The Byzantine empire was no more.

Two days of looting, rape and blood-letting followed. According to custom, three days were allowed, but it was so awful that Mehmet stopped it after two. To commemorate the conquest, Mehmet added the crescent moon to the Ottoman flag, and since then, Tuesday remains the unluckiest day of the week for the Greeks. No Greek gets married on a Tuesday, and any Greek looking at the Turkish flag with the crescent moon is reminded of that calamity.

Consent to Be Ruled

The intervening 469 years were not of uninterrupted peace and stability, but the Ottomans did provide an overarching continuity of rule over the region. The legitimacy of the sultan and the caliph was accepted by all of the Sunni Muslim world. Ottoman rule over Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq and what is now Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states provided stability and a common rule of law. The Turks were not loved — they were authoritarian and brutal — but there was some consent to be ruled.

On November 17, 1922, the last sultan, Mehmet VI, was loaded onto a British warship, HMS Malaya, and sent off to exile in Malta and later Italy, never to return. He was allowed to take his four official wives with him, all of them Turkish. However, there were still about 400 concubines from all over the world in the Topkapi hareem. A young British officer was dispatched to the palace with a sack of gold sovereigns to pay the women off. Each got one sovereign for every year of service. 

The Ottoman defeat and collapse of the empire after the First World War created a vacuum in the Middle East that the British and the French in particular wanted to exploit. The infamous negotiated in 1916 was the plan to carve up the carcass of the Ottoman lands between Britain, France and Russia. Russia, as party to the treaty, was to get Constantinople and surrounding lands, all of Armenia and parts of the Black Sea, but lost its place at the table after the 1917 revolution ended its participation in the war.   

Vladimir Lenin’s new Soviet government found the Russian copy of the treaty and it. A century before WikiLeaks, this was deeply embarrassing to the British who were telling the leaders of the Arab revolt that they were fighting the Turks for Arab independence. The Turks lost no time in giving as much publicity to the treaty as possible and telling the Arabs that they had been deceived into fighting with Christians against their own Muslim caliph. Although this had some effect, causing some Arab tribes to change sides, it was too late, and the Turks were expelled. The Arabs were indeed betrayed and, instead of the Arab kingdom they had been promised, they were divided into British and French protectorates. 

The First War of Succession

The Brits and the French may have carved up the Ottoman Empire, but they soon came to regret it. Although they installed their own or client regimes in all the Ottoman provinces, there was little peace and certainly no profit for the Europeans. Enver Pasha, an Ottoman general and hero of the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the future first president of modern Turkey, led the nationalist war to expel the British and other allied powers from Turkey proper. The British and their allies had intended to carve up mainland Turkey itself as well as the Ottoman Arab possessions. When Enver Pasha prevailed, the Treaty of Sevres was torn up and the Treaty of Lausanne, negotiated in 1922-23, established present-day Turkey as the successor to the Ottoman state. It also forced Turkey to renounce all claims to former Ottoman lands. 

The Arabs in all the new colonial possessions of the British and French were restless. This was particularly true in Palestine, where the British ruled. In 1917, the British government had issued the Balfour Declaration expressing support for a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. That year, the British were losing the war because German U-boats were sinking a large number of ships bringing food and supplies from America. Britain was being strangled. The one area where the British — with Arab help — were winning was in Palestine. Former UK Prime Minister Arthur Balfour saw an opportunity to leverage the Jewish American vote to bring the United States into the war. It worked.

But with the British now in control of Palestine, the Zionists insisted that the UK live up to its promise. Large numbers of Jews began to arrive in Palestine. This caused conflict between newly arrived Jews, the indigenous Arabs and the hapless British, who were supposed to keep the peace. Ethnic unrest and independence movements grew in the other provinces. The British and French rule did not last: Both powers gave up or were forced out by a series of nationalist uprisings in the 1940s and 1950s.

In the period between 1920 and 1925, Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud led a successful series of wars to establish the new Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In 1945, the Saudi king held a with US President Franklin D. Roosevelt on board the USS Quincy in the Suez Canal that marked the beginning of the ambitions of the latest would-be successor to the Ottomans — the United States. At the same time, the Soviet Union was also eyeing the spoils, and while neither great power was able to take control of the Ottoman lands, their division between the two great rivals provided some stability, but not a permanent solution. 

The Second War of Succession

The Russians had missed an opportunity both before and after the Sykes-Picot affair but have not lost their interest. The leftist revolutions in Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Algeria gave them an entrée, as did the sharpening Arab-Israeli conflict that put the US on the wrong side as far as the front-line Arab states were concerned. Russian arms sales, economic assistance, trade deals and leftist solidarity were all employed in what would become one of the theaters of the Cold War. At stake was control of the oil fields and trade routes through the Persian Gulf and the Suez Canal. If the USSR gained total control, it would have given it a stranglehold on the West.

While the Cold War rivalry lasted, there was some stability — or at least an absence of an all-out conflict, though the Yom Kippur War of 1973 tested this fragile equilibrium almost to destruction. The origins of the Yom Kippur War were not in great-power rivalry but local feuding — in this case, the struggle for land between Arabs and Israelis — but it was super-power hegemony that stopped the war. At one point, US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger moved America’s military stance to DEFCON3 — ready for nuclear war.

The USSR backed down, and a truce was agreed. While the balance of power between the USSR and the West held, in the Middle East, as elsewhere, low-intensity cold conflicts ensued, with no one winning overall control. The continuing retreat of British and French interests accelerated, and the US and the USSR competed for successor rights.

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 was a shock. Iran had been America’s main proxy in the region. The Arabs opposed its ambitions, but Iran had been favored by the US as a bulwark against Soviet encroachment. The Sunni nations with sizable Shia populations saw the revolution as a major threat. They feared, rightly, that the Iranians would want to export not just the ideas of their revolution but also the facts. Iran agitated among the Shia in Iraq, Bahrein and Saudi Arabia, and sought to expel US influence from the region by launching terrorist attacks on US installations.

Saddam Hussein particularly feared the Shia majority in Iraq and, with encouragement from the Sunni Arabs and the US, invaded Iran in 1980. But his war aims were thwarted. The revolutionary Iranian regime survived; in fact; the country unified behind it. The war lasted until 1988 and ended with Iraq’s defeat. The Iraqis had been supported financially by all the Arab states as well as provided with logistics and intelligence by the United States and its allies. The US was reluctant to become directly involved, and so were the Russians. It had been a local war, held within bounds.

The Iran-Iraq War was an example of the instability resulting from the absence of an overall peace settlement in the region. It did have one remarkable result: All the petrodollar surpluses built up by the Arab and Iranian oil exports since the quintupling of oil prices in 1975 flowed back into the West. By the time the war was over, all of the Middle Eastern oil exporting nations’ foreign exchange reserves were exhausted while Western economies were booming.

The Third War of Succession

The fall of empires continued. The USSR collapsed in December 1991 after rotting from economic failure and internal rivalries for years. The Soviet contraction and internal focus also meant a retreat from its overseas interests and the Middle East in particular. In Europe, NATO and then the EU lost no time moving into what had been the Warsaw Pact, a number of former Russian satellites and USSR republics to be part of the alliance, taking membership from 19 to 26 in its eastward expansion.

In the Middle East, none of this happened — a missed opportunity. The partial order the Cold War had imposed on the region was gone, and, once again, local rivalries erupted without the moderating influence of either one of the two global superpowers to temper them. 

In 1990, Saddam Hussein attempted to extort billions of dollars from Kuwait to replenish his reserves that had been exhausted by the war with Iran. When Kuwait refused, Iraq invaded, without the international community trying to restrain the aggression, and the First Gulf War began. Kuwait had allies that eventually came to its defense. But as soon as Iraqi forces had been expelled, they departed, leaving a regional vacuum still unfilled, with no general peace settlement.

The defeat of Saddam Hussein gave the Iranians a golden opportunity to meddle in Iraqi Shia politics. The situation in Iraq festered, and the absence of any stabilizing force eventually led to the second US intervention in 2003. The chaos that this fateful invasion produced was again an enabler for the Iranians to fill the vacuum that emerged after Iraq’s dictator was overthrown. By now, Iran’s focus has shifted from its zeal to export the revolution toward more realist politics. The rise of Iranian nationalism since the Iran-Iraq War had replaced revolutionary idealism with national interests — an overriding policy that prevails to this day. Here, yet again, Washington failed to seize the initiative and establish a general peace settlement or a Pax Americana. 

The Fourth War of Succession

The Arab Spring, a series of revolutions and counterrevolutions that first ignited in Tunisia in 2010 before spreading throughout the region, set off a cycle of civil wars that are still with us. These conflicts flourished in the vacuum left by the collapse of regimes such as in Libya or Yemen, inviting intervention of regional players.

The current situation is typical. We have civil wars in Libya, Syria and Yemen, and in each case, local powers are interfering in order to win a supposed tactical advantage. Russia is in the category of a local player; it no longer has the overall superpower or imperial advantage it had but, like Turkey, it wields enough military force to make a nuisance.

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The civil war in Libya may worsen if Turkey and the UAE on one side, and Russia on the other, escalate their involvement. Syria, still engulfed in a decade-long civil war, has been carved up into Turkish, Russian, Syrian government and Iranian zones. Iraq appears to have slipped even more into the Iranian orbit. The slow US exit from Iraq and Afghanistan — the latter to the evident satisfaction of the undefeated Taliban — will further encourage struggles for a share of power. 

The decline of US interest in the region is driven by the decreasing importance of oil and gas. In addition, the threat of regional domination by the USSR, or now Russia, has vanished. Public fatigue with the appalling loss of life, money and prestige the US has endured over the last 20 years has soured any appetite for further overseas wars. Arms deals and attractive opportunities for investment are declining, highlighted by the anxiety the Saudis are showing in trying to drum up disinterested foreign direct investment. The only motivators for continued US involvement are the security of Israel and the possibility that Iran, unchecked, may emerge as the local superpower.

More War or Peace?

Former US President Donald Trump’s policy was to try to force regime change in Iran. The campaign of maximum pressure to drive oil exports to zero, foment unrest and impose hardship was promoted as a way to push the Iranians back to the negotiating table and make more concessions in order to resuscitate the nuclear deal. The reality was that Trump sought the destruction of the regime. Despite enormous hardship, Iran did not buckle. It has a structural advantage: an educated and innovative population with well-balanced demographics, a diversified economy, fertile and productive agriculture, mineral resources and, of course, abundant hydrocarbons. It is a sleeping giant of an economy.

Moreover, in almost every other sphere, from historical legacy, self-sufficient industry, military prowess, agriculture, architecture, food, to art, poetry and literature, Iran has been the dominant cultural influence in the region since the Seljuk empire — the same empire that brought the Ottomans, a Seljuk offshoot, to Turkey. History may again be moving in Tehran’s direction.

The failed US, Israeli, Saudi and Emirati policy of pressure on Iran was tactical, not strategic. It had a short-term objective of regime change which, if reached, would actually accelerate the loss of US interest in the region and further underline the retreat of the most recent would-be successor to the Ottomans. Another vacuum is developing and, unchecked by binding treaties, Iran could regain its position as the major power in the region. Before Iran attempts to become the Ottoman successor, it is in the interest of all the other countries in the region to reach a general settlement. 

Instead of examining short-term tactics based only on hatred or fear of the current Iranian regime, there is a need for a strategic view. Since the collapse of the Ottomans, the Middle East has seen continuous fighting, on and off, among international powers and regional players for the remnants of empire. The British and the French have come and gone, the US and Russia have come and are retreating — although they do intervene on a tactical basis here and there, usually leaving a worse situation than the one they found.

The Americans are clearly in the final stages of disengagement, driven, in part, by that declining need to keep the region and its oil in the Western camp. The power vacuum is growing, and if the sanctions are lifted, Iran will be back in business. The unity of Iraq and Syria is in question, Lebanon is a failed state and the future of the Saudi regime is not secure given the failure of the Vision 2030 initiative and the outlook for oil in a decarbonizing world economy. Turkey is eyeing the opportunities, as is Russia. Both have historical claims to Ottoman lands.

But there is very little likelihood that any big power might be willing or able to assert sovereign rule over the Middle East. Even thinking about this is to court accusations of neo-colonialism. The solution lies in a different direction, not in more confrontation and threats of military conquest. A better vision is for an economic, political and security dialogue among all the parties in the region must be conceived. All parties are suffering in one way or another from the current disorder, whether it is the Iranians, Syrians, Iraqis, Yemenis or Saudis. The current situation is unsustainable, and any idea that any sort of victory is possible is an illusion. On the other hand, all the countries around the Gulf, including Iran, have much to gain from a cessation of hostilities, economic cooperation and the settlement of disputes through negotiation.

The model of what the Europeans were able to achieve after the Second World War is a good one, and this time no Marshall Plan will be needed as the wealth and resources of the regional players are already enormous. Every country has something to gain. But there will be losers. They will be the autocratic dictators who currently stand in the way of such a general settlement.

A human rights and a democratic track will be essential parts of any such dialogue in order to ensure sustainability and continuity. This will require the Iranian regime and other authoritarian rulers to surrender power — perhaps not all of it right away — but over time, enough to give their citizens confidence in their own personal security and investment in the governance of their own countries and their neighbors. A good start would be a regional security dialogue and some confidence-building measures. This is where the Biden administration must begin its work.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Will Iran Take Over the Ottoman Mantle in the Middle East? appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

As a general rule, the Mossad clears its lines with Washington before conducting such operations to avoid accidentally assassinating CIA penetration agents. Israel would of course have considered the imminent departure of President Donald Trump in the timing of the killing of Fakhrizadeh. The Mossad could guarantee that Trump would not veto the operation, so there was a strong incentive to do it before January 20, when Joe Biden’s inauguration takes place. Biden is going to attempt the complicated task of trying to revive the Iran nuclear deal and would have prevented the operation from going ahead to avoid even more difficulty with Tehran.   

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However, the chance to kill Fakhrizadeh was undoubtedly fleeting, the result of a chain of coincidences — just as the opportunity for the US to assassinate General Qassem Soleimani back in January suddenly materialized. For this reason, still having Trump in the White House was fortuitous.

Israel conducts its extra-territorial executions with total impunity. No retaliatory action, such as the expulsion of Mossad officers for example, ever follows. One notorious Mossad operation was the 1990 killing of Gerald Bull, the Canadian scientist who was shot in his apartment in Belgium. Bull had been engaged, at a price of $25 million, by Saddam Hussein to help build the Big Babylon “supergun” Baghdad had hoped would be capable of firing satellites into orbit or “blinding” spy satellites, as well as having the potential to fire projectiles from Iraq into Israel. After the assassination, Belgium took no action.

Only Vladimir Putin’s Russia comes close to Israel — and only then a very distant second — in terms of the number of political assassinations it conducts. By contrast, Russia is heavily sanctioned for its actions.  

The leading scientists and engineers working in the Iranian nuclear industry or ballistic missile program will all be on the Mossad’s death list. Also on the list will be the leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Iranian intelligence services and the leaders of Iranian military operations in Iraq and Syria. The Mossad launches highly complex and detailed operations to identify such individuals and to track every detail of their personal lives — where they live and work, what their interests are, which restaurants they like, where they go hiking, who their friends are — anything that might provide an opportunity for a strike.  

