Middle East Strategy – Page 2

Can A Peace Be Brokered Between Israel And Hamas?

The Daily Escape:

Tug pushing barge Tongass Provider in Dutch Harbor, AK. This is the last big load of the season heading north before ice prevents boat travel – October 29, 2023 photo by Richard McKinley. Note how small the trucks and RVs look relative to all of the goods on the barge!

Saturday is when the Wrongologist expects to offer his readers a chance to calm down after what has become our all-too-common weeks of domestic and international horrors. We call this the “Saturday Soother”, but this week, once again, it may prove difficult to find soothing.

Wrongo’s column on Tuesday ended by asking:

“Can Biden broker a peace when neither side wants one?”

Friend of the blog, Brendan K. who has military experience in the Middle East (ME) said in response:

“A peace does need to be brokered, but by Arab leadership with Israel. Biden has no relevance in the Arab World…”

The point is that the US cannot be a staunch supporter of Israel and also be an honest broker between the combatants. That the US isn’t trustable isn’t a new idea in the Middle East; this has been an issue in most conflicts involving Israel for decades.

But it seems that the window on a brokered end to hostilities in Gaza may not be open for long. The idea that Israel has crossed the line of proportionality in their attacks on Gaza is growing among western countries, while the idea that Arabs must stand in solidarity with Hamas vs. Israel also seems to be growing throughout the world.

We don’t need to look very hard to find examples of how US actions with Israel compromise its possible value to broker peace. The Intercept has a story about the US building a secret base inside Israel:

“Two months before Hamas attacked Israel, the Pentagon awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to build US troop facilities for a secret base it maintains…within Israel’s Negev desert, just 20 miles from Gaza. Code-named “Site 512,” the longstanding US base is a radar facility that monitors the skies for missile attacks on Israel.”

In addition to hosting a radar site that is pointed toward Iran, the Army is constructing a “life support facility” there, which is military-speak for barracks for personnel. All of this is despite Biden insisting that there are no plans to send US troops to Israel given the war on Hamas. But the Intercept claims that a secret US military presence in Israel already exists. Apparently sites like this can house as many as 1,000 troops.

Add what the NYT reported on Friday about US drones over Gaza:

“The US military is flying surveillance drones over the Gaza Strip, according to two Defense Department officials and an analysis by The New York Times. The officials said the drones were being used to aid in hostage recovery efforts, indicating that the US is more involved than previously known.”

The Defense Department told the NYT that these unarmed surveillance flights are not supporting Israeli military operations on the ground. Instead, the goal was to assist in locating hostages, and pass potential leads to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Wrongo finds the claim that these drones have a single mission to be laughable. In addition, several dozen American commandos are now on the ground in Israel. This view of drone flight patterns is from the NYT:

Flights shown here are from Oct. 28 to Nov. 2, of which at least six flights were over Gaza. Flight path data is from FlightRadar24. Paths are approximate based on each flight’s reported position about every minute.

Hassan Nasrallah, head of Hezbollah in Lebanon offered a warning to Israel and the US when he spoke for the first time since the start of the Israel/Hamas war. The WSJ had some key takeaways from his televised address:

It isn’t yet time for a wider, regional war: “For those who say that Hezbollah should start a war in the entire region, I say wait. These are the beginnings.”
Hezbollah had no advance knowledge of Oct. 7 attacks: The decision “was 100% Palestinian and it was this specific utmost secrecy which made it so successful.”
Arab and Muslim states must enforce the diplomatic and economic isolation of Israel: “It is not enough to just issue statements.”
Israel can’t eliminate Hamas: “One of the biggest mistakes that Israel is making right now is setting goals that it cannot achieve, such as eliminating Hamas and the power of Hezbollah.”
There should be a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip: “The Arab and Islamic nations must at the very least make an effort to achieve a cease-fire, even if some of them do not want to…sacrifice anything.”

Nasrallah also cautioned Israel against launching a preemptive strike:

“I tell the Israelis, if you are considering carrying out a preemptive attack against Lebanon, it will be the most foolish mistake you make in your entire existence.”

Worse, the WSJ reports that the Wagner Group, the Russian mercenary outfit, plans to send air defenses to Hezbollah, which would be a major escalation in the Israel/Hamas war.

As expected, Netanyahu barked back with his own threat, warning Israel’s “enemies in the north” not to make the costly mistake of escalating the war:

“You cannot imagine how much this will cost you.”

It is very clear that Israel has forgotten 2006. Back then, Hezbollah attacked Israel, who responded by attacking civilian targets in Lebanon in an effort to make the Lebanese government and people think that Hezbollah brought death and destruction to their country. The opposite effect happened with most Lebanese Muslims increasing their approval or support for Hezbollah, while even Lebanese Christians, normally not friendly to Islamic parties or militias, blamed Israel for attacking civilian targets as an act of punishment.

