The Kicking In Of A Rotten Door Part 7

The Road To Damascus Leads Straight To Hell.

It has been a long time since I have fired up the computer to do one of these missives. My Internet life has been busy with Tom Foolery and the occasional blast on Taylor Marsh. But the events in Syria have gone from bad to worse, and it is past time to think about that corner of the world again.

The situation is this: the Free Syrian Army controls much of the ground but the regime owns the air. Neither of the parties has any real advantage but both sides are convinced they can win. That means the ordinary people of Syria are the big loosers. 

The situation is much like Lebanon for the last part of the 20^th Century, a long, slow, deadly civil where the major powers are helpless in finding a solution. In this round China and Russia are blocking any big ideas from NATO or the US. Local powers like Iran and the Gulf States are adding to the misery by supporting the two contesting sides in the Syrian debacle.

If that were not bad enough, non-state independent actors are now too in the fray. Our unhappy campers of the re-branded, and restaffed Al Qaeda are back in business in Syria. Granted, this is not your father’s Al Qaeda as Bin Laden’s bones have been picked clean by shrimp and other sea scavengers. No, this is a new bunch of Salafi radicals and misfits butchering for fun and profits.

But wait, there’s more! In the north of this fine mess, both the Kurds and the Turks are slowly being sucked into the vortex. The Kurds have been cut loose by the Assad regime because it can no longer support the troops needed to suppress the people of the mountains. With the Kurds now in charge of their own destiny ( if only by default ) Turkey now has to deal with the repercussions. The low, simmering conflict Turkey has with its own Kurds has once again flared up just when the Turks had thought they had finally squared the circle.

And if that was not bad enough for Ankara, Syria is shelling into the border of Turkey. National borders, national pride, are on the line for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and he has responded as any leader would, by sending in the military. The affected border is now bristling with Turkish soldiers and all that nice shiny military hardware that Turkey has been busily upgrading to.

Still, Ankara can not get too feisty as the Russians are close by with a Navy in both Sevastopol and in Syria itself. Russia can also reach the Turks by air if needs be and not violate any airspace other than the Turks in doing so. Erdoğan can only do so much saber-rattling as both domestic politics and the Russians are limiting factors.

I left out President Obama in this discussion because he has been remarkably reticent in offering any leadership on Syria. This is for a reason gentle reader; Barack’s options are very limited. 

The position of the United States in Syria is very dicey. Obama did come out for regime change way back in the salad days of the Arab Spring. But now that the Spring has transitioned to a brutal, white-hot summer in Syria, the president has become far less enthusiastic about showing Assad the door. Washington has provided support for the Gulf State’s interdictions; but other than cloak and dagger work, the White House has studiously avoided more dramatic options. This is all to the good because DC already has its plate full with Iraq, Iran, the stealth war in Pakistan, plus the dust up in Aden. The military-industrial-congressional complex is stretched to to breaking point. Only fools and NeoCon intellectuals (pretty much the same thing) are gung-ho for an intervention in Syria. Nothing brought out this fact more that Willard Romney’s flaccid debate performance on foreign affairs. True to form Mitt criticized Barack but offered no counter proposal. When even Romney won’t touch Syria you know exactly how radio-active it is.

Because of that radioactivity, Syria will continue to suffer, bleed and die. The World Community will fold its hand and mutter “dear me” while the Iranians with the Russians and Chinese duke it out with the FSA and the Gulf States. The land of Syria will slowly bleed out as a form of the Great Game is played out. Assad wants to cling to power. The Iranians want the buffer Assad offers for both geo-political and religious regions. China and Russia want the Assad status quo for their own different reasons. China does not want US power projected into Syria as it was in Libya. Russia wants to keep its only presence in the Med. Meanwhile the conservative Gulf states want to kill off Assad and his Shia-lead state. They want this for matters of state- to push Iran back, and they want it to further enlarge Sunni Arab hegemony in the region.  

It is that effort, the Saudi Salafist project and its attempt to enforce its brand of Islam on the rest of the Umma that is the real unexplored issue, the elephant in the room, that no one seems to want to talk about. I can think of no worse outcome than an emboldened, aggressive, hegemonistic, Saudi Salafalist Islam gaining even more traction. The reactionary, regressive and ultimately wrong-headed attempt to return to a mythical “pure” Islam of the past will only end in tears. 