The Mossad uses human sources, communications intercepts and social engineering on social media to gather this information. Anyone on its list foolish enough to have a GPS tracker in their phone should not be surprised if a drone appears and fires at them.

Iran knows that Israel is not going to stop its murderous campaign. Tehran may anticipate that the Biden administration will at least try to slow down this while he tries some sort of rapprochement with the Iranian regime. But Iranians are chess players, and have been for thousands of years; they think strategically and several moves ahead. Iran’s rulers will not jeopardize their strategic goals for the short-term satisfaction of a revenge attack. That can wait.  

First Iran wants to consolidate its positions in Syria, Iraq and Yemen and remove some, if not all, of the US sanctions. Iran also wants to hurry the remaining US forces in Iraq out of the country. There is also a larger strategic dimension. Iran and the Gulf are well aware the US is in retreat from the region. Moreover, the Gulf monarchies are bleeding money as a result of profligate spending and what appears to be a permanent downward shift in the demand and price for oil. They can no longer afford the monstrously wasteful spending on US arms nor rely on the US defense shield that goes with it.  

The alternative is an accommodation with Iran, perhaps even a security dialogue. That is the carrot. The stick that Iran also wields is that if the Gulf chooses to continue or escalate confrontation, then Iran can wipe out their oil processing refineries and loading terminals — and the vital desalination plants — in an afternoon. The devastating but deliberately restricted missile attack on the Abqaiq oil processing facility in September 2019 was a clear signal of what might be expected if Iran is cornered. This realization following the Abqaiq attack prompted the immediate opening of backchannel communications between UAE, Saudi Arabia and Iran.  

Those lines will surely be humming with excuses and special pleading in the aftermath of the Fakhrizadeh assassination. This moment could be the high-water mark of the failed US campaign of “maximum pressure” and the Trump administration’s disastrous Middle Eastern policy.  

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Iran’s Revenge Against Israel Will Be a Long Game appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Trump’s following is vastly greater than Jones or Koresh, partly because he is a US president but also because social media and the artificial intelligence (AI) that backs it has vastly magnified his powers, possibly beyond the point that even he realizes. For Trump’s disciples, social media filters out any contrary news about their chosen one and feeds them undiluted negativity about his opponents. Trump’s devoted followers exist in a bubble where Democrats are flesh-eating pedophiles or Marxist revolutionaries, and where Trump has been chosen by God to save America.  

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For the evangelicals, Trump has been sent to fulfill the prophecies of Revelation and usher in the end times. No amount of fact-checking or reality will penetrate. For his followers, Trump is always right, incapable of doing wrong and uniquely gifted to lead them to the promised land. Those who do not understand this are either souls waiting to be saved or, more likely, those that have chosen Satan and the path to hell. Any potential pro-Trump opinion or even nascent tendency is picked up by social media algorithms and magnified and echoed back to the individual over and over, sucking them into a rabbit hole of Trumpian fantasy.

Trump may be a fraud and a con man, but he has seized the leadership of this cult. His leadership, which in earlier years would have been mocked as an embarrassment, is instead viewed as messianic by his cult. This superhuman power enables him to command his followers to disbelieve anything in the “fake news media,” defy law and ignore social norms. He has already threatened disorder if he loses the election. America is a tinderbox of racial tension, social discord, dramatic inequality, a deadly pandemic and economic collapse. Like Jones and Koresh, Trump has the capability to precipitate disaster, but on a far greater scale. 

The force multiplier behind this cult is the AI run by Google, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and all the other social media giants. The super-computers which run the discern our likes, emotions, prejudices, tastes, political views and sexuality. The databases they collect are huge, and the AI profile of each of us detailed and perceptive. These computers are always on, always connected, and the algorithms employed are far more powerful than we realize. They overwhelm the human ability to filter the stream of self-reinforcing messages and subtle exploitation of our subconscious, wherever you fall on the political spectrum. The continuous social media feed that surrounds each of us in a bubble of “reality” is in fact highly subjective, tailored individually and continually reinforces our own beliefs and prejudices. Cult members exist in an individually crafted matrix. The singularity may have already arrived.

The singularity is the point in the future when AI overtakes human intelligence and becomes self-replicating. This was thought to signal the rise of the machines and an existential threat to human existence — think of Arnold Schwarzenegger in “The Terminator.” Stephen Hawking that “the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”

The AI revolution has enabled both the Trump cult and its opponents to flourish to the point where society has fragmented into warring factions who believe the others are out to destroy them. Instead of the machines fighting us, the machines have devised a way to make us fight each other, and the November election is shaping up to be a key battle.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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In the same speech, Trump made headlines with his words urging the world to hold China accountable for “unleashed this plague on to the world,” in reference to the COVID-19 pandemic, and for deliberately encouraging the coronavirus to spread. The White House cut these words from the transcript posted on its website. Perhaps even the administration’s press office did not have the stomach to publish such libel.

This speech to the UN was a moment when the leader of the free world — as a US president might once have been seen — could actually attempt to lead. The speech was an opportunity to inspire and to set out a roadmap to a better future. Trump chose to do the reverse. The world is facing a triple crisis of an international pandemic, economic collapse and climate emergency. Trump could only reach out for people to blame: the Chinese, Iranians or Venezuelans. He failed to mention that the United States has the biggest coronavirus death toll of any country in the world, with over and counting. 

Nor did Trump comment on the millions out of work or that America’s west is burning at the same time that its southeast is inundated by hurricane after hurricane. These are not just America’s problems: Trump did not address the dire straits of billions of non-Americans impacted by these dangers. Why would he? This is the true measure of “America First.”

The American leadership vacuum is a grave danger to not just Americans but to us all. Trump’s failure to act early to stem coronavirus infections — a deliberate decision he made to fatuously “” — will likely cost the lives of tens of thousands more Americans on top of the current staggering death toll. The US withdrawal from the World Health Organization in the middle of the pandemic signaled that Trump wanted no part of the international leadership out of the health crisis. The resultant deaths will be beyond imagination.  

Trump has employed the same approach to international economics. His regime’s policy has been to withdraw from trade agreements, set up sanctions barriers against competitors and allies, and complain that everyone else’s industrial policies are more successful than his. Trump has also embarked on a determined effort to weaken the international institutions — the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and so on — that have enabled the world economy to prosper for the past 75 years. The world is going to need a great deal of leadership to emerge out of the current economic wasteland, on a scale of what was done to repair the damage of the Second World War. We can rely on Donald Trump to be absent from that role, too.

As for the climate emergency, Trump has chosen to deny it. More than that, he has proceeded to undo everything previous US governments and the international community had done to try to save the planet from disaster. All of these crises are going to produce millions of refugees across the world. Trump couldn’t care less.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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On 24 August, German doctors announced that they had detected the presence of a in Navalny’s blood. Cholinesterase is a component of nerve agents. The Russian doctors who treated Navalny after his plane made an emergency landing at Omsk have contested this conclusion, insisting that their tests for cholinesterase inhibitors were negative.

Yet Another Poisoning

Depressingly, yet another poisoning of an enemy of Vladimir Putin is no surprise. Navalny has been a vigorous anti-corruption campaigner and prominent critic of the Russian president and his circle, for the last decade. In return, Putin’s security services have harassed, arrested, prosecuted, imprisoned, threatened and now poisoned Navalny —apparently a . He joins a list of dozens of opposition politicians, investigative journalists and critics of Putin’s regime who have been forcefully silenced.

These include Boris Nemtsov, a political high flyer who turned against Putin, assassinated in 2015 right outside the Kremlin. Boris Berezovsky, a billionaire former ally of Putin’s, was found dead in his home in the UK in 2013. Sergei Magnitsky, a tax-law investigator who exposed widespread government spanning some 23 companies and $230 million, who in police custody in 2009 after being brutally beaten and denied medical treatment. Vladimir Kara-Murza, a journalist and politician who played an instrumental role in the passing of the Magnitsky Act by US Congress, was twice, in 2015 and 2017.

Anna Politkovskaya, a renowned investigative journalist, was shot to death in the elevator of her Moscow apartment block in 2006 following a failed two years earlier — also involving a cup of tea on a flight. Alexander Litvinenko, an FSB defector, was poisoned with polonium 210-laced tea in London in 2006. Sergei Skripal, a former military intelligence officer and double agent, was poisoned alongside his daughter with the Novichok nerve agent in Salisbury in 2018. The list goes on and on. Russia has denied any involvement in any of these cases, despite mountains of forensic, surveillance and other evidence to the contrary.

Of course, no rational person believes the Russian denials, although the followers of the Putin cult seem willing to swallow it. But Vladimir Putin clearly does not care whether he is believed or not. The purpose of these assassinations or poisonings is to cow the opposition, bludgeon it into silence, to prevent the investigation of the government’s crimes and to establish Putin as the autocrat, accountable to nobody. Vladimir Putin wants to ensure that no one in Russia dares to oppose him.

A Good Moment

The West is in disarray about how to respond to Navalny’s poisoning and particularly desperately misses the leadership of the United States. President Donald Trump has yet to comment on the Navalny case. But Trump, the Russian president’s self-proclaimed “,” generally refuses to criticize Putin, so we should fully expect him either to say the Navalny case “never reached his desk” or that he was prepared to believe Putin’s sincere denials, as he did over the conclusions that Russia interfered in the 2016 US election. Russia is once again in the campaign to reelect Trump, so we should not expect him to take effective action. Putin thrives on Trump’s weakness.

President Putin is not as secure as he would like to believe. The economy is doing badly, oil prices are down, the number of COVID-19 infections is the in the world, and in Khabarovsk, in ¸éłÜ˛ő˛őľ±˛ąâ€™s far east, tens of thousands of demonstrators have been taking to the streets since July, protesting the arrest of the popular governor on Moscow’s orders. In neighboring Belarus, where the dictator Alexander Lukashenko is fighting to hold on to power, the popular uprising against the rigged election may foreshadow ¸éłÜ˛ő˛őľ±˛ąâ€™s future. 

Putin has regional elections of his own to rig in September, and a national election next year. Alexei Navalny, with his well-organized political movement, is the most prominent, effective and popular figure opposing Putin. Rather than take any chances of the Belarusian uprising being contagious, Putin may well have thought this would be a good moment to eliminate his chief opponent and to terrorize Navalny’s supporters. Now would also be a good time for the West to show some spine and oppose Putin’s murderous dictatorship.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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The Trump administration is now scrambling to force a “” in order to reinstate UN sanctions on Iran. As per the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), if the Iranians violate the terms of the agreement, sanctions can be reintroduced. Yet Donald Trump, the US president, unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018 and has no standing to try to enforce its provisions. This latest attempt will also founder, further underlining the failure of Trump’s Middle Eastern adventure.

“Maximum Pressure“

Since 2017, Trump has set out to destroy the regime in Iran and, for this, he has had the support — indeed the encouragement — of Gulf Arab states and Israel but no one else. The rest of the world wants to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Gulf by binding Iran to a permanent agreement to put its nuclear activities under an intrusive inspection regime of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The purpose of the JCPOA was to make this happen. 

Trump’s policy of putting “maximum pressure” on Iran has caused unemployment, inflation, shortages of medicines and a near-collapse of the Iranian rial, but it has not toppled the regime, nor brought about its surrender. US pressure has united Iranians against America’s bullying, encouraged a resumption of some nuclear activity and pushed Iran further into the arms of Russia and China.

It has also led to the Iranians firing missiles at Saudi and Emirati oil refineries and tankers in 2019 as a demonstration of the potential costs of an all-out assault on Iran. The Gulf states and the US blinked and didn’t respond to these strikes. The US has stepped back from threats of a full-scale attack — a further sign of the Trump administration’s muddled thinking.

The JCPOA is on life support, but it is not yet dead. If Joe Biden is elected as president in November, rejoins the nuclear pact — which was negotiated under the Obama administration that Biden served as vice president in — and lifts unilateral US sanctions, then Iran will cooperate. This is the strongest signal Iran has been sending and which all the other members of the UN Security Council have heard. Iran has also been sending this message through a multitude of back channels to the Gulf Arab states and even the US. But Trump refuses to listen.

So, who does Trump listen to? Not his NATO allies, whom he prefers to insult and threaten. And not the strong bench of Middle Eastern scholars, diplomats and businessman who have spent the last 75 years building US influence and prestige in the region. Trump dismisses this group as the “deep state.”

Instead, the president listens to the Gulf despots who fear Iran will undermine their power and to whom he can sell arms. He also listens to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli hawks who paint Iran as the antichrist that is bent on the destruction of Israel. 

Lack of Strategy

Trump, the narcissist, believes that he is right and the rest of the thinking world is wrong. His announcement of the UAE’s diplomatic pact with Israel — a public acknowledgment of a comprehensive relationship that already existed — was a public relations stunt to try show that his Gulf policies are working. National Security Adviser Richard O’Brien’s call for a Nobel Peace Prize for Trump was an added embarrassment.  

The net result of Trump’s multiple Middle Eastern failures is that Syria has been partitioned between Turkish, Iranian and Russian interests, Iraq is firmly in the Iranian camp, Yemen is a humanitarian disaster, Libya is in the midst of a civil war where the US has no say whatsoever, Egypt is run by an unpopular military dictator whose grip is threatened by economic disaster, Lebanon is a failed state, and Saudi Arabia is ruled by a man who assassinates his enemies.

Trump’s lack of strategy, absence of moral compass and failure of leadership have damaged America’s prestige and influence enormously. US dominance in the region may never recover.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Holding the elections at all showed that the government has some confidence in the stability of the political system. The poor turnout was a very strong message to the supreme leader that his regime has to change course. Khamenei’s domestic and foreign policy has brought disaster to the country, and he ignores this at his peril. The electorate clearly did not buy the line that all Iran’s current troubles are caused by the United States. The rapid decline in living standards, lack of jobs and rampant inflation is the result of government policy — and the electorate knows it.

Greater Tehran, with a population of 15 million, is barely governable. It takes all the energy of the Revolutionary Guards, the Ministry of Intelligence and the other security services to keep order. Half the inhabitants are under 32, and is officially 27% — although in reality it is nearer 50%, as government statistics label just one hour of work a week as “employment.” Many riots protesting rising food and fuel prices have already taken place.

The World Bank projects a further severe contraction of the economy over the next 12 months and continued high inflation. Iran’s cities, and Tehran in particular, are at boiling point, and the election has rammed that message home unambiguously. Khamenei has lost any remaining legitimacy or popular consent to govern. If he continues like this, all he can do is retain power by fear, repression and all the horrors of a police state. He knows that this is not sustainable, and he will pragmatically change course. The regime is not suicidal.

Iran is truly Oriental in the complexity of its constitution. The strange mixture of theocracy and civil government is bewildering — but it works. The government has survived invasions, wars, sanctions, insurgency and a relentless campaign of covert destabilization since the 1979 revolution. It will weather the current crisis too.

