Latest Cost-Free Assault on Occupied Gaza Population?

Introduction

The latest Israeli assault on Gaza comes on the heels of Hamas-Fatah reconciliation, turmoil in Iraq, intense conflict in Syria and ongoing attrition in Kiev.  For all these conflicts, there is lack or absence of clarity on who holds the upper hand, there is clarity of who started each conflict even in disguise and more over there is no end in sight. If there is anything called balance, it can be discerned with great difficulty in all the mentioned conflicts but the common denominator is increasing number of casualties. In the case of Gaza assault it is difficult to make comparisons as they do not exist however a change in the method of the occupied has changed the game for the occupier.

Part One

In the last decade Israeli military has concentrated its efforts to confronting non-state actors even despite who may be on paper their inferior capabilities, assets and manpower.  One may rightly question the motive for such waste of resources in responding to non-state actors military distractions. Justifications are litany from ‘war on terror’ play-book to bubbling hubris of military superiority to unalloyed support of the United States can be cited. 

In most of these conflicts, it is almost impossible to capture the objectives or rather the objectives may be directed as phased approached to perpetual conflict with non-state actors. Hezbollah and Hamas seem to be given the opportunity to contextualise their raison d'être as resistance movements by their opponent in the military theatre.  They regroup and become ready for the next round despite the pounding and blood-letting from some of the most lethal weapons ever made by man.

Latest Offensive

The current attack on Gaza followed the previous patterns of sharp infliction of unimaginable pain including deaths. For a people under occupation for over 2 generations, who have died many times over before, death is no more a killer to them. May be they have conquered death even though it may not have been their a priori objectives.  With all the tools of disinformation and media manipulations, there is consensus that Gaza is not a military theatre of importance or significance rather a sorry refugee camp holding so much people against their will and aspiration.

The convergence of daily war of dehumanisation and no-hold bar military bombardment may not make much difference to the residents. In any case, war is war regardless of its shape, form and style. Sadly the world looked on, the powerful become powerless to intervene and stop the bloodshed, senior diplomats jump in defiance of history for the most irresponsible hyperbole.

Game Change

As Israeli onslaught continues unchallenged and uncontested, the occupied weak responses have gained new length and distance to target locations/assets of importance in Israel. Few days ago, it was reported that some missiles fired by Hamas landed near Tel Aviv airport. There is no reason to believe that the missile caused physical damage but the real damage unfolded immediately, lack of confidence of aviation safety in Israeli airspace. Despite being the primary support of Israel, United States authority immediately suspended all flights between US and Tel Aviv, and then other countries in Europe and Russia followed suit. 

The message is clear that western powers can only intervene in this conflict unless their economic interest is at stake. Contextually all of a sudden they have started communicating with Hamas and Gazans in a curious way unimaginable in the past. This communication has raised the stake higher by appropriating the silence and turning it into a weapon of assertiveness and attention between Gazans and the rest of the world especially the western powers. 

Even though western media have refused to run with the story properly, the economy damage of flight suspension between Tel Aviv and the rest of her major partners is incalculable and decisive. Unfortunately this will not be a burden borne solely by Israel rather by her partners as well. So long as the conflict continues, whether missiles are fires into Israel or not, confidence of her partners will not be restored until this conflict ceases without encouraging new one in the future. Hamas will feel empowered that the game changer has in part contributed to slowly eliminating Gaza’s physically isolation from the rest of the world.

Loser’s Match

Gaza’s geostrategic importance is much more than meets the eyes. Nevertheless that sparse and tiny piece of real estate and her territorial water holds vast resources. Gazans need to heal first in a post-conflict period of renewed humanisation and reconscientisation. This conflict and others running parallel to it have extended exposure of United States as a geopolitical power in decline. While it may be construed that Israel has her support, Israel is surely making her way out through this conflict. United States is caught in her own Gordian knot increasingly impossible to cut or even understanding its unique tying method. 

The cumbersome and inflexible attention to diplomacy, exuberance of creating instability in the region ad infinitum, and the increasing isolation in the world as a negative power has culminated in diminishing US standing. United States diminution on the world stage is vividly caught by the hurried and trepid retreat & evacuation of her citizens in Tripoli few day ago. It didn't make the headlines but the subtext is very clear; we can be counted to be the destroyer-extraordinary while we retreat in allergic reaction to peace & stability.  What is Ghaddafi's take on it?