We are going to see this play out for decades gentile reader. Islam as a whole, and in the Near East even more so, is going to have to work out the long, nasty and brutal effects of colonialism. It is going to have to work out its issues with modernity. It is going to have to work out how fundamentally the world has changed. This is not just about Syria. It is about a culture sideswiped by one of the great wrecking balls of history and how it deals with the effects of the hit. The Calif is dead, the Ottomans are no more, wither Islam? 

Korea; The Land of The Morning Jitters

Korea; The Land of The Morning Jitters



The name for Korea is supposed to mean “Land Of Morning Calm," but things on the Peninsula are anything but calming.

From the on-line presence of one of the greatest news organizations period : the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12025383

The envoy, Bill Richardson, made the comments after talks with officials in Pyongyang, whom he asked to exercise “extreme restraint”.

He said he had urged them to let South Korea go ahead with planned live-firing exercises on an island which was shelled by the North last month.

Pyongyang has been threatening to strike back if the drill goes ahead.

On Friday, Russia – which shares a border with North Korea – summoned US and South Korean envoys to urge them to cancel the exercises, saying Moscow was “deeply concerned” about rising tensions in the region.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is visiting Pyongyang in a private capacity, but he has in the past acted as a go-between with North Korea – with whom the US has no formal diplomatic ties.

He told CNN he had made “a little headway” in his talks with North Korean officials.

Snip

What’s a hyper-power to do? Much of this has to do with the impression that U.S. power is fading in the region. Forward deployed units of the U.S. Military Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines act as a not so secret buffer between China, Japan, Russia and the Koreans (North and South). The real power punch and power projection comes from the 7th Fleet and the 13th and 7th Air Force.

Troop strength, while not trivial, has always rested on the notion that there was more to come if any other power got too feisty. With the U.S. bogged down in the Stans and in Iraq, power projection in Asia becomes much more theoretical than actual.

Add to this a serious bit of weirdness know as the North Korean succession crisis, and you have a serious amount of churn and instability in the region.

Even if you look at the situation from a purely military lens there are no good answers. Any serious heaving of ordnance North Korea’s way would open up several number 10 cans of worms. Other than North Korea, no other participant would wish for hostilities to resume on the peninsula. Last time around it was loose, loose, loose, loose and then some. It was a whole lot of pointless death and destruction to end up exactly where all the participants started.

What does mystify your faithful reporter is why China keeps supporting North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. It makes no strategic or tactical sense. China must understand that if North Korea continues on this course, Japan will be absolutely compelled to develop its own nuclear deterrent, pacifism be damned. And as Japan goes, so goes at least South Korea. Exactly how does China come out ahead in this scenario? A nuclear armed Japan would be the very definition of a nightmare for China. I don’t see how either Russia , the U.S.A., or the rest of Asia would be in their happy places either if Japan develops the big boom.

The other imponderable is how our juvenile political process would respond if Korea suddenly unwinds. Not very well is the best guess. Watch this space gentle reader, we are in no way out of the woods in Korea.

End Game In Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan Logisitical Hub In Doubt.

Kyrgyzstan's interim government says it will extend the US lease on a key air base, a day after the ousted president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, left the country.


The deputy leader, Omurbek Tekebayev, said the agreement over Manas air force base - a logistics hub for Afghanistan - would extend for another year.

...

Kyrgyzstan is extending by one year the validity of the agreement with the United States over the Manas transit centre," Mr Tekebayev said.

He said that parliament should make its own decision on the base but that because there was currently no parliament in place the lease, which runs out in July, would automatically be renewed.

The announcement came only hours after Mr Bakiyev agreed to leave, formally resigning from neighbouring Kazakhstan.

Snip

The clock is ticking on our presence in Afghanistan. Our cause may be noble but our logistical chain is going to hell in a hand-basket.

You can not fight a way without beans and bullets. Modern militaries have a very long supply tail. We can no longer forage off the local resources as in days gone by. M1A1 tanks do not run off hay nor do attack helicopters. You need to ship in jet fuel, diesel fuel, repair parts, tires, etc., etc., etc. Manas is critical for these operations.

The only other logistic path for the U.S. military is the increasingly dodgy Khyber Pass in Pakistan. The Taliban is quickly making that area Indian country. Manas, on the other hand, was far more secure.