Iran has strategic depth, policy options and political allies. The key to alleviating economic pressure is to get some sanctions relief. Tehran’s best hope is for Donald Trump to lose the 2020 US election. Even if he is reelected, there is another likely option — a mixture of stick and carrot. The stick is to threaten yet more attacks on Saudi Arabia, on shipping in the Gulf and to turn up the heat in Yemen. Iran can also mobilize its forces in Iraq to make continued US presence and operations by US companies untenable. Iran could also destabilize Bahrein and Afghanistan, and use its extensive Hezbollah network to threaten violence elsewhere.

The carrot could be to offer Saudi Arabia a cessation of hostilities and a security dialogue if Saudi Arabia can persuade Trump to ease sanctions. This dialogue could include a mutual limit on ballistic missiles as well as the nuclear issue. Since this is exactly what Trump has said he wants, there is an opening. In fact, as both Tehran and Washington know full well, the build-up of Chinese-sourced ballistic missiles in Saudi Arabia is not in US interests either. 

Iran will also reach out to its friends in Europe, Russia and China to press the US to enter into negotiations to establish security in the Gulf. They will all leap at the chance to defuse the current impasse. The Iranian regime will survive — and survival is all that matters.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Iran’s Voters Send a Clear Message to the Regime appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

off the coast of Guyana are on course to produce about 1 million barrels per day of oil for 30 years. If oil fetches just $50 per barrel, this equates to nearly $500 billion. Guyana’s share of this will be approximately $300 billion; the other $200 billion will go to the Exxon-controlled consortium. The amounts are conservative estimates: New oil discoveries keep coming. Exxon and its partners, Hess and Nexen (the latter owned by the Chinese), landed a very sweet deal.

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Guyanese outrage about how its government granted such a stupendously generous package is vocal and growing. The reason is no more than incompetence and sharp Exxon negotiators. But Guyana’s share is still gigantic and could transform the country.

Guyana’s future is most likely either along the Equatorial Guinea path — where a small elite takes all the oil money and the majority remain in poverty — or the Norwegian model. Under the latter, the oil money is invested wisely so that all citizens become wealthy. The majority of Guyanese simply do not understand the consequences of the wall of money about to hit the country — nor does the government, whose development program is muddled, myopic and concerned only with short-term projects.

No leader has outlined a vision to guide this remarkable country out of poverty to a golden future. The government has not even produced a practical national development plan, only a list of well-meaning short-term objectives. Apart from President David Granger, who is a humble and honest ascetic, the rest of his government is hopelessly out of its depth. Granger is about to face a decisive election which, despite a potentially rosy future, he will likely lose to the notoriously corrupt opposition party. As a result, the Equatorial Guinea model is the likely outcome, with a few Guyanese becoming immensely wealthy, and the majority seeing little change. 

A variety of carpet baggers and more or less (usually less) respectable merchants have turned up from Nigeria and other parts of West Africa exploit the opportunity. But above all, the Chinese have arrived in force, and dealing with a self-selected elite is just their style. They have a huge embassy to cultivate the locals, and spy out deals and projects to build. Already Chinese contractors have refurbished the main airport. The Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has visited to sign up Guyana to the Belt and Road Initiative, and there are many mega projects in his sights.

These include the first paved road from Boa Vista in the north east of Brazil to the Guyanese coast, a new deep-water port and industrial zone powered by gas piped from off shore. Guyana needs a new capital on higher ground. Georgetown, right on the coast, is about a meter below sea level, and at high tide the sea pours over the inadequate sea wall. The city is one big storm away from disaster, and rising sea levels will anyway inundate the city in a few years.

What’s more, 90% of the country’s population lives on a coastal strip nearly all of which is below sea level at high tide. The Chinese are ready and willing to relocate the capital and rebuild the coastal defenses. They are eager to provide the finance, secured against future oil revenue and to lock in Guyana for the long term. They will of course import tens of thousands of Chinese laborers to do the work. As usual in such situations, they will never leave.

Guyana’s former colonial master, Great Britain, has a tiny embassy, and no senior UK ministers have visited in decades. The US is slightly more alert, though its embassy is full of Drug Enforcement Administration agents and is more interested in the war on drugs and the conflict with Venezuela. The US is going to miss out on the development bonanza and lose Guyana to the Chinese, and Western business doesn’t want to invest in a country plagued by government ineptitude, petty corruption and almost total lack of local capacity.

Apart from Exxon and Hess, who sit safely off shore and ship their oil to foreign markets, Western businesses seem set to sit this opportunity out. The Chinese are taking a longer, multi-generational view. They will invest in this lucrative market, settle their nationals, rebuild the infrastructure — and Guyana will become another Chinese satellite.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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General Soleimani was not the evil genius behind a terrorist organization that the US media machine will make him out to be. He was a senior military officer of the Iranian state and a national hero. Soleimani’s death will not decapitate the Quds Force — which is part of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) — undermine the Iranian government or change Tehran’s foreign policy in Iraq. 

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Yet his killing will enrage and galvanize the Iranians all the more to attack and limit US power in the Middle East. Soleimani’s death on Iraqi soil will likely strengthen popular support for the Iranian government, which will portray the general as a Shia martyr and US President Donald Trump as a murderer. 

Trump has now aligned himself with all the other proponents of assassinating enemies — Joseph Stalin, Muammar Gaddafi, Mohammed bin Salman and Vladimir Putin. Even friends and allies of the US will struggle to justify extra-judicial killings, especially after the uproar over the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018. Where will the US assassinate its next victim — the streets of Paris or London? Though Trump will be cheered on by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the right-wing of the Republican Party, he has opened a Pandora’s box of troubles.

What Will Iran Do?

Iran has many options for retaliation, and it is very likely this will be asymmetric. Unlike Trump’s knee-jerk behavior, this will be carefully calculated. The Iranians could, for example, torpedo Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s $500-million yacht, where it is reported he sleeps most nights, or completely destroy Saudi Aramco’s Abqaiq oil-processing plant, this time in its entirety. 

Similarly, they could target the desalination plants and the crude oil storage depots in Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates. Or, as Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has darkly hinted at before, Iran could launch a missile at one of the towers in Dubai. 

Any of these actions would have a devastating effect on the economies of the Gulf states. The Arab monarchies in the region are undoubtedly on the phone to Washington begging the US for protection and, at the same time, sending messages to Tehran denying any knowledge or responsibility for Soleimani’s assassination.

But the Iranians will do none of these things. They will pause for thought and think through the consequences. It is no coincidence that Persians have loved chess for centuries. Iran will want to cause maximum damage and make a strategic gain, instead of satisfying a childish urge for mere retaliation. 

The government of Iraq, which is already under Iranian influence, has seen its sovereignty repeatedly violated by US military action. Iraq will likely ally with Iran in its response. Iran can wreak enormous strategic damage to the US by pushing the Iraqi government to order all US troops out of Iraq. This would likely lead to Exxon and other US oil companies to abandon their investments there. The US exit from Iraq would be a huge strategic gain not only for Iran but also Russia. The Kremlin is all too eager to replace the US as the local superpower in the Middle East. 

Iran will also order the Shia militias of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) to make the US presence in Iraq untenable. Anticipating this, the State Department has already ordered all US citizens to leave Iraq. Unless the US wants to engage in full-scale war with both Iraqi militias and the Iranian military, there is little that Washington can do. 

The US has already lost the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. The same goes for the Kurds and the Syrians, who have all been betrayed by Donald Trump. Not one of the Gulf Arab states will support an all-out war with Iran, nor would Congress or the US electorate. Trump, as usual, has provided no leadership — just petulant anger when he cannot get his way.

This is one result of all the adults — Jim Mattis, John F. Kelly, H.R. McMaster and Rex Tillerson — leaving the White House. Trump is now advised only by dependent toadies. The world is not in safe hands.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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The antibodies of common sense, decency, honesty and skepticism would have destroyed them all before they emerged. The result of the election, scheduled for December 12, will confirm the diagnosis that Britain has lost all ability to resist. 

Britain became infected because it failed to follow the rules of safe politics. After the fall of its empire, the UK dallied with the Commonwealth, the European Union, being America’s best friend. The Commonwealth made Britain feel better about the mass looting of the empire, but that lasted only until the Brits fell in love with the EU.

The EU seemed to satisfy Britain’s desire to be more efficient, like Germany, and more stylish and cool, like everybody else. The UK tried to be the lubricant in US-EU relations, but found the US preferred rough trade. The Brits then tried to be best friends with China, but found China took its pleasure and did not pay the bills. London invited all the oligarchs with their black money from Russia and the Middle East to shack up. That made many bankers rich, but left the UK feeling dirty and ashamed.

Too many casual unprotected relationships, none of them monogamous, opened the Brits to infection that lowered resistance to extremist ideologies to dangerous levels. The opportunists and malignant players saw an opportunity — the Russians, the Little Englanders, the anti-immigrants, xenophobes and the entitled. All have taken advantage of Britain’s weakened state. The UK was once a pillar of stability and civilization at the crossroads of the world. Now, the cancers of intolerance, racialism, demagoguery and nativism have taken hold.

There is no anti-retroviral drug. There are only palliatives and pain killers. The independent Conservatives, the Lib Dems and some moderate Labour politicians are trying to lead the UK back to healthy living and sane politics. Their voices are a minority and are shouted down. Their common sense and moderation may salve the feelings and deaden the pain of the remaining healthy parts the UK constituency, but they are not a cure. The queen, who could at least raise an eyebrow, has remained aloof. Unlike her father, she is — and always has been — content to reign over decline and fall.

Boris Johnson has lied to his employers, his wives, girlfriends, his political allies and of course the UK public — remember the Brexit bus? He is a bombast, a rabble rouser and not safe in taxis. Farage is an embarrassment. His relationship with US President Donald Trump should be warning enough.

Jeremy Corbyn may passionately believe his Marxist — or rather Trotskyist — philosophy. There is room in the UK for a left-wing conscience, but never should anyone with his convictions be allowed in No. 10. Corbyn could never reconcile himself to the UK’s past and its alliances. He would return the contents of the British Museum to anyone that has a claim — and that metaphor applies to most of the rest of the UK economy, its defense and self-esteem.

The outlook is bleak. Whatever the outcome of the election, the UK will never recover its poise, its reputation, its influence or prestige. The virus will have done its work.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Iran’s botched operation in the Strait of Hormuz, in which the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) navy nearly got caught in the act of mining two tankers, brought the world to the brink of an accidental war. President Donald Trump’s policies have pushed Tehran to desperate measures, but Iran has shown that its long-term strategy is more than a match for Washington’s ill thought out campaign.

In a rare expression of faith in the CIA, President Trump said he agreed that the recent tanker attacks. The concurrence of other independent Western intelligence assessments with this conclusion indicates that it is almost certainly true. Why would Iran recklessly provoke the US when tensions are already high? The answer is that Iran has learned how to play Trump. The Persians have been playing chess for over 1000 years and know a thing or two about gambits. The Iranians are aware they cannot win an all-out war with the US and its allies — Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE — but they can prevent one. Iran’s strategy is sophisticated and nuanced. The tanker attacks were a sacrifice to lure Trump into a draw.

Trump reneged on the Iran nuclear deal because the president was seduced by the narrative that the Iranian regime, nuclear armed or not, is an existential threat to Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Israel, and has to be overthrown. Pulling out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was a pretext for new aggression. Iran was abiding by the JCPOA and, among other stringent controls, had already exported 98% of its to Russia, guaranteeing its remaining uranium was enriched to no more than 3.67%. In others words, Iran neither presents a nuclear threat at the moment, nor in the foreseeable future.

The aim of the Trump-led alliance is to overthrow the Iranian regime, not to improve the nuclear agreement. Iran’s strategy is correspondingly simple: to preserve its security and thwart its enemies’ ability to overthrow it.

The first part of Tehran’s strategy is to underline how costly any confrontation with Iran might be. Iran cannot match US firepower, but it can fight asymmetrically. The IRGC has trained, armed and empowered a wide swath of proxy groups: Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, Shia fighting groups in Iraq (particularly Asaib Ahl al-Haq and the Katab Hezbollah) and the Houthis in Yemen. The IRGC Quds Force also has a global capability to mount terrorist style attacks in third countries and, as we have seen, can attack ships in the straits.

The second part is Iran’s deployment of its diplomatic expertise to split Trump and his Middle Eastern allies from the European Union, China and Russia. This is where the skill of President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif shows. They present a face of reason, moderation, peacefulness and wanting to normalize relations. Rouhani gives speeches about Iran’s unwillingness to go to war and has engaged with the Qataris, Omanis and the Japanese to open back channel negotiations with the US to de-escalate the situation.

Iran’s diplomacy has a forward strategy in the region too. In addition to cementing alliances with Syria and Iraq, it has also sought to exploit the deep unease on the proverbial Arab Street about Trump’s “deal of the century” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This attempt to bribe the Palestinians to give up hope for an independent state and live on a reservation with borders drawn by Israel will not run. This is an Achilles heel for the dictators of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, and Iran will seize it to drive a wedge between them and their subjects.

Which brings us to why Iran authorized the attack on the tankers. The reason was simple: to demonstrate that Iran can easily cripple shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. However, Iran did not want to give the US an immediate casus belli or trigger a shooting war by accident. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, authorized the IRGC navy to mount a covert and plausibly deniable operation, one to demonstrate Iran’s capability but leave no actual proof that Iran was the perpetrator — in other words, an operation Iran could deny without being proved a liar.

This did not go according to plan, as the IRGC made two errors: One of the limpet mines attached to the Japanese vessel Kokuka Courageous did not explode, and US overhead surveillance (which the US claimed was a helicopter in the area) was able to record footage of them retrieving the device. This was an error and could have resulted in an immediate attack on the IRGC team with unintended consequences. However, the lack of indisputable IRGC identification meant the Iran could still deny responsibility, although few believe them.

In fact this almost botched operation may have highlighted in bolder colors the danger of a military confrontation with Iran. Even Trump is now worrying that the march to war called for by UAE and Saudi crown princes, Mohammed bin Zayed and Mohamed bin Salman, Benjamin Netanyahu and the zealots in the Trump administration, National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, would lead to disaster — and his own electoral suicide.

Five of Trump’s top military and diplomatic advisers, General Jim Mattis, Rex Tillerson, General HR McMaster, General John Kelly and now Patrick Shanahan, have already resigned or been sacked, with the since last December. The US public is not prepared for war, and, after the sacrifices in Afghanistan and Iraq, there is no stomach for another. The UAE and Saudi Arabia could not and would not fight without the US. They too will have to rethink. Iran may be weakened, but it has played this game to a draw.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Iran Has Learned How to Play Trump appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

No one believes that Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov, who have been as suspects in the poisoning of a former Russia spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter earlier this year, chose to visit Salisbury for a short cultural holiday in March. The two young Russian men working in the “fitness industry ” decided not to spend their cash on a boys’ weekend exploring the delights of Amsterdam or the attractions of Ibiza or Mykonos. Instead, they went for a couple of nights in a cheap hotel in the East London and a couple of trips to Salisbury to see, as they claimed in an with ¸éłÜ˛ő˛őľ±˛ąâ€™s RT, the world-famous cathedral and its unique clock.