While the Arab world is mortally weakened with instability as the staple in most of her capitals, Egypt seem to have obtained most of the unsavoury dish.  In her bid to isolate Hamas and Gazans, the general in civilian clothes over Cairo only extended known perception of Egypt’s role as a puppet & a fallen star of the Arab world. By locking and throwing away the key of Rafah crossing even as the conflict rages, Cairo lost much political and diplomatic capital due to myopia and poor appreciation of history. The dignity of Egypt as an African country and an Arab nation is severely diminished.  General Sisi may have usurped power for himself but Egypt is haemorrhaging credibility.

Saudi Arabia continues her losing streak on all her entries. By working hand in glove with Tel Aviv on many diplomatic files and shadowing Cairo towards much needed legitimacy, Riyadh is constrained in possessing a fully settled balance sheet. In Syria, Iraq and now Gaza; Riyadh is now relegated to partaking in flurry of diplomatic activities with no concrete results to show.

Only time will tell when the conflict will end and finally the Arab Street will declare her winners. Surely they will be few and orphaned.  As for Gazans, the process of concluding this conflict opens a window that will inevitably place them on the pedestal where their dignities can no longer be denied.

Debts Collector Geopolitics

Introduction

Since 2008 global economic collapse triggered by bursting of United States housing market bubble, a new form of relationship between financial services providers & customers on one hand and between the state and finance/banking has emerged.  For most customers it has become a nightmare in some sense where the outcome has turned into double betrayal by both the banks and the state, while for the financiers, banksters and financial terrorists; they have become untouchables who have finally melded with the same unreconstructed state. Above all, United States reigns supreme not just for protecting the untouchables of their country, rather for appropriating the crisis for collecting ‘rent’ in any country. Anything short of challenging ‘too big to fail’! No prosecution, no legal challenge, just debt or rent collection externally to settle geopolitical score.

Retrogressive Pacesetting

By the time President Obama took office in 2008, there was a pregnant expectation of the unknown by the global banking elite especially their US branch of the intentions of the greenhorn president.  Pundits and media channels in the US ran endless bulletins of potential culling of banks, taming Wall Street and bailing out Main Street. However bearing in mind that Obama Presidential Campaign was in part managed and funded by the same Wall Street, Main Street had no chance. By the time the new president unveiled his new economic team, it became apparent that more of the same will emerge. In a sense the banking elite realised how powerful they are of course in concert with their political conspirators in Congress, as Obama rejected and quashed any suggestion of prosecution and therefore sustained ‘too big to fail’ toward orthodoxy.

Instead of moving for the jugular and prosecute the wheeler-dealers of the global economic debacle, bailout instruments were approved internally on the one hand while debt collection scheme in billions of dollars was deployed as a measure of geopolitical control. Huge banks like Bank of America were fined billions of dollars for failing one regulation or another. Apparently these fines where appropriated and presented as sufficient punishment when in actual fact these were slaps on the wrists. The train was set for reconfiguration of geopolitical banking structure with US extra-territorial judicial weapon of economic warfare to go after any bank/state suspected of running foul of her regulations.

Dollar World

As the world biggest economy with its money as global reserve currency, most of the major banks in the world trade in US dollars where in the commodities, currency and stock markets. This architecture gives US enormous power and influence which is enhanced with advanced telecommunication and internet technologies. On this stage, countries or states are mere building blocks for the sole superpower to managed, control, abjure and punish. As the biggest single market in the world, these banking operations are influenced more by US banking regulations than their national regulations.

On this count it becomes apparent that the fate of Euro and Yuan are still very remote and tied to the whims of US Federal Reserve Bank unless their supporting national politics projects sufficient power to breakout.  As a superpower with no room for challenge, these currencies have no chance to thrive within the global financial architecture designed and cultivated for sole US national interest. In the era of economic warfare, any country or bank that defies US authority will be subjected to the most ruthless response worse than any violent assault or aerial bombardment. US Treasury with the twin underlings of International Monetary Fund and World Bank are positioned to ensure that all or most central banks take orders to conform including but not limited to having ‘independent’ central banks, open stock markets, convertible and floating currencies and currencies & trade tied to the US dollars.

Punishment for the Big Lads  

One may surmise that United States intended to make the most from the global economic crisis without actually prosecuting those who oversaw the collapse as a new geopolitical weapon to put allies in line and in check. In 2009 Switzerland got the initial taste with massive fine of $885 million on UBS on charges of misrepresentation and tax evasion. Other fines related to currency manipulation may reach $8 billion dollars. Credit Suisse was then next to be hammered with a fine of $2.6 billion on charge of tax evasion. The government in Berne got full spectrum salvo of US power.

In 2012 HSBC, a UK bank was fined nearly $2 billion dollars for money laundering. As usual there were no prosecution for the bank executives just happy smile for increasing coffers of US Treasury.  Another British bank, Standard Chartered, received its fine of over $300 million for charge of money laundering.