But everything old is new again and the U.S. blundered into Russia's backyard when it set up operations in Manas. This is what Russia considers its "near abroad." Think 19th century spheres of influence. If that does not turn on a light-bulb, think about Russians being deployed Mexico and how we would respond to that. Russia wants us the hell out of Kyrgyzstan, a former part of the Russian Empire, yesterday.

Afghanistan has always been a bridge too far. It is the graveyard of empires. It the place both the British and the Russians have come to grief. It is a terrain that is next to impossible for interlopers to control.

Obama has not ever really come to terms with the realities on the ground. He has continued Bush's attempt to fight this battle on the cheep. Again, this is a terrain and a people that responds to only one thing, boots on the ground--lots of them.

But the other reality is that there is not the will to deploy the actual resources needed to pacify the rugged landscape and the even more rugged people. Predator drones and other high-tech stop gaps can not get into the multiple caves, spider-holes, valleys, mountain crags and assorted rock-piles the bad guys can hide in. The drones certainly cannot collect actionable intelligence of where the bad guys are. Thus, we keep blowing up innocent wedding parties on spurious intelligence delivered by bad actors with grudges they want to settle.

Political reality mandated that we strike Afghanistan after 9/11. But after that, what? Any substantiate operation required the acquiescence of either Russia, Pakistan or Iran. Look at the map, those are the land routes that work; especially for a nation that absolutely requires a sea/land logistical chain.

The best link, via Iran, was for political reasons a non-starter. That left Russia and Pakistan. Our post Cold War triumphalism negated a reach-out to Russia. Thus, our logistical chain became the anti-Russian set up of Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan.

This meant supporting two epically corrupt and detached leaders. Flash forward and Pakistan's Musharraf and Kirghistan's Kurmanbek Bakiyev have been show the door. Both of these nations are rather thin and rickety reeds to base a power projection policy on. If either one of these nations decides it no longer wants to support our logistical and/or war fighting efforts in the area, we will be forced to pack up our toys and go home.

Our position in Afghanistan is quickly becoming untenable. Our logistical ability to support our goals is in deep trouble. Either Kyrgyzstan or Pakistan can blackmail us into contributing more aid. Remember, even before revolution in Bishkek the U.S. was forced to pony up more dollars to Bakiyev for the privileges of using the Manas Air Base. Not too be too cynical, but one wonders how much extra we had to pledge to Roza Otunbayeva just to get the one year extension. All the signs point to some sort of dirty deed done (not so) dirt cheep.

The end game is upon us in Afghanistan, forget high drama, big picture geopolitics; look at the worm's eye view of logistics, it is not good.

Look for Hamid Karzi to get even more "frisky" in the next few months; this is man who can smell blood in the water, no matter where it is coming from. If Obama does not have a viable exit strategy, he better come up with one fast. He needs to pick up some Cliff Notes from Tricky Dick Nixon and the notion of "peace with honor." His biggest political headache is how to not be tagged with the opprobrium of "loosing Afghanistan" by the Republicans.

The irony of "loosing Afghanistan" meme is that it is the negligence of a Republican, George W. Bush, that made it impossible for us to achieve anything in Afghanistan without a massive commitment of U.S. resources. When we flubbed our chance at decapitating (literally) OBL's organization at Tora Bora, we guaranteed that our efforts in Afghanistan would be a glorious failure. For want of a nail, etc.

General David Petraeus' math cannot be wished away. The reason the surge in Iraq "worked" is because the Sunni awakening cut Al Qaeda in Iraq at the knees. To repeat the success in Afghanistan the U.S. would need a Pashtun awakening to duplicate what happened in Iraq. Unfortunately the Pashtun awakening already exists, it is called "The Taliban."

It is a painful thing to contemplate but the U.S. has no good options in Afghanistan. We had a golden opportunity right after 9/11 but George W. Bush set fire to that. He burned that bridge down to the ground whilst dancing naked around the flames. We now stand amongst the ashes of that pagan ceremony. We are out of options, truly pragmatic foreign policy consists of regrouping and reconfiguring our area of responsibilities. We are too far afield, even muscular diplomats have to understand the notion of over-reach. At Manas and in Afghanistan we are being shown the exit, it's time to go; we have overstayed our welcome.