Petrov and Bashirov claim it was a wild coincidence that the Skripals were poisoned and almost died that same weekend as the result of contact with an exotic Russian nerve agent known as Novichok, and that did die in July in nearby Amesbury, victim of the same nerve agent that her partner found discarded in a perfume bottle.

Vladimir Putin and the two Russians smiled as they trotted out their version of events, giving the metaphorical finger to the rest of the world.ĚýThey do not care, and indeed revel in the transparent fiction of the story.ĚýThe message is clear: If you are an enemy of the state, the Russian special services will kill you — wherever you are.ĚýMoreover, they want you and everyone else to know, and they do not fear any consequences. Your only hope is the sloppy execution of their plans.

This is thuggeryĚýand gangsterism in their purest form.ĚýIf you are a Russian, this is not news: Dozens, if not hundreds, of Russians who have crossed the interests of Vladimir Putin or his oligarchs have been shot, thrown out of windows or poisoned.ĚýThe victims are not terrorists or people intent on slaughtering innocent people; if they were, there may be a case for action. They are Russians who disagree with Putin and his mafia regime, and had the courage to say so.ĚýTheir options are either to shut up or die.

This is the return to the terror of Josef Stalin.ĚýWe must pity the Russians that have to endure this regime, although a surprising number of them seem to like it and willingly vote for Putin.ĚýIt is reminiscent of the millions that turned out to mourn Uncle Joe when he died.ĚýRussians may choose to live under this tyranny, but ultimately they have the opportunity to overthrow the governmentĚý— they have done it before. But the rest of us should resist with all our strength any Russian domination of other countries and the export of its brand of authoritarian rule.

The new Russian terror is a lesson in the value of freedom. It is also a lesson in the current weakness of the West.ĚýThe UK is a shadow of itself as it struggles with impending Brexit, and Putin is only too happy to exploitĚýthat by assassinating his own citizens on British soil while at the same time using the UK financial system to launder his friends’ dirty money.

The UK’s reaction so far can best be described as ineffective.ĚýThe US has imposed more sweeping sanctions against Russia because of the honorable actions of Congress and the adults in the administration who have forced Donald Tump’s hand.ĚýTrump himself has yet to stop praising Putin and level some criticism in ¸éłÜ˛ő˛őľ±˛ąâ€™s direction. Putin. After Helsinki, that Trump described Putin as “strong, smart, and cunning,” and said he “relished” his interactions with him.

With a fan in the White House and a supine Britain, Putin has little to fear.ĚýThe rest of the European Union is dependent on Russian gas and will not defy him either.ĚýThe leaders of the West and the champions of freedom have failed us.ĚýThese are dark times.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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US President Donald Trump is intent on war with Iran and is trying to lure the government in Tehran into a trap. The evidence for this is apparent. Trump has pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal and is reimposing US sanctions. He has also threatened sanctions against any other country that buys Iranian oil. The US is providing military support to Saudi Arabia and Israel to attack Iranian positions in Yemen and Syria.

The US and Israel are also trying to put together a deal with Russia whereby Assad is allowed to stay in power in Syria if he expels all the Iranian military forces there. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Vladimir Putin in Moscow last week to discuss this potential deal that will be high on the agenda for Trump’s meeting with the Russian president in Helsinki on July 16.

But these steps alone will not topple the Iranian regime, despite the economic hardship and popular discontent the new sanctions are causing. The Iranian government is telling its people over and over again that their hardships are the result of external aggression and echoes the narrative the Iranian hardliners have always spun — that the US is an implacable enemy. The Revolutionary Guard is threatening to if the confrontation escalates. Trump would be delighted if Iran could be provoked into intercepting a foreign-flagged ship crossing the straits, giving America a casus belli: The US could proclaim that the Iranians intend to block 30% of the world’s oil supply and that a military attack on Iran is the only way to stop them.

Plans for a military attack are apparently already in preparation. Israel and the United States formed a joint working group a few months ago focused on encouraging insurrection within Iran. The Israel Defense Forces just appointed Major General Nitzan Alon as the first director of a special IDF project to coordinate all issues related to the battle against Iran. Alon visited the US to begin joint planning two weeks ago.

Regime change in Iran is part of the grand strategy for the Middle East formed at that fateful meeting in Riyadh with the crown princes of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ), and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt during Trump’s first overseas visit. The strategy is an alliance between the Sunni monarchies of the Gulf (minus Qatar, which refuses to cooperate), Egypt and Israel to confront Iran.

Along the way the Palestinian issue needs to be neutralized as this provides leverage for Iran to undermine Israel’s ambitions in the region. The so-called “deal of the century” that Jared Kushner keeps promising to reveal soon will actually be no more than an ultimatum to the Palestinians to accept a Vichy France-style sub-state in return for some Saudi and UAE funded development aid. An additional side deal to split off the Gaza Strip and make it economically and politically dependent on Egypt is part of the mix — a project again to be funded by the Saudi and UAE governments. In return for this financial support, Saudi Arabia and the UAE will ally with the US and Israel to roll back Iranian presence throughout the region and ultimately achieve regime change.

This policy has not been discussed in Congress or the parliaments of Israel or any European country, let alone the consultative assemblies in the Middle East. Regime change and war with Iran is a policy constructed by Jared Kushner, John Bolton, Benjamin Netanyahu, MBS and MBZ. The Europeans are against it, but apparently the sane voices in Washington have been sidelined.ĚýThe last to go was Rex Tillerson. Trump himself of course has little clue, but in Orwellian fashion he does know that his base believes that “Iran is bad” and “Israel is good.” Any further investigation into the complications of the region is beyond him.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Gina Haspel,ĚýPresident Donald Trump’s pick to head the Central Intelligence Agency, compromised her integrity in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee on May 9 with her fumbled answers concerning torture.ĚýDespite persistent questioning, she refused to say . When pressed about what she would do if Trump — a vocal supporter of waterboarding — ordered the CIA to torture its prisoners, she would only say she would not allow the CIA to do something “immoral even if it was technically legal.”

Since Haspel would not call torture immoral, this statement seems to be nothing more than a legalese obfuscation. She added that she would not take the CIA back to its interrogation program, but with a caveat that the CIAĚýfollows the law, adding: “We followed the law then, we follow the law today. I support the law. I wouldn’t support a change in the law.” But she left open the door that if the law changed, she would obey.

I learned an essential lesson during my resistance-to-interrogation training in the services: Torture is counterproductive.ĚýFrom the victim’s point of view, torture never ends because the interrogators will not believe you, whatever you say.ĚýThey carry on torturing whether you refuse to talk, or talk freely, and especially if you change your story at any point.ĚýFrom the interrogator’s point of view, they have no idea if anything you have confessed to is true, fabricated or just designed to stop the pain.ĚýIn other words, torture is no more than a sadistic simpleton’s idea of interrogation.ĚýIt is degrading to all concerned and, in the case of the CIA, particularly perverse for the doctors they used to keep their victims alive.ĚýIt should never be a tool of a civilized country’s government.Ěý

Haspel is well aware of the futility of torture — as a professional and experienced intelligence officer she has been through the training, read the books and listened to the psychologists, the victims and even the torturers.ĚýDespite being a former chief of Detention Site Green in Thailand used for waterboarding high value al-Qaeda prisoners, she did not tell the Senate that torture is both unethical and useless.ĚýIf Trump ordered her to resume torture, the honorable thing for her would be refuse or resign. The fact that she did not tell the Senate she would do so disqualifies her from holding the highest office in the CIA — the director of central intelligence.

Haspel has had a steady career in the CIA clandestine service.ĚýShe is a reliable performer, a capable administrator and she earned positive assessments.Ěý But being the DCI, especially in the Trump administration, requires so much more than being an experienced professional.ĚýIt requires a keen sense of loyalty to the country — what former FBI director James Comey refers to as a higher calling.ĚýFor the DCI in particular this means having the courage and integrity to tell the truth even if it contradicts an ideologically-driven policy. George Tenet, a former DCI, failed this test spectacularly when he stayed silent in the face of the White House fiction that the invasion of Iraq was to destroy Saddam Hussein’s WMDs.ĚýTenet had intelligence to demonstrate that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, and yet he kept quiet.Ěý

Actually he did more that that. He sat behind the Secretary of State Colin Powell at the UN Security Council and lent his authority to Powell’s false narrative.ĚýTenet also failed to prevent the torture of the CIA’s al-Qaeda prisoners — a process Haspel oversaw.

Haspel has done nothing to demonstrate her independence and moral fiber, but only a professional capability and a willingness to obey orders.ĚýDonaldĚýTrump has embarked on a policy of confrontation with Iran that has already relied on bending the truth with his bogus reasons for reneging on the Iran nuclear deal for a start. Does Haspel have the backbone to speak up?Ěý

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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The recent allied attack against Syria was a deliberately crafted gesture which amounted to no more than a statement that the use of banned chemical weapons will have consequences. If he heard this, Assad will conclude that he may continue the bloody suppression of his people by the usual conventional means. No one will oppose that.

The April 14 strike by the United States, Great Britain and France was bigger and hit more targets than the similar airstrikes in retaliation for chemical weapon use last year. But it was a limited operation calculated to avoid any direct attack on Russian or Iranian positions — many of which are co-located with major Syrian targets. More that that, the allies told the Russian military in advance and in detail what they proposed to do in order to de-conflict and avoid any direct contact. The Russians certainly passed this information on to the Assad forces. For all of President Trump’s bombastic threats, the actual attack made no effort to damage Assad’s grip on power or to tilt the balance in the war.

The Syrian Civil War, with its roots in the Arab Spring and a disastrous drought that drove millions into the cities, has confounded the strategists in both Europe and the US. The chaos and brutality that has followed created a vacuum that ISIS and its jihadist allies exploited. The collapse of central government in turn contributed to the migration crisis which continues to rock European politics. The false starts, confused policies and reversals of tactics by the West in response to this challenge have been a disaster — not least to the people of Syria but to the whole Middle East – and a gift to the nativists of Europe.

The truth is that the West has been outwitted by the strategists in Moscow and Tehran who clearly identified their interests and have pursued them consistently. For Moscow, the objective has been to demonstrate the support to an ally who provides Russia with land and sea bases, but has been and will again be a good market for Russian military and civilian output. But much more than that, Russia has demonstrated to all the other Middle Eastern states that it is an ally on whom they can depend — unlike the vacillating, inconsistent and critical West. Egypt and Saudi Arabia are already paying close attention and engaging Russia with negotiations for arms sales and warmer political relations.

Iran has been the other winner. Its consistent support for both the Iraqi and Syrian governments in their fights against insurgents has given them not only enormous political influence, but also a string of military bases extending through Iraq and Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon. We are witnessing the growth of an Iranian empire. None of these developments were initiated by Iran — the sparks that ignited the flames were the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and the Arab Spring. But the Iranians are taking full advantage of the opportunities that have come their way.

The strategists in Washington, now led by the new and aggressive National Security Advisor John Bolton, are preparing a fight back. Strongly encouraged by the Israelis, the Saudis and the Emiratis, the US is preparing a counterattack to try to roll back Iranian influence. This will start with the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and the re-imposition of US sanctions. But we should also expect a sharp escalation of covert operations and low intensity warfare conducted by drones and special or proxy forces. This will be designed to make it too costly for Iranian forces to remain in Syria and Iraq and to force the Iranians to make further concessions, such as discontinuing its long-range missile program.

However, if the lessons of the West’s incompetence in Syria is any guide the Iranians will likely profit from this new confrontation. Tehran and Moscow too have assets they can deploy, and the most powerful of these is that they are reliable as allies but dangerous as opponents. A political accommodation and a new balance of power is what they will seek. The only country in the region that will not be seduced by this argument is Israel. The others will all be making their own calculations.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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For a brief moment it seemed that Russia could emerge from the dictatorship of the Communist Party and the chaos of the Yeltsin years into a sunlit future of a pluralist, open, democratic society. In that brief moment before Vladimir Putin got into his stride, there was hope. The latest attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal in Salisbury with the collateral injury to his daughter Yulia, a local policeman and innocent passers-by is just the most recent piece of evidence that the Putin regime is a murderous thuggish outrage mirrored on the regime of Joseph Stalin in the 1930s. Dozens of have been poisoned, shot, , murdered or sent to prisoner camps.

This goes on while Putin and his gang of kleptocrats enrich themselves and their families with billions of looted money that would make even the Saudi royal family blush with embarrassment.

British Prime Minister Theresa May is searching for an effective response to the second Russian defector attacked in the UK using sophisticated toxins produced in state-owned chemical warfare establishments. There have been over a dozen other of Russian dissidents in the UK in recent years whose causes are obscure. Polonium 210 was selected for Alexander Litvinenko’s assassination because not only is it is deadly, but it washes out off the system very quickly and becomes undetectable. It was only due to the brilliance of the attending physicians that they suspected such an elaborate poison and tested early enough to find it.

The nerve agent that got Skripal was similarly designed by its inventors to be hard to identify. The assassins may think they were being clever, but in fact were outwitted by the British investigators. But it hardly matters. The Russian regime has got their man and will continue to lie about their involvement. Their objectiveĚý— a warning to defectors and dissenters — has been achieved: Beware, you are next.

Russia is not the only country to use assassination to eliminate enemies. Israeli Mossad has done it for years against Palestinians and Iranian nuclear scientists. Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya conducted a campaign to assassinate the “wild dogs” that opposed his murderous regime. The Iranians in the early years of the revolution assassinated a whole generation of exiled opposition figures. The US has used its drone program to anonymously kill unknown numbers of those it labels as terrorists. Lest we forget, it was a British secret service-supplied gun that killed Rasputin in tsarist Russia.

There is regrettably a threshold for tolerating such statecraft, even if there is a general acceptance that the end justifies the means. Where a state eliminates an active enemy who intends to cause real harm, there is at least some mitigating motive. In ¸éłÜ˛ő˛őľ±˛ąâ€™s case they are not neutralizing an active enemy but exacting revenge, retribution and seeking to instill terror in those who oppose Putin’s regime. This tells us a lot about the nature of the regime, though none of this is very new.

How should the UK and the West respond? We know how to deal with thuggish murderous regimes — we have a lot of experience with the countries of the former Warsaw Pact, including the USSR. We have current experience with North Korea. We should treat Putin’s regime the same, for it is in the same category.

No matter what the cost to the UK economy, the London banking center or the UK oil industry, we should police all the UK’s relationships with Russia and Russians until they can prove their innocence and their independence of the regime. All official visas should be suspended, all official bank accounts frozen, all Russian government-owned businesses sanctioned. Russia should be excluded from London financial and insurance markets, and all British overseas territories, including the Channel Islands, Isle of Man, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands, should be required to do the same. Painful, but it is the right thing to do that will show some leadership to the rest of the world in how to deal with Russia.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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On February 10, at the end of an extraordinarily violent week, the Israeli military shot down an Iranian drone that crossed into Israeli airspace, and then bombed the drone launch site in Syria. One of the Israeli F-16s bombers crashed near Haifa after Syrian anti-aircraft missiles locked onto the plane. More Israeli strikes followed against Syrian military, Iranian and Hezbollah targets inside Syria. Both Syria and Iran have sent messages to the Israelis that they do not want this event to signal an escalation.