In 2014, French bank, BNP Paribas was fined nearly $10 billion by US regulators on violating sanction rules. While other fines are equally healthy, the timing and context of BNP Paribas is interesting. One must recognise that towards the end of former President Sarkozy’s reign, he approved France rejoining of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) military command. This was contrary to a decision made by General Charles De Gaulle as a counter-measure of ensuring French independence against his perceived Anglo-Saxon domination of global affairs. One must also consider that President Sarkozy was at one with Washington DC (leading from behind) in the betrayal and murder of Col. Ghaddafi and Libya in 2011.  It is also not lost on observers that Paris has reinvigorated her competition with London on US favourite on ‘special relationship’ starting with President Sarkozy and continued with President Hollande.

As a new war front opened up in Syria, France rose to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Washington DC to potentially pound that defiant space into ruin & rubble having successfully completed earlier tasks in Libya and Mali. However opportunity for striking Russian near abroad on her under belly in Ukraine opened up new prospect for US to divide European relations with Moscow. While the rhetoric mounted across European media for sanctions against Moscow, the reality was different as many countries have strong economic ties with Russia including France.

Russian contract with France to supply her with military warships became subject to US interference or rather a test of French loyalty. French insistence of meeting the contract obligations including retain locals jobs was perceived as defiance by Washington DC. Of course as they say, they will be consequences with or without international law.

One Man Standing

US hegemony is intolerant of challengers in any sphere. Any suspicion of disloyalty is rewarded with consequences. Any aberration or infraction is an opportunity to bring its might to bear more so in the economic sphere hence economic warfare. In the hierarchy of hegemony, US allies has limited scope to express independence and follow it through. While some countries are presented and slammed as enemies, rogues and failed; it is evident that those termed allies, friends and moderates at different times suffer severe consequences even beyond experiences expected for enemies. 

Sections of global power elite in various allied countries are willing to accept these painful slaps and thumps as strategic prize to maintain their insertion in the good book of the single superpower. Therefore the context of friendship and enmity of United States is rather very complex and contradictory for observers. However it is important to concentrate on specific events and actions at particular times and locations in order to appreciate unique outcomes and responses. 

Dark Geopolitical Clouds Over Iraqi Kurdistan

Introduction

The ongoing manifestation and expansion of events set out decades ago in Iraq are generating uncomfortable results and complex uncomfortable outcomes. One of the outcomes is the emergence and boldness of Iraqi Kurds in expressing their self-determination on the potential ashes of erstwhile Iraq. It is the position of this article that many parties including Iraqi Kurds are publicly expressing their misreading of history towards independence which may come back to haunt them which after all may not be another surprise.

Core Acknowledgement

To put it mildly no one in the region want the Kurds.  Across different countries where they have substantial population, they are not only treated as minorities, their existence is grossly denied through some of the most repressive and oppressive political and geopolitical policies. Across the board, their culture, language, history and human rights are trampled upon. So as a people they have grown accustomed to pain, suffering, abuse and betrayals. Nevertheless they have never caved in or given up their dreams of self-determination.  Despite the constancy of pain, events have not been static or stationary as they interlock in complex relationships and brazen manoeuvres including armed struggle to press their demand in different countries.  

Geographically and demographically, the Kurds are surrounded and locked in over time. They are surrounded by very powerful neighbours who have been and remain unwilling to grant them basic freedoms and human rights. Pressed down in the North West by Kemalist Turkey defined only on Turkishness, the Arabs hemmed them in on other sides with little room despite the gloried exploits of historical figure, Saladin, except in the West where Iran consolidated its centralised structure on Persian lines.

The Journey At Hand

This is the first time in the last recent memory that Kurds anywhere have been able to cobble together a political entity in the maze of their complex neighbourhood that is tolerated for more than a decade. This initiative came on the back of 1991 United States led effort to contain Saddam Hussein adventurism in Kuwait. Establishment of no-fly zone in northern Iraq offered important platform to the emergence of political Kurdistan on the ground while laying the foundations for Iraq disintegration. Whether this was a well thought out policy or outcome made along the way by the US State Department remains contested nevertheless the basic motivating ingredient, crude oil, remains the critical factor.

It is equally important to review positions of various Arab capitals especially Riyadh on this development if at all their attention where focused on it.  It is doubtful that Riyadh possessed and possesses clear policy on Iraqi Kurdistan even as her geopolitical master, US, returned to finish off Saddam in 2003. Their existential attention on Iran and her potential influence in a reconfigured Iraq may have blinded their rear-mirror on the issue. Ankara must have expressed her displeasure because of decades-long violent engagement with PKK within her borders. It must have been a benign geopolitical item for consideration with serious distraction in Lebanon and Iran. Tehran’s intolerant policy is entrenched.