However, the hawks in Tel Aviv and Washington are calling for further moves against Iran. Many Israelis and Americans see the Iranian regime as a threat to the survival of Israel, especially if Iran were to acquire a nuclear weapon. Iran is on course to become the dominant military and political player in the region by harnessing the combined power and strategic depth of Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. An Israeli nightmare is that their national morale will collapse if this actually happens. As most Israelis also have US passports, a very substantial proportion of the Jewish population might quickly desert the country in this scenario.

The regime in Saudi Arabia shares a similar fear of an Iranian-led power block, as do the ruling families of Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. They point not only to the Iranian gains in Iraq and Syria, but also to Iranian influence in Yemen. This common fear of Iran is the genesis of the unlikely coalition of Israel, the Saudis and UAE. The alliance is based on a belief that we are in the middle of an historic struggle between the Sunni states plus Israel on one side, and the Shia-ruled or Shia majority states on the othe.

This interpretation of affairs misses a historical reality. We are actually witnessing just the next chapter in the ongoing and protracted wars of the Ottoman succession, which also gives the Turks, the Kurds, the Russians and various other regional players major or minor roles. The winner of these wars will eventually replace the Ottomans as the dominant Middle Eastern nation — an issue unresolved since 1922 when the last sultan was deposed.

Iran has seen the demise of British and French attempts to replace the Ottomans, and now senses that the successive attempts of Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia to be the leaders of the region have also run their course. Iran aims to fill the power vacuum. Time and history may be moving in Iran’s direction. The leading Sunni nations, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have deep and worsening social, political and economic problems that they try to blame on Iran. Bahrain is on the ropes as its Shia majority bitterly resents being governed by the unelected Sunni al Khalifa family — a revolt against the rulers that they blame Iran for inciting. The UAE may have more internal cohesion, but it too is a police state where the indigenous citizens are a minority in their own country.

The theory that Iran is the cause of these countries’ problems is a dangerous fallacy. Israel and the Sunni states have well-equipped military forces and are only too willing to use them, although unimpressively in the case of the Saudi performance in Yemen the Egyptians in the Sinai. The Sunni alliance and Israel’s hope is that the US will come to the rescue and curb Iranian expansionism. While the Trump White House is ready enough to swallow the Israeli and Saudi version of current events and point the finger at Iran, the US appetite for yet another Middle Eastern war is limited.

After 15 years of fighting in Iraq and 17 years in Afghanistan, there is war weariness in the US. An additional factor is that the US is no longer dependent on Gulf oil supplies and no longer has a strategic economic or military reason to intervene, although Israel may suck the US in regardless. The Russians and Turks have more limited ambitions, but are determined to come out on the side of the winners. The interests of all the Middle Eastern states, the Europeans, the Russians and the US are to make a balanced regional peace — to include the Iranians.

The Israelis will also eventually come to the same conclusion, and, when they do, we will be back in a world not unlike the strategic balance pre-1978. We could work to reach that point by negotiation rather than with further bloodshed. It is more likely there will have to be another battle in the long war first.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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The recent unrest in Iran is yet another illustration that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and his agents of oppression, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its subsidiaryĚý, have lost all remaining claims to legitimacy. The generation that fomented the 1979 Iranian Revolution and now led by one of its last senior survivors, Ayatollah Khamenei, is at the edge of extinction. His authority evaporated years ago. The final strands of any right to power were severed by the rigging of the 2009 elections and the brutal suppression of the protests that followed.

Indeed, many years before 2009, the senior clerics of Shia confession had severed their connections with the theocracy in power in Tehran and retired to Qom or Najaf to focus on the spiritual life rather than politics. Ayatollah Khamenei knows full well that he rules with neither popular consent nor religious authority, but by force.

Khamenei, and his unelected branch of the government, have two opponents: the majority of the people, who want freedom and reform, and the elected government led by President Hassan Rouhani, who wants the same thing. This is a powerful combination. Rouhani is a shrewd politician, and he has spotted the opportunity to harness the recent discontent for his cause. He has already spoken publicly about the need to respond to the voice of the people. But he also knows that there are great dangers. If the protest movement were to get out of control, then Rouhani himself might be swept away in the chaos that would follow. Iran is a volatile place: Some 60% or 48 million out of 80 million people are under 30, and . They are angry about lack of jobs and opportunities. The security forces are well aware that they do not have the resources to police the situation if a real revolt took hold.

Rouhani has made some progress in reforming the economy, but not quickly enough to satisfy the aspirations of the population. Nor has he yet been able to deliver on the raised expectations after the lifting of nuclear-related sanctions. Rouhani has a delicate balancing act to respond to the popular movement but not fan flames that could consume him.

The key issue to watch is how Rouhani handles the situation. The unrest in Iran is a sign that the economy is under strain and the people want reform, but it in no way resembles the insurrection of the original revolution or the protests against the rigging of the 2009 election. It is a pale imitation of the popular uprisings of the Arab Spring or even the current turmoil in Tunisia.

The overexcitement in Washington that some rioting in Iran is somehow a harbinger of regime change is just an indication of how poorly the Trump administration understands the situation. Although it is premature to predict a change in mood, some of the protests have directly challenged the unelected power of Ayatollah Khamenei and the IRGC.

Khamenei is suffering from cancer and may not have long to live. Rouhani has a keen interest in ensuring that Khamenei’s successor is at least an ally. More desirable alternatives would be that the role of supreme leader lapses or passes to Rouhani himself who would then combine the posts of president, head of state and commander in chief. In this position Rouhani would control the bonyadsĚý— the non governmental charities that own about 20% of the Iranian economy and crucially provide the supreme leader with the funds to pay for and control the IRGC.

If Rohani plays his cards well, then Iran could emerge with a moderate reformist and coherent government intent on rejoining the international community and curbing the adventurism of the IRGC. We could see a repairing of relations with the Saudis and Emiratis, and even detente with Israel. These aims are clearly the aspirations of the youth of Iran. Predicting the future is an uncertain science, but the interests of the West and the region would be best served by not encouraging the wholesale overthrow of the whole regime by not interfering. The lessons of Iraq and Syria should be reason enough to tread carefully.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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¸éłÜ˛ő˛őľ±˛ąâ€™s strategy in the Middle East is infinitely more perceptive and successful than the incoherent American effort. President Ěýis a good example of the expanding influence of Russia in the region. Egyptian and Russian ministers signed a $21-billion deal to finance and build . Putin and Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi also agreed to work toward rebuilding economic and military relations to the way they were in Soviet times. President Sisi sees the durability of the US alliance as unreliable.

In Syria, Russian support was crucial in the and other jihadi rebels and has cemented its influence there for a future generation. Russian/Iranian relations are again blooming in trade, energy and military cooperation. Even in the Sunni Arab oil producing countries of Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar, ¸éłÜ˛ő˛őľ±˛ąâ€™s spreading influence has been helped by the alignment of interests in curtailing oil supply and maintaining high energy prices.

Contrast this to American policy, which has been compete in the energy markets to depress prices and to remove America as a market for Middle Eastern oil. Moreover, President Donald Trump has gone out of his way to offend Muslim sensibilities throughout the region both by his clumsy travel ban, racially charged rhetoric and the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state. The only other initiatives Trump has come up with are to encourage Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman to ally Saudi Arabia with Israel against Iran, fight a proxy war in Yemen and to ditch all economic and political support for the Palestinians.

The one positive achievement from Trump’s inaugural foreign visit was the much touted $100 billion worth of arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Like most of what Trump says and does there is so much less to this than the claim. There is no $100-billion deal. There are letters of interest or intent, but no contracts. In fact, not one single new arms contract has been signed. The US Senate has neither reviewed nor given approval for any new strategic arms contracts with Saudi Arabia and, of course, there is considerable doubt about whether Saudi Arabia could even afford to spend such amounts of money. President Putin has carefully sidestepped the folly of this sort of thinking: He has concentrated on making friends and influencing people, signing real deals and positioning Russia as a dependable partner with no ideological bias.

All this muddled US policy traces back to Trump’s naive mantra of “America First.” In reality this is no more than pandering the prejudices of his base — the white working class — but at the same time pushing through policies to please his wealthy donors. Trump may not know it, but US foreign policy has always been America first. The whole purpose of American projection of its power — military, economic, cultural and diplomatic — has been to shape the world environment to American interests. This never needed to be stated, and American success in doing this is obvious to all.

But the Trump version of “America First,” and how he translated this into Middle Eastern policy, has reversed the process. Trump has allied himself to Sunni governments that are undemocratic and deeply unpopular with their own people, carelessly insulted Arabs and Muslims and stirred up a new confrontation with Iran. He has also thrown his weight behind a right-wing Israeli government that is poised to annex the majority of the West Bank and force the Palestinians to live in a collection of self-governing unconnected “reservations.”

None of this is of any benefit to the US. In fact, it is the reverse and with long lasting negative implications. The State Department and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s contribution to Middle Eastern strategy has been almost totally absent or ignored. President Trump has appointed only one ambassador in the whole region — to Israel — which highlights his priorities. This is disrespectful at the very least to the regimes he is trying to be friends with. In short, the whole effort to project American interests in the Middle East has been a disaster, and one Russia has benefited from and will continue to exploit for the reminder of Trump’s presidency.

Putin is delighted: Russian relationships will endure long after the regimes that love Trump so much have disappeared.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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I ended my last piece on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s (MBS) master plan for the Middle East with the question, “What could possibly go wrong?” The answer is, everything.

There are four objectives in the master plan devised by MBS, UAE Crown Prince Muhammad bin Zayed (MBZ), Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and US President Donald Trump’s advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner. These are to contain Iran, to quash the Muslim Brotherhood, to consolidate MBS’ control in Saudi Arabia, and to force a permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. All four are interlinked.

The first few steps have already been taken — the Qatar embargo, the subsequent capitulation of Hamas, a purge and shakedown of the Saudi aristocracy, and the decertification of the Iran nuclear deal. The next step was to destabilize Lebanon to provide a pretext for Israel to attack Hezbollah — a necessary move before any further action against Iran. This is why MBS forced Lebanese Prime MinisterĚýSaad Hariri to resign and denounce both Iran and his Hezbollah partner in the power-sharing government.

This is the point the master plan is beginning to unravel. Hariri, now safely returned to Beirut, has rescinded his resignation. Hezbollah, as well as the Sunni and Christian communities in Lebanon, have refused to be manipulated by MBS and the Israelis. They may have religious differences, but they are Lebanese first and resent any outside interference, particularly from high-handed despots. None of this plan is the result of consultation with the populations of Saudi Arabia or the other quartet countries, or the Palestinians or the US — where even the State Department has only the haziest idea of what is going on.

By contrast, the tiny population of Qatar has woken up and discovered that it too wants a say in its future. MBS has brought into existence the new phenomenon of Qatari nationalism, and it is opposed to outside interference. Qatar is showing much more resilience than anyone expected and has found many new friends in the process.

The idea of neutralizing the internal opposition to MBS and at the same time funding the Saudi budget deficit with ransoms for those held hostage in the Ritz Carlton is also disintegrating. Capital flight and reinsurance is now top of the list of priorities for the wealthy Saudi elite. Everyone who can is making sure their wealth is placed beyond MBS’ reach and instructing their lawyers to ensure their resident permits in Monaco, the Bahamas or other convenient locations are fully up to date. Little appetite remains to bring new finance into the kingdom to fund any of MBS’ grand schemes. For the same reason, the Aramco IPO will now be pushed even further back, if not canceled in favor of a private placing with the Chinese.

MBS is soon going to discover that he has few resources to spend on providing jobs for the unemployed millions of young people — and few allies to help him do it. He claims he has the support of the Saudi youth for his program, but there is no evidence that he has actually consulted them.

Prince Mohammed’s war in Yemen is similarly going badly. It is costing the Saudis an estimated $700 million a month. The resultant humanitarian disaster — hundreds of thousands are dying of disease and starvation — has finally begun to demand the attention of the international community and even the US Congress, which is currently authorizing the supply of weapons and US military support to Saudi Arabia, including air-to-air refueling for Saudi bombers, intelligence support and training. MBS has no exit strategy from this disaster. Although President Trump still loves the Saud family, broader US attitudes to Saudi Arabia are in decline and will sour even further as the victims families’ 9/11 class action suit against the Saudi government in New York works its way through the courts.

Finally, we should consider the Palestinians — a mere pawn in MBS’ game. The crown prince has already stated publicly that he believes the Palestinians should accept the plan currently on offer. He may have seen the plan, but apart from MBZ, Jared Kushner and Benjamin Netanyahu, no one else has. The price Netanyahu has demanded for his alliance with the quartet is that that the Palestinians must take his offer of a Vichy France-like entity with limited powers based in a series of enclaves inside a greater Israel. When they hear about it, the Palestinian people will comprehensively reject it as a betrayal of everything they have fought for. Many other Arab streets will also rise up in protest.

The stakes are high for Mohammed bin Salman. As his plan unravels, we should expect a great deal of turbulence in Saudi Arabia.

*[Updated: November 27, 2017, at 20:45 GMT.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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The way to make god laugh is to tell him your plans. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s (MBS) master plan to save Saudi Arabia and Jared Kushner’s linked plan to solve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute are both providing the almighty with much amusement. On November 4, that opposes his rise to power — a move he agreed in advance with Jared Kushner during the latter’s secret trip to Riyadh (although no one in the White House told Rex Tillerson this upheaval was going to happen).

The dissident princes’ bank accounts have been frozen, and they are currently imprisoned in the Riyadh Ritz Carlton until they pay the gigantic fines (or more accurately, ransoms) placed on their heads. Those ransoms will help subsidize . This includes the sale of 5% of Saudi Aramco to raise foreign exchange to replace the roughly $100 billion a year haemorrhaging out of the reserves. Some of the money raised will be used to create jobs for the millions of unemployed and discontented Saudi youths.

Beyond Saudi Arabia’s borders, life is a bit more complicated, but here too MBS believes that his plans are on course. As the crown prince assesses it, Iran is the main existential threat to him, his family and indeed to the current set up in Saudi Arabia. The ruling elite in the United Arab Emirates agrees with this view and adds in the Muslim Brotherhood as an additional threat — a view Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi also shares.

The Iran nuclear deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA) has eliminated Iran as a potential nuclear weapon state but, as an unintended consequence, enabled Tehran to emerge as the dominant economic, military, political and cultural force in the Middle East. Iran’s economy is again thriving: Unlike Saudi Arabia, Iran prospers when oil is $60 a barrel. What is more, Iran has been on the winning side in the struggles in Syria, Iraq and now Yemen. This poses a major threat to the security and stability of Saudi Arabia, which now also has to worry about the loyalty of its oppressed, who make up 10% of the Saudi population.

MBS has allies for his plan to deal with Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood. The allies are Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Sisi, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of the UAE and President Donald Trump; this is where the master plans interlock. MBS’s objective is to put the Iranian genie back in its bottle and once again assert Saudi leadership of the Arab nations. Netanyahu would like to cut off the remaining external political, military and economic support for those Palestinians that still hope to establish an independent state. Once this happens, the Palestinians will have no option but to accept the limited peace deal now on offer — a Vichy-like Palestinian entity located in a series of enclaves inside a greater Israel. A key component of the Israeli plan is shutting off Palestinian support from Iran and Qatar. Here is where the objectives of Israel, MBS and the Trump White House coincide. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have agreed to force Qatar to stop supporting the Palestinians and the Muslim Brotherhood; President Trump will lead the confrontation with Iran.

The plans appear to be working out. Qatar has curtailed its support of Hamas, and Hamas has in turn been obliged to reintegrate itself with the Palestinian Authority. Qatar’s economy is beginning to feel the strain of sanctions and is selling off assets abroad. A few more months and Qatar will be under the thumb of Saudi and Emirati direction. Trump has decertified the Iran nuclear deal as the first step in a new confrontation with Iran.

However, before Iran can be dealt with, there is the problem of Hezbollah. Any attack on Iran would trigger an asymmetric response by Hezbollah against Israel or almost anywhere else in the region. Hezbollah has to be neutralized first. The first step is to get it out of the Lebanese government where it is currently in a coalition power sharing agreement. MBS persuaded (or forced) Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri to resign, blaming Iranian influence. That was relatively easy, though there is disbelief in Lebanon and beyond that this was the real reason behind his resignation.

Rekindling sectarian conflict in Lebanon could soon provide a pretext for an Israeli attack on Hezbollah cheered on by MBS and the White House. Unlike their botched attempt to wipe out Hezbollah in 2006, this time the Israelis will aim for a swift and overwhelming victory. The Saudis have already ordered all their citizens out of Lebanon.

So far these plans appear to be on track. If things continue as they are, Qatar should soon capitulate and stop its support for dissident Arab voices, and Hezbollah will be neutralized, enabling a full scale confrontation with Iran. Israel will have the Palestinians finally caught in a trap from which there is no escape. This will be hailed as a victory for the Trump White House and the final solution to the Palestine issue. MBS will have bought some time to try to reform the Saudi economy and social structure to avoid popular revolt.

What could possibly go wrong?

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The present cliff edge in US-North Korean relations stems from the Trump administration being solely focused on the symptom of the nuclear threat rather than the underlying disease that has brought us to this point. A more profound diagnosis is needed if we are to resolve this problem peacefully.

North Korea needs neither be an intractable problem, nor an issue that can be resolved by force alone. Unlike many other international dilemmas, there are no incompatible outcomes to the disputes that divide Pyongyang from the rest of the world. North Korea does not lay claim to the territory of any other nation and is not trying to proselytize its ideology or foment revolution abroad. Compare this with the overseas policies of Iran, Russia or China. They all claim territories beyond their borders and have all actively sought to subvert the political systems of other countries.

North Korea has done neither, nor has it even aspired to, since its failed invasion of the south in the aftermath of the Second World War. North Korea has of course done many horrible things: the cruel persecution of its own people, the assassination of political opponents, the kidnapping of innocent Japanese and the sinking of South Korean vessels. But similar charges could be brought against some of America’s closest allies too. So, why is North Korea a problem at all?

Trust Issues

The reason is that the North Korean supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, is determined to develop his nuclear and missile capability to ensure his own survival and that of his regime. His paranoid fear that the United States wishes to force regime change in North Korea has some foundation, and he has reasons not to trust US intentions.ĚýThe most recent significant rupture in relations with the US was the failure of the agreement between Washington and Pyongyang at the Six Party Talks in September 2005. Back then, North Korea agreed to abandon all nuclear-weapons development and return to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. But the same week in which the deal was signed — including a pledge from both North Korea and the US to respect each other’s sovereignty, to coexist peacefully and to normalize relations — the US administration imposed , where North Korea had many important accounts.

Pyongyang saw these sanctions as contrary to American commitment to non-aggressive relations, and in retaliation boycotted the Six Party Talks and made it clear that North Korea would not return until the sanctions were lifted. Throughout 2006, Pyongyang sent diplomatic signals that it was willing to negotiate with the US. The Bush administration rebuffed or perhaps misunderstood all of Pyongyang’s overtures. In late 2006, North Korea conducted its first nuclear test and the current cycle of crises was launched.

North Korea’s regime and the cult of personality it is grounded in has its roots in the Shinto mythology of the Japanese imperial rule of Korea until 1945. In those days, the Meiji emperor was believed to have divine power to rule over his racially pure Japanese subjects and their subject nations. The Japanese promulgated the concept ofĚýsonno joi — “revere the emperor, expel the barbarians” —Ěýand associated the emperor with the mythology of the sacred Mount Fuji. Moreover, they established a personality cult that worshipped Emperor Hirohito.

After 1945, the Japanese Empire and ideology were dissolved, but the latter was not eradicated in communist Korea. In fact, the great leader, Kim Il-sung, adopted and adapted to the Japanese approach. He initiated the philosophy of juche — a xenophobic, racially pure self-reliance similar to sonno joi. Kim Il-sung also invented the myth of the mystical and sacred Mount Paektu bloodline, which gives Kim Il-sung’s descendants a transcendent right to rule the country, again similar to the myth of Mount Fuji. Above all, he established the pervasive personality cult that exactly mirrors the Japanese worship of Emperor Hirohito.

But unlike prewar Japan, North Korea has not sought to establish an empire and, since the Korean War, has pursued self-reliance and internal self-sufficiency. Kim Il-sung learned well what happened to Japan in 1945. Nevertheless, North Korean xenophobia and insecurity have nurtured a national persecution complex. The loyalty of the army is the foundation of the Kim family’s hold on power in North Korea. Combined with chronic paranoia, the result has been an enormous military machine, the development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

Let it Collapse

The North Koreans have also been keen observers of what has happened to other countries that have failed to develop convincing defense against super-power strength. They know that Iraq and Libya would have been dealt with differently if they had possessed nuclear weapons. They have noted how the international community has negotiated with Iran rather than threaten it.

Unfortunately, and possibly unwittingly, the US has fed North Korean paranoia by a process of negotiating agreements and then reneging on their commitments. Of course, the US might and does put forward the same charge against North Korea, but this has brought us to the point where both sides are now making threats without any clear idea of what they are trying to achieve.

No one wants a catastrophic war with North Korea. What North Korea, or rather Kim Jong-un, wants is to be left alone, to remain in power and to pursue his own destiny — a grim one for the North Korean people but not one that threatens destruction of its neighbors. The inevitable crumbling of the ridiculous North Korean regime will bring the same problems and opportunities to the region that the end of the Soviet Union brought to Eastern Europe, as well as a much more preferable set of problems than the aftermath of a nuclear exchange or even a North Korean artillery bombardment of its southern neighbor.

Let it collapse under its own contradictions. The US and the region should have no interest in forcing the issue.

Despite their peculiarities, the North Koreans have showed themselves to be rational actors and willing to agree verifiable treaties under international safeguards. Trust is currently low but could be built up again to 2005 levels. Threats of “fire and fury” from President Donald Trump or Kim Jong-un’s promise to annihilate Guam are not a promising start to what will be a long journey. Mature, thoughtful leadership from the White House, supported by China, could take the first step. Fortunately we have such leadership … . Oh, wait.

*[This article was updated on September 3, 2017.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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The Nile Delta, home to 40Ěýmillion people and sourceĚýof two-thirds of is disappearing. This is a direct result of climate change and rising sea levels. The Delta, about the size of Delaware, is almost completely flat and at most only one or two meters above sea level. The land itself is sinking and so the relative sea level is rising even more quickly at about seven millimeters a year.

Before the was completed in 1970, the Nile used to deposit about 100 million tons of new sediment in the Delta each year, which compensated for the sinking land. The dam has also prevented the replenishment of the fast-eroding protective sand belts off the coast.

The do not stop there. The Ethiopian Grand Renaissance Dam, a massiveĚýhydroelectric dam due for completion in 2017, will further reduce the flow of the Nile by a quarter for between up to 15Ěýyears while the reservoir fills. Egyptian farmers who no longer have enough fresh water for irrigation directly from the Nile are already supplementing with well water from the underground Delta aquifer. The result is that the sea and salt water are intruding further and further inland. In some areas as much as 30Ěýkilometers inland, the water from the aquifer is already too saline to drink. In as little as 10 years the coastal regions will no longer be able to sustain either agriculture or human habitation.

Egypt currently half of all the for its booming population, which is around 90 million today and is projected to be 140-160 million by 2050. When Egypt loses the first 10%Ěýof the Delta as a source of food and human habitation, this alone will be a disaster of gigantic proportions. Millions of people will be forced out of their homes and off their farms to look for new places to live and for new jobs.

This is not something that could or might happen in the distant future:ĚýThis catastrophe has already begun to unfold. Moreover, some of Egypt’s biggest cities in the Delta – for example , with a population of 5 million – are also losing the battle of keep the sea out. When the rises just one meter, which is at the low end of the range predicted by the year 2100, most of the city will be uninhabitable.

Climate change was one of the causes of the . The prolonged drought caused three quarters of Syria’s farms to fail between 2006 and 2011. This forced over 1.5 million Syrians to migrate to the towns. Their plight and protests combined with President Bashar al-Assad’s authoritarian response was a major factor if not the primary cause of the uprising and the subsequent civil war.

The same set of preconditions in Egypt exist on a far larger scale. As in Syria, the disconnect between the heavily armed government elite and the poverty stricken masses is stark. When millions of displaced Egyptians find a leader and a purpose it will be too late. The authoritarian and unsympathetic regime of President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi is unlikely to defuse this explosive situation. The result will almost certainly be bloody and destructive.

The Syrian experience tells us that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of displaced Egyptians will attempt to cross the Mediterranean and come to Europe. Many will die in the attempt. Europe is barely coping with the Syrian situation and is completely unprepared for this coming onslaught of refugees.

Donald Trump’s denial of climate change and withdrawal fromĚýthe Paris AgreementĚýare not only willfully ignorant but areĚýan abdication of leadership in the face of these challenges. Moreover, in view of the likely civil unrest caused by the looming crisis, Trump’s encouragement of President Sisi to use whatever force is necessary to curtail popular dissent is myopic, if not criminal.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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A Saudi friend from the Aramco IPO team put it to me the other day that the reforms envisioned under Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s are going extraordinarily well, especially now that US President Donald Trump has so dramatically and personally embraced the Saudi regime. As a result, he said an investment in the Aramco IPO coming up next year was an opportunity I should not miss. The future was sunny for Saudi Arabia, and Aramco in particular.

My friend assured me that under the reforms, the fast-expanding population would enthusiastically accept the plan to stop paying them to do non-jobs in the civil service or “ghost jobs” in artificial “Saudi-ization” quotas. They would instead work for market rates of pay in the soon-to-be expanded private sector. Although this would mean a cut in average wages for Saudi citizens by 75% and require them to take jobs in occupations they regard as undignified, young Saudis would do this without protest. After all, my Saudi friend pointed out, the inhabitants of Oman worked in all manner of jobs without any political representation or rights. Saudi Arabia would be no different. Moreover, the government will be introducing taxes and quotas to make it harder and more expensive to employ immigrants and help erode the differences in pay and expectations of the Saudi and foreign worker communities.

His pitch was that an investment in the future of Saudi Arabia was a sure bet and that the aspirations of the majority posed no risk. Human rights, freedom of speech, equality of opportunity and indeed democracy are not the values of Saudi society, and Trump himself has just publicly endorsed the Saudi government’s denial of these benefits to its citizenry.

My friend recommended that I should sell my shares in Exxon or Coca Cola — both well-managed companies with transparent management, shareholder accountability and not subject to political interference. Instead I should buy shares in Aramco. Aramco’s management is far from transparent, its policy and direction come from a family elite, it has no public accountability and operates in a country run by an unelected dictatorship.

Moreover, the earlier promise that all the IPO proceeds would be invested in reforming the Saudi economy has already been thrownĚýoverboard. Half of the IPO proceeds will now be invested in the Western stock exchanges —Ěýprobably to buy shares in Exxon or Coca Cola. In other words, I am being invited to exchange a share of Exxon for ownership — of a sort — of part of Aramco.

History teaches us that when an unrepresented population is getting poorer and the ruling elite is getting richer, this inevitably leads to political upheaval or civil war. This was exactly the situation in Iran in the decade leading up to the revolution of 1979, Russia before 1917, the US before 1776, France before 1789, Egypt before the Arab Spring of 2011 and, of course, Syria. Perhaps we should believe that Saudis are different —Ěýthey will accept their declining standard of living and government by decree with peaceful resignation. Moreover, we might believe the claims that they love and respect their rulers and do not resent the riches, the super yachts and palaces they have awarded themselves.

Prior to 1979, Iran was the major military, economic and political power in the region, seen by the US government as a force for stability and defender of American interests. The US sold the Iranians vast amounts of weapons to defend the Gulf and act as a regional policeman. This is exactly the same mistake Donald Trump, who apparently has never read a history book, is making —Ěýinvesting in and arming the Saudi regime at the very moment when its foundations are eroding.

Moreover, Trump is ensuring that the successor regime is also armed with the most deadly weapons that America can produce. Meanwhile, the Saud family isĚýmonetizing itsĚýfixed assets likeĚýAramco and moving half the proceeds outside of the country. They are not taking any chances.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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President Donald Trump told the House GOP conference just before the fateful that if they did not pass the bill: “I honestly think many of you will lose your seats in 2018.”

This was the day after the heads of both the FBI and the NSA publicly exposed Trump as a liar for accusing former President Barack Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower in the run-up to last year’s presidential election. Even Republicans are starting to wakeĚýup to the fact that Trump is a fraud—a conclusion most other Americans have already reached.

Every FBI agent who has passed the statement analysis course at Quantico knows that when a suspect wants to deceive he uses words like “honestly” or “trust me” to create a semblance of truthfulness, or resort to some other diversion such as “fake news.” When that happens, the red lights start flashing and the klaxons sounding—almost certainly the suspect is lying. After Trump’s remarks enough Republicans came to the conclusion that they would more likely retain their seats if they did not pass the bill.

All of this brings us to the more serious business of whether or not the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians to influence the outcome of the election. : “James Clapper and others stated that there is no evidence POTUS colluded with Russia. This story is FAKE NEWS and everyone knows it!”

Red lights and klaxons again. In fact, FBI DirectorĚýJames Comey said that the bureauĚýis still investigating the , and Congressman Adam Schiff, of the House Intelligence Committee, said he has seen evidence beyond the circumstantial that there was collusion. The rest of us must wait for the final report before we know how much the Trump campaign plotted with the Russians.

It would also be helpful if the FBI revealed how much of Trump’s business empire is financed by hot Russian money and the leverage this gives the Putin oligarchy over him. But already by most people’s reckoning the integrity and authority of President Trump is at best severely undermined.