Deployment of regime-change in Damascus led by Riyadh and backed by Washington DC must have added to the fuzziness of policy that produced important effects; successful resistance of Damascus, destabilisation of Non-African Arab World and final disintegration of Iraq post-Saddam as defined under US (occupation) sectarian imprimatur. 

Call for Independence

Successful resistance against regime-change by Damascus consolidated with a presidential election won by President Assad not only blunted US plans but has thrown Washington DC into foreign policy confusion. The implication of the Syrian conflict simply unleashed hardened forces which a very weak Baghdad cannot handle even though US continues to shift blame and responsibility. In this maze of destabilisation, Iraqi Kurdistan authorities have been making strategic moves towards greater autonomy including but limited to unilateral crude oil sales in collusion with Ankara.  It will be interesting how ‘protector of the Kurds’ fits Ankara but there is a lot of pragmatism for short term gain driving such bargain.

Noises are coming out of Irbil on independence and recent statement by Israeli Prime Minister in favour of Iraqi Kurdistan independence is no surprise. Tel Aviv has always seen Saddam's Iraq as the main threat as her military support for Tehran during Iran-Iraq War testified.  Nevertheless, Riyadh may be deflated that her ally in Tehran containment is drawing the dagger into Arab heart, however it will be puzzling to distance US stand from it. 

While Israel has emerged finally as the dominant military power in the region, how such status could be sustained in a declining US economy and geopolitical clout remains to be seen, and most importantly her ever solid domestic policy of occupation. Events of the past few decades has revealed clearly that beyond holding down the occupation enterprise in West Bank and Gaza, her foreign policy and military adventures in the region have paid limited dividends. Tel Aviv is not in the position to discern Riyadh’s long term policy as Iraqi Kurdistan gains traction which may only converge with Tehran’s strategic interest strongly favouring Kurdistan containment.

Time & Space

Iraqi Kurdistan President, Mr Massoud Barzani as a veteran Kurdish politician fully understands the complex geopolitical flood confronting his enterprise. It is not lost on Mr Barzani of how he was used as a pawn and discarded by Shah of Iran in the 1970s to pressure Iraq into signing the Algiers Accord which among other things constrained Iraq’s (Arab) claims of Shatt-al-Arab waterway.

The memory of the ill-fated 1946 Mahabad Republic will be fresh which collapsed among other factors due to withdraw/ambivalence of USSR support. Parallel to this development is Moscow’s current posture of defiance and commitment to indivisible Iraq expressed in the recent rushed delivery of warplanes to Baghdad in contrast to tepid US response to similar request. Moscow’s move comes as a healthy monetary dividend, expansion of military hardware lines and assertiveness contrasting US bog down. Russia is a huge space with rich demographic and nationality diversity which is an incentive for intolerance of any suggestion of Iraqi Kurdistan independence.

While Beijing has made some noises on the general Iraqi file, her mantra of non-interference in other countries internal affairs will be strong boosted in aligning with Moscow and Tehran. Her effort to contain Uighur aspirations is a reminder of how time and space can converge towards an irritant. In any case, with US perceived as a bull in the China shop by Moscow and Beijing, there is little room to tolerate another debacle of monumental geopolitical proportions with the Ukrainian crisis still burning. While Obama’s White House may be unrestrained by re-election prospect, war weariness of US population coupled with unpleasant domestic economic realities & increasing distrust of US citizens at their political machine; short term scope of US pragmatism may be limited in the face of huge trust-deficit.

European Union is very weak politically and economically to seriously take a position beyond Washington DC on the issue. Hence, there is very grave risk of an open-ended conflict between Iraqi Kurds and other players in the scene/region who may potentially realign with opposing capitals.

Finally

Reality on the ground that currently favour Iraqi Kurdistan aspiration can be moderated but not reversed. Probably this contention may be the saving grace for reversing moves toward balkanisation of Iraq but rather open the way for actual federalisation with different sub-regions controlling their natural resources. Kurdish independence will not be tolerated by any Arab country, Turkey and Iran. Ankara has everything to play for as the reality indicates that Kurdistan’s crude exports and wider economy currently depend strongly on her goodwill and converges with her strategic interests.

Kurdish leaders and policy makers need to be pragmatic in hedging their bets towards independence while maximising their autonomous status with strategic depth to avoid another geopolitical betrayal.  One sure outcome is inevitable in Turkey; Turkish Kurds can no longer be caged.  This is an uncomfortable and radical reality to Mustafa Kemal and his current successors!