It seems clear that Trump believes that his lies will never stick to him despite the damaging evidence. His argument is that he was elected and thus the American people have already taken account of and accept his duplicity and flaws. He thinks he is justified in behaving the way he does because his character was on display before the election and the voters chose him anyway.

His confidence and arrogance areĚýnot dented by set-backs—any reverses are always the fault of someone else. TrumpĚýcan and will produce a bigger lie to cover for himself:ĚýFor example, it was the Democrats’ fault that the health care bill failed.

But for the rest of us the experience will be a disaster, just like the consequences for those he defaulted on when his businesses went bankrupt. Vladimir Putin could not be more content with the results of his campaign to put Trump in the White House. Not only the American public but also the closest US allies are already uncertain if any reliance on President Trump is justified. They too are just as capable of statement analysis and have heard the words “honestly” and “fake news” too often.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Many years ago a senior Israeli government advisor told me, in all earnestness, that many Israelis shared the same view of the Palestinians as the American settlers had of the Native Americans. They were primitive peoples, prone to violence and should be driven from the land.

Extending this idea, the advisor thought the Palestinians should be treated the same way as the Native Americans and exiled to reservations where they could exercise some autonomy—on Israeli terms. The Israelis had, after all, the strongest claim because God himself had given the land to the Jews. He assertedĚýa direct parallel between America’s Manifest Destiny and Israel’s aspirations.

Fast forward to the present and this vision for the Palestinians is now policy. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proclaimed from the White House on February 15 that Israel must control of all the territory between the Jordan River and the sea. To establish a permanent peace, Israel would set aside an autonomous area for the Palestinians on the parts of the West Bank not appropriated for Israeli settlement.

This would be a Vichy Palestine with similar powers and status as Vichy France.

After the crushing defeat of the French in 1940, Vichy France was a brilliant ploy to focus the last remaining aspirations for self-determination and national identity on a part of France totally under control of the conqueror. It shut off the possibility of a rival government in exile that might keep the flame of liberty alive or feed a resistance movement.

It also encouraged and nourished the French collaborators who sought personal enrichment and suppressed any dissent. And, crucially, the Vichy government gave legal recognition to a superior authority. If the allies had not attacked in 1944, this might have been a permanent redrawing of the map.

From the Israeli perspective, a similar arrangement on the West Bank should give the Palestinians what they want: a controlled enclave where they could exercise their national identity, preserve their culture and way of life. They might even be allowed to call a part of Jerusalem their capital—just as the Vichy government regarded Paris, although all administrative offices would be in Ramallah.

Continuing the line of thinking, a Palestine enclave would also close off the possibility of a rival government in exile and an end to the resistance movement, just as the French government in Vichy did. And this solution to the Palestinian problem would remove the last remaining obstacle to a warm peace between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Israel would offer an alliance to those same Arab nations to combat the Islamic State, the Muslim Brotherhood and the menace of Iran and Shia Islam. In return, the Arabs would coerce the Palestinians to give legal recognition to the Israeli superior authority and pay for some economic assistance.

The only element missing from this Vichy Palestine is a Marshal Petain to sign the armistice with Israel. And to quote from the original Philippe Petain, he might then offer the following advice to his Palestinian subjects: “We shall tell our young that real liberty exists only under Israel’s authority; we must accept our junior status; brotherhood is the family, the town and our homeland. So forget Liberty, Equality and Fraternity and adopt Work, Family and the Homeland as our principles.”

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Relations between the United States and Britain are close, the result of intermingled families, culture, common language, an interlocking history and to a certain extent an Anglo-Saxon mindset—though this is clearly a fast declining asset. But the “special” government relationship, the supposed intensity of a shared foreign policy and an open intelligence exchange is an illusion wished for by the British elite. The American side hasĚýalways seen the relationship as transactional, not special, though they often use the term as a way of grooming their British interlocutors.

The reality is there are no free rides based on sentiment. From the US point of view, the relationship will only be special—i.e. on a better standing than all other allies of the US—if the United Kingdom brings unique assets to the table. But the UK no longer has any unique assets and, what is more, the assets it has are fast depreciating. The only thing special about the British ruling class now is they still crave to be called “special”—even by Donald Trump.

Flummery and Symbolism

Prime Minister Theresa May’s early invitation to the court of President Trump—the first by a foreign head of government—was a nod to the long standing alliance between the UK and US. May’s offer of a bribe, the invitation for a state visit, was a clincher playing straight to Trump’s vanity. For Trump, the photo-op with the queen and assorted royals will be one up on the high society New Yorkers who have shunned him for years as that common arriviste. However, despite the flummery and symbolism of the return of the bust of Winston Churchill to the Oval Office, the US values the British relationship only by the net benefit to America.

The intelligence exchange is often held up as the jewel in the crown of the special relationship. In fact, US agencies are all instructed to certify every year that the UK gives more intelligence to Washington than the other way around. The UK does produce a great deal of intelligence from Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and MI5 and MI6 intelligence agencies, but in itself it is only a fraction of the US production.

The UK even allows the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to collect intelligence in Britain itself—an amazing surrender of sovereignty. The irony is the UK no longer has the strategic defense interests that require the intelligence its services produce. A good example is Chinese expansionism in the South China Sea. The United Kingdom has zero influence on any sides of the dispute, and no strategic interests beyond the general all-purpose one of peace and stability.

The same might be said of British sovereign bases in Cyprus. In the past, these were strategic assets to support the UK’s bilateral military and political interests in the Middle East. If you ask the UK military what the purpose of these bases isĚýnow, they will tell you they are mainly intelligence gathering platforms, which in turn are in support of US interests. The tail is wagging the dog. The intelligence world is thus dominated by US priorities and policies, and, in consequence, the UK’s decisions are based almost entirely on the US intelligence picture. Britain sees the world through the same lens as the US.

Practical Matters

When it comes to practical matters, the US makes decisions and the UK gets to hear about them afterward, though the Brits may be the first to be told—no special relationship in terms of policymaking. In 1986, when President Ronald Reagan almost agreed with Mikhail Gorbachev to eliminate all nuclear weapons, MargaretĚýThatcher was horrified:ĚýThe whole of NATO defense policy had just been overturned.

Similarly, in 1983, when the US invaded Grenada, whose head of state is the queen, the UK was told after the fact. And of course with the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, Britain was informed about it well after it had been decided upon. The same is going on right now as the Trump administration forms its policies toward Israel, Iran and China. There is no joint policymaking—there are just US interests which later on the UK could be invited to share.

This aspect of the special relationship boils down to fact that Britain is just the first to be asked to support US decisions. Sounds more like a special pet than a special relationship.

And what does the UK get out of this? The illusion of being best friends with the biggest kid on the block. The warm feeling that Britain is still at the top table. And acres of British newsprint about how the UK government is so important. The reality is that while Theresa May will get some face time with Donald Trump, her ministers and other senior members of her government will struggle mightily to even get noticed in Washington.

The British Embassy’s recurrent nightmare is trying to arrange a “suitable” program for every self-important UK minister who visits Washington and whom none of the US cabinet cares twopence about.

As for trade and investment: The US will show not a shred of sentimentality and continue to do business as it suits. With the UK out of the European Union it will suit less and less often. The brutal US treatment of British Petroleum (BP) after the Deepwater Horizon spill is a reminder of how little sentiment counts in the American business world. There will be no special carve-outs for the UK when Trump starts introducing tariffs on imports either.

And those acres of newsprint in the UK? Nary a squeak about Britain in the US media unless it is about Prince Harry’s American girlfriend.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have one thing in common: they are both unburdened by principles. Trump’s election threatens to bring America down to Putin’s level where only self interest counts. They both know the price of everything but the value of nothing.

Russia gave up its only principled attempt at policy-making after the death of Vladimir Lenin. Since then its dictators have pursued solely Russian national interests. This worked more or less until 1991. After that Russia lost its empire and its way, but Putin is turning the tide and again leading with the doctrine that Russian national interests come first—justice, democracy, human rights, rule of law, fair trading—and the rest all come second or not at all.

From its inception until the election of Trump, America put liberty, democracy and free trade at the forefront of its foreign policy. It did this in the belief that not only was this what the Founding Fathers intended and but also that democratic, free nations would be natural allies, lucrative markets and not a threat to the US.

Putin calculated that Russian interests would not be served by Hillary Clinton as president. Clinton’s belief in the rule of law, free elections and human rights would be a continuing obstacle to the Russian annexation of Crimea, the war in eastern Ukraine and the persecution of Russian democrats. Clinton would have continued American opposition to Russian intimidation of the Baltic States and—Putin’s ultimate ambition—the re-absorption of Kazakhstan into the Russian Federation.

So no wonder Putin authorized his special services to do all they could to sway the election toward Trump. Putin reasoned that if his actions could be framed as being in the American national interest, Trump, unlike Clinton, would not stand on principle but seek to close a deal. Trump boasts about his negotiating ability, so all Putin had to do is offer him something tempting to start bargaining.

Let’s Shake on It

Imagine a scenario where Putin offers Trump a free hand for America to overturn the failing regimes in Cuba and Venezuela. In return Putin wanted recognition of Russian annexation of Crimea, dropping of sanctions and a free hand to “guide” Kazakhstan back into the Russian Federation. Putin might even offer to reconcile Russia to the Baltics’ membership of the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

As Putin might put it: “My dear Donald—this is a win-win. It is in your interests:ĚýYou get Cuba’s market, its strategic location and a wonderful place to build hotels. You get Venezuela’s oil. We get only what is naturally ours anyway, and we guarantee that China doesn’t get to dominate Kazakhstan. Let’s shake on it.”

The incoming Secretary of State Rex Tillerson would like it too: Venezuela owes Exxon billions and is causing problems for Exxon’s giant discovery off the coast of Guyana. What is good for Exxon is good for America, as the argument would go. Providing Exxon’s stake in the Kazakh oil fields was preserved, Exxon would also much prefer to deal with their friend Vladimir than the aggressive and unreliable regime of Nursultan Nazarbayev.

But before such big transactions are done, Putin will want to test Trump to see if what he has invested so much in is really what Putin thinks it is. Putin will try first with a minor issue to gauge Trump’s nerve and judgment.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey provides an opportunity. Suppose Putin proposes setting up a joint Turkish-Russian peacekeeping force to stabilize Syria and parts of Iraq after the Islamic State (IS)Ěýhas been driven out. The headquarters of this joint force could be in Turkey and jointly staffed and equipped by the Russian and Turkish military. What could be better? Some real muscle to ensure IS does not creep back, no American boots on the ground, all the risks and costs borne by someone else, threats to Israel reduced.

In return Russia becomes a force for peace in the region. Will Trump sign up? It’s a deal! That would make Putin smile.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit:Ěý

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Donald Trump claims that he has resurrected the voice of the industrial-age white working class who still cling to the conservative social beliefs of the 1950s. He has stirred up their passions, given them false hope and is leading them to defeat. He is the Jefferson Davis of our time.

One reason the Confederate States of America seceded from the Union was because they believed that they were the real and original United States. They thought the North had taken a wrong path and betrayed the revolution. The Confederate States were largely rural, their economy agricultural and society hierarchical. Protestant white men were at the top and black slaves at the bottom—just like all of America of 1776.

But by 1861, the North was different. Slavery was gone and the economy was industrializing and attracting new immigrants who wanted change. In the opinion of the South, the North was also awash with dangerous liberal ideas thatĚýcontradicted the vision of the Founding Fathers. But, as we know, the Confederate view of the world has gone with the wind.

Despite the Civil War, most of America in the 1950s was still hierarchical and conservative, with Protestant white men at theĚýtop. However, there was now a more diverse but still quiescent mixture of aspiring immigrants, restless young people, independent-minded women and hopeful African Americans—mostly fugitives from the segregated South—at the bottom.

They had yet to realize their political strength, though they would not have to wait long. It was a time when the old industrial economy was vibrant and all could benefit, providing there was no challenge to the social norm. Back then to be a white working-class man was to be part of the dominant culture. This America still exists, not geographically compact like the old South, but dispersed among us.

America of 2016

The America of 2016 is vastly different: White men are no longer the majority voters. The disenfranchised minorities, as well as women, the young and the LGBT community have found their own powerful voices, gained their voting rights and representation. Diversity and a rainbow of liberal social views are the main cultural influences.

The new knowledge and technological economy is booming, and America is immersed in the complexity and challenge of globalization. But not all America. For just as in 1861 there is still that other America, white and hierarchical, trapped in the now-declining old economy and the social conventions of 60 years ago.

And, like the Confederates, many of them feel their way of life—what they believe to be the real America—has once again been betrayed. Of course they want to hang on to their world and, if they could, turn the clock back for the rest of us.

This time they cannot secede, although Donald Trump has nonetheless led them into war—a war they will naturally lose. When they do, like the defeated Confederates, this group will not go away but will continue to simmer and seethe with resentment.

Reconstruction, reconciliation and reintegration of the millions who feel Trump has spoken for them must not be neglected or AmericaĚýwill forever beĚýtwo nations.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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The lowest point in the fortunes of Russia since the Mongol invasion had been the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which was forced on the Russians by the Germans on March 3, 1918.

Today, it is worse. Russia is back behind those German borders and has lost much, much more. It is still losing.

By early 1918, the Russian state had collapsed with the fall of the Romanovs. —whom the kaiser had sent back to Russia in a sealed train from his exile in Switzerland to foment the revolution—wanted to stop the war at any cost in order to consolidate the Bolshevik grip on power.

The German terms were draconian and pushed the borders of Russia hundreds of miles eastward. In the west, Russia had to give up the Baltic states, Ukraine, Belarus, parts of Poland and, in a separate agreement, most of the Caucasus to the Ottoman Empire

The Brest-Litovsk border changes were reversed when the Germans were defeated in the west and by the supervening Treaty of Versailles—lucky for Russia. Skip forward to the end of the Second World War and Russia had expanded its borders to include the Baltic states, the eastern part of Poland and extended its influence and control over all the states of eastern Europe and half of Germany. Joseph Stalin could claim not only to have restored the glories of imperial Russia, but to have expanded the empire enormously. That was the high point.

The Story Today

The current state of Russia is a disaster by comparison. Its western borders have once again been pushed back to the Brest-Litovsk line—it has lost the western Russian Empire of the czars and all of Stalin’s gains, except the enclave of Kaliningrad and the more recently recaptured Crimea. Russia is reliving the humiliation of 1918.

But the popular view is that Russia is resurgent, aggressive and expansionist. Plenty of evidence exists to support this: the seizure of Crimea and South Ossetia, the bombing campaign in Syria, the saber rattling in the Baltics and an increasing military budget. However, the bigger picture is that Russia is at a very low point in its history and struggling to recover. The tide of history is flowing in the other direction and the low oil price and its derelict, out-of-date economy are further drags—not to mention rampant corruption and political stagnation.

One might say that President Vladimir Putin has done well to keep it all together and still remain personally popular. But the view from his Kremlin window is bleak.

© TUBS

But wait, it gets even worse. In the south, Russia has lost again a big portion of the territory it ceded to the Ottoman Empire. These are now the states of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.ĚýIt has also lost Kazakhstan and all the other central Asian states. Things are grim in the west and in southern Asia too. But at least the vastness of the Russian steppes and Siberia are safe. Or are they? The nightmare is that they are not.

The Russian Far East

A recurrent fear in Moscow is that the Chinese will eventually reassert control over the Russian Far East. This starts with the area sometimes referred to as Outer Manchuria—twice the size of Texas—and now the part of Russia around Vladivostok. The Chinese were forced to cede this area to Russia in 1858 and 1860 (by the Treaties of Aigun and Peking) during the so-called century of humiliation. These are the only territories China surrendered at that time which it has not yet recovered. Although China has recognized the border in the most recent version of the Russian Chinese Friendship Treaty of 2001, generations of Chinese have been taught to regard these lands as “lost territories.”

The entire population of the whole of the Russian Far East is less than 7 million (compared to China’s 1.3 billion) and demographic pressure is pushing more and more Chinese across the border—legally and illegally—in search of work, trade, farmland and space.

Chinese migration into Russia is a highly sensitive issue and there are no recent or reliable figures—though migration is surely underway. Some estimates already put the number of ethnic Chinese in the region above 1.5 million and possibly much higher. Russian and Chinese officials keep very quiet about this. Nothing has been said in public since 2008 when Putin himself told the inhabitants of the border city of Blagoveshchensk that if the tide does not turn, their children will speak Chinese.

Russia is trying to increase the number of Russian speakers in the region by resettling refugees from the conflict in Ukraine and offering free land to anyone who wants to resettle—similar to the homesteading that populated the American West. This initiative is having some effect, but the Russian-speaking population is still falling. As things stand, in a few years the new Chinese immigrants will demand Chinese-speaking schools and public services. It will then be only a short step to demanding autonomy.

Russia is losing its grip. China is playing this very well indeed: befriending Russia, buying its oil and gas, encouraging trade and investment—the warm embrace of the tiger anticipating its next meal.

So, the view from the Kremlin is of a Russia in decline: a moribund economy, forced behind humiliating borders likely to shrink further and handicapped by sanctions.

The situation is not dissimilar to that of Germany after World War I. Then, Germany saw itself humiliated, surrounded by enemies with an economy in sharp decline and hobbled by reparations. Germany, too, had a strong desire to recover what it had lost and more. National socialism seemed to be the answer and one of its first moves was to start rearming.

Putin may be tempted to follow a similar path.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Now that the UK is heading for Brexit and reconsidering her role in the world, the UK Parliament’s decision to renew the Trident nuclear weapons program was a missed opportunity to recalibrate the UK’s outmoded view of itself and its international role.

The original rationale behind UK’s desireĚýfor an independent nuclear weapon capability disappeared at the same time as the riskĚýthat Western Europe could be overwhelmed by conventional armed forces from the Warsaw Pact—back in the day they had 55,000 tanks lined up against NATO’s 5,000. The argument ran that the numerical superiority of the Warsaw Pact’s conventional forces could quickly overrun all the combined NATO forces in Western Europe—including any US reinforcements that could be flown in—and that a swift military defeat could be achieved without launching any Soviet nuclear weapons.

This was the reality of the Soviet threat during the Cold War. The NATO strategy to prevent this happening was the assertion that NATO was willing to launch a first strike nuclear attack of such ferocity that the capability of the Soviet nuclear forces to retaliate would be decimated, the major cites of the USSR would be destroyed and the capability of the conventional invading forces obliterated. This was a real deterrent, and it worked.

The Next European War

But for the UK—and for France—the worry remained that this policy assumed that the NATO response in the face of the Soviet aggression would be unified. The lessons of the First and Second World Wars reminded everyone that the US might decide to sit out the initial stages of the war while the Europeans settled their differences. The US government might decide that allowing a European conventional war to come to a resolution might be preferable to going nuclear and risking a nuclear bombardment of its own cities.

The US population and Congress may well be inclined to agree. Ernie Bevin, the foreign secretary in Clement Attlee’s government, was well aware of this in 1946. After a testy meeting with his US opposite number he said: “I don’t want any other foreign secretary of this country to be talked to or at by a Secretary of State in the United States as I have just had in my discussions with Mr Byrnes. We’ve got to have this thing [a nuclear bomb] over here whatever it costs. We’ve got to have the bloody Union Jack on top of it.”

But in 2016, the UK is a fraction of what it was in terms of its geographical interests, military reach, share of population and global GDP. For years the UK has fretted about losing the UNSC seat and has devoted significant resources to finding out about and thwarting the plans of the Indian, Brazilians, Indonesians, Germans and whoever else might think that a permanent seat was more rightly theirs than ours.Ěý

The UK policy was set to ensure that the US would not have the option of sitting out the next European war because the UK could independently go nuclear and remove the possibility of the European conflict remaining sub-nuclear. A unilateral UK nuclear strike would, so the reasoning ran, be able to slow down the Soviet invasion of Western Europe and buy perhaps two or three weeks before the Warsaw Pact conventional forces regained their composure and resumed their march west.

But the US would have to consider the consequences for itself if the USSR retaliated with nuclear weapons—almost certainly against the US as well as UK targets. In reality such decisions would be made very quickly indeed and the result would almost certainly—at least in the minds of the Soviets—be that the UK would be able to force a US nuclear first strike against the USSR. In effect, a UK finger on the US nuclear trigger.

Nuclear Blackmail

This theory behind the need for an independent UK nuclear capability held up as long as the Warsaw Pact maintained enough conventional forces to overrun Europe. This is not the case now and the need for the UK to be able to force the US into initiating a nuclear exchange has evaporated.

So what is the point of the UK’s independent nuclear capability? There is still a case for an allied nuclear weapon capability to deter nuclear weapon states and even those with conventional forces from major military adventures—and to deter and to respond to those that might attempt nuclear blackmail—either from North Korea or even ISIS or al-Qaeda, if they ever captured a nuclear weapon. David Cameron in 2013 when he said: “We cannot be sure on issues of nuclear proliferation, and to me having that nuclear deterrent is quite simply the best insurance policy that you can have, that you will never be subject to nuclear blackmail.”

But this deterrent is much better placed within the collective European and NATO response. It is not something that the UK has any good reason to attempt independently. The UK does not seek independence for its conventional military response—indeed quite the reverse—so why for its nuclear capability?

The sensible and thoughtful nuclear deterrent is one that is part of the collective defence of the NATO and European theater—not as an independent capability whose only real use is to oblige the US to come to the UK’s rescue.

Smoke and Mirrors

There is, however, massive amounts of pride, amour-propre and vanity tied up in this subject. We need only look at one: the UK’s permanent seat on the UN Security Council (UNSC). The status of the UK as a permanent member has become an anomaly. The UK gained this seat at a time when with its vast empire it was one of the victors of World War II and could assert that it ruled over and had legitimate interests in a quarter of the earth. It would have been odd for the UK to be left out.

But in 2016, the UK is a fraction of what it was in terms of its geographical interests, military reach, share of population and global GDP. For years the UK has fretted about losing the UNSC seat and has devoted significant resources to finding out about and thwarting the plans of the Indian, Brazilians, Indonesians, Germans and whoever else might think that a permanent seat was more rightly theirs than ours.ĚýThe trump card—at least in the UK government’s mind—is the UK independent nuclear status, though even that wears thin considering the Indians, and perhaps other contenders, have a nuclear capability too.

But take away the independent nuclear power card and what is left? Smoke and mirrors. Only the UK government is fooled by this. The reality is all too apparent to the rest of the world. speaks for many as he recently put it:

“I firmly believe that the [UN Security] council should be reformed: it cannot continue as it is. The world has changed and the UN should change and adapt. If we don’t change the council, we risk a situation where the primacy of the council may be challenged by some of the new emerging countries.”

“I think those in privileged positions will have to think hard and decide what amount of power they are prepared to release to make the participation of the newcomers meaningful. If they do that, they will get cooperation; if they don’t, we risk confrontation.”

Instead of clinging to the past, a forward looking policy would be to seek a nuclear doctrine in sync with conventional military doctrine and a more sustainable role for the UK in international affairs—something for the new UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to consider. The UK has many assets, and its nuclear capability and the UK UNSC seat still have value—for now.

The UK would be wiser to use them before they depreciate any further to negotiate a durable, more realistic set of security and defense policies that recognizes the real UK position in the world. Collective nuclear security is a lot cheaper and more effective than an independent deterrent and the UK can spend the savings squandered in Trident on rebuilding its depleted conventional forces and rebalancing its security doctrine.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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, which has caused so much anger in the United Kingdom as it details the spurious reasons of why former British Prime Minister Tony Blair led the country to war, fails to answer the question of why US President George W. Bush took the decision to invade Iraq.

As a result, it misses the underlying reason of why Blair chose to join him, and Blair has compounded the confusion by claiming that the world is a because of the decision he took to invade Iraq—a typical self-aggrandizing statement.

Regime Change

The reality is that the policy of regime change in Iraq, by force if necessary, was formulated years earlier by the neocons of the Bush administration—Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Doug Feith and Stephen Hadley among them—who in turn were close to and mightily influenced by the thinking in Tel Aviv.

The strand of Israeli and neocon thinking at the time was that Saddam Hussein was the last Arab leader actively confronting Israel and the last remaining supporter of Yasser Arafat and the rejectionists in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Eliminating Saddam’s regime would mean that finally all Arab states would be reconciled to peaceful, if not friendly, relations with Israel, and that the PLO, having lost the last one of its Arab backers, would be forced to negotiate a settlement and, therefore, begin healing the festering sore of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. A few ornamental sprinkles were added to this by talking up the advantages of removing a monster and establishing a democratic Iraqi state thatĚýwould act as a beacon of hope and reform to the rest of the Arab world.

The US decision to pursue regime change was entirely independent of the existence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq. Indeed, the decision to pursue regime change by any means was taken long before September 11, 2001: Bush issued instructions shortly after he was elected to plan for Saddam’s removal.

The events of 9/11 added momentum to the policy because Bush, egged on by the neocons and Henry Kissinger, impressed on him that the only effective response to 9/11 must be a US demonstration of its overwhelming power to would-be attackers—and that an invasion of Iraq would serve very well, with all the other benefits Tel Aviv were talking up.

Curveballs

The only thing missing was a casus belli, and the Bush administration cast around for any reason that they could use to justify an invasion. The only one that held water was Saddam’s continued violation of the terms of the United Nations (UN) inspection regime. Stephen Hadley—at the time deputy to then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice—was challenged very early on that an unprovoked invasion of Iraq would be illegal; he erupted with the rebuke that he was not concerned with legality but with policy.

Having settled on using the violation of the UN resolutions and, in a leap of logic, that therefore Saddam must be concealing WMDs as justification, the US asked the Brits to help frame the argument and join the coalition of invasion forces and so add respectability and authority to the public presentation. At this point, the search for any evidence or intelligence to support the theory that Saddam was hiding WMDs went into overdrive.

There was no evidence to support the WMDs claims, and all the intelligence was either tentative or fabricated by the likes of the Iraqi defector-turned-informant known as “” and many like him. This was a major problem for the strategy of proving noncompliance with UN Security Council Resolution 1441 as the pretext for war.

But war was coming irrespective of proving Saddam’s possession of WMDs, and so Tony Blair was faced with a dilemma: Oppose the UK’s most powerful ally and refuse requests for help, or stick with friends in the belief that such was their power they would win anyway—right or wrong or, as Blair put it in his , “whatever.”

Wrong on both counts.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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The Saudi Arabian have already over stimulated the saliva glands of banking and advisory community. Of course, these stakeholders are looking for fees from the Aramco IPO, forthcoming bond issues and the investments the proceeds will go into. Indeed, optimism about change is in the air—if not from those expats about to be taxed for the first time.

But Saudi Arabia’s problems cannot be fixed by financial engineering. Saudi Arabia is deeply dysfunctional, and the government survives because years of surplus oil revenues have compensated for and indeed created a culture of entitlement for the Saudi population.

With oil now well below Saudi Arabia’s budget break-even price—and likely to remain so—this situation can continue for only a few years.

Demographic Tsunami

This is the problem identified in Vision 2030. Saudi Arabia cannot go on as it does now subsidizing the lifestyles of the overpaid and on grand projects. The reality is that between now and 2030, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita will drop significantly, and every Saudi—except members of the Saud family—will become much poorer, particularly young Saudis who have been educated to expect a life of well-paid sinecure. How much pain they are willing to endure in this process is not clear, but it will be fertile ground for new political ideas. Here lies a great danger.

At the moment, about . The Saudi public sector employs more than , and together with unemployment benefit and subsidies, the share of Saudi household income coming from the government is on average about 80%.

This of course only applies to Saudi citizens, not to expatriate workers and their families—most of whom come from South Asia. Expats make up about one-third of the population, or about 10 million out of 30 million. It is these expats who do the vast majority of the actual work in the real economy—i.e., the petroleum, construction, personal services, retail, manufacturing, engineering, travel, tourism, utilities and agricultural sectors.

Although Saudi Arabia has no debt and —and valuable fixed assets such as Aramco and its oil—its demographics are a tsunami which these financial barriers will not be able to contain. Already, half the , and by 2030 the number of Saudis aged 15 and over will increase by about 6 million and bring a further 4.5 million people into the labor market.

The result will be that the potential supply of Saudi labor will almost double to about 10 million from the current 5.5 million. This number will rise further if greater numbers of Saudi women seek to enter the workplace as well. Compare this with the 1.7 million jobs—mostly public sector—created for Saudis during the 10 years of the oil boom of 2003 to 2013.

that even if the government halted the immigration of expat workers, and replaced current expats with 800,000 Saudis, between now and 2030 there would still be a massive shortfall in available jobs and, as a result, unemployment among Saudis would rise above 20% with a similar fall in average household income. And this takes no account of planned reductions in subsidies or increases in taxation.

There is another major problem: the work culture among Saudi nationals. On average, it costs a company between four and six times as much to hire a low-skilled Saudi national as it does an expat worker, and no commercially run company will voluntarily do so even if Saudi nationals were willing to take any job—and there are many they refuse to accept as “demeaning.”

Public sector workers—all Saudis—earn on average about 70% more than their equivalents in the private sector. On this basis, the public sector cannot absorb the millions of Saudis coming to the labor market without the government running up gigantic deficits. The private sector cannot absorb these numbers without going bankrupt, unless Saudis are willing to take jobs and wages on par with expat workers.

The Outlook

This is the bind that Prince Mohammed bin Salman has described and the National Transformation Plan seeks to address. But no solution is likely to work unless the Saudi population is able reconcile itself to a substantially lower standard of living, to having to earn their pay rather than occupy a made-up public sector job, and crucially accept all this pain without demanding any political voice in the way these decisions are made.

Missing from Vision 2030 is any thought that the destiny about to befall the Saudi population should affect the Saud family itself. This is a fault line that will likely rupture and require a renegotiation of the current social compact.

When faced with a similar problem, Louis XVI assembled the Estates General. It didn’t go so well.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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