Doesn’t that sound just like the Israeli strategy in Gaza today, 17 years later? US Secretary of State Blinken also issued a warning:

“With regard to Lebanon, with regard to Hezbollah, with regard to Iran, we have been very clear from the outset that we are determined that there not be a second or third front opened in this conflict. President Biden said on day one to anyone thinking of opening a second front, taking advantage of the situation, don’t. And we’ve backed up those words …with practical deeds.”

Wrongo is unsure what “practical deeds” Blinken is talking about. But it seems apparent that the warfighting strategy for Israel’s opponents is to continue to push the US into a position to overcommit until we can do no more. Wrongo thinks that Nasrallah will be reluctant to order a large missile attack against Israel because he knows that Israel will again attack Lebanese infrastructure with the complete blessing of the US.

As it presently stands, the Israel/Gaza situation is grim. There aren’t any reasons to expect Israel to voluntarily stop its ground operation, nor any indications as of yet that the Arab states are seriously considering attempting a diplomatic effort to achieve a cease fire.

Wrongo asked friend of the blog Brendan K. if he had an idea about how to extract Biden from the Israeli briar patch. And now Wrongo asks all readers: How/who has the ability to bring both sides to the table?

And here’s a music interlude that attempts to take our minds off of the ME for a few minutes. Watch and listen to “Hedwig’s Theme” by John Williams from Harry Potter performed at the BBC Proms Film Music night in 2011:

The Stakes For Biden (And The US) In The Hamas War

The Daily Escape:

First snowfall, Tanglewood, Berkshires, MA – November 1, 2023 photo via Tanglewood Music Festival

For Wrongo, there have been few events that seemed immediately to foreshadow a change in our lives. The first was the assassinations of JFK and MLK. Although they were five years apart, they each signaled turning points. Wrongo felt that way about Hurricane Katrina and 9/11. Both conveyed the thought that our government was helpless against forces it didn’t control or understand.

Then came the election of Donald Trump, and now, the Hamas/Israel war — threats that we couldn’t process with conventional thinking.

In all of these cases, it was clear that something truly catastrophic had occurred, and that we had no idea how America, or the world, would respond.

Now we face the Hamas/Israel war. We’re trying to sort out how to react to what is in front of us every night as the day’s reports from Gaza arrive. It’s hard to watch the discourse around what’s happening in Gaza. The messages from both sides are depressing, since they both look the death and destruction in the face and say it’s caused by the other guy. It’s difficult to see how this ends.

Israel remains under rocket attacks both from Hamas in Gaza and from Hezbollah in Lebanon. We know that Hamas is holding hundreds of hostages in tunnels that are below densely-populated neighborhoods.

The security systems that were designed to protect Israelis were proven wholly inadequate on Oct.7. Netanyahu and the coalition government have been discredited yet remain in power. The people demand justice and that security be provided somehow.

Israel doesn’t want a cease fire, yet that is what Hamas and a growing number of countries are pushing for.

OTOH, what Israel is attempting to do is nearly impossible. How do a million people get moved from the north of Gaza to the South? What makes sense about Israel’s plans to dismantle many of the homes and much of the infrastructure that the northern Gazans depend on, along with some 300 kilometers of tunnels? Why is it a moral war if Israel is willing and able to kill anyone who remains in the area? And when Israel is finished in the north, is there any assurance that they won’t turn to the south where they told the northern Gazans to go?

But as Simon Rosenberg says:

“It’s important to listen to the actual words of Hamas: – Israel must be eliminated, more attacks are coming – Killing of Jews/Americans in Israel is justified – Loss of life in Gaza is acceptable, as we are a “nation of martyrs”

Rosenberg shows this video by Hamas Official Ghazi Hamad in which he says:

“We Will Repeat the October 7 Attack Time and Again Until Israel Is Annihilated; We Are Victims – Everything We Do Is Justified”

And do you really think that Netanyahu will get some kind of deal for hostages done? We need to accept that most of them will be martyrs to the Israeli cause if the war continues. Does anyone believe that Hamas can be made to release the hostages and then surrender to Israel? Even though Hamas initiated this conflict and they could save their own people by taking responsibility, that’s not going to happen.

Where does this leave the US? Biden woke up on Oct. 7 to find himself thrust into the middle of the second major foreign-policy crisis of his term. He embraced Israel, along with what now look like two conflicting imperatives: Support Israel and prevent an escalation of the war.

There’s also a brewing political crisis at home. Polls show that most Americans side with Israel in the conflict and approve of both Israel’s retaliation against Hamas and US support for it. Republicans tend to be more supportive of Israel than Democrats, who have become more sympathetic toward Palestinians over the past several years. But majorities in both Parties are broadly supportive of Israel.

Yet Biden’s unconditional Israel support also brings the risk of regional escalation. Despite his efforts to convince the Israeli government to limit the scope and scale of its military response to Hamas’s attack and consider a “humanitarian pause,” Israel launched its ground invasion anyway.

The offensive will inevitably inflict large-scale Palestinian casualties (especially since Hamas will continue to put civilians between them and the Israelis). It will also lead to a marked escalation in attacks on Israel and US interests across the Middle East that could easily destabilize the region.

Unlike the war in Ukraine, where the US has worked hard to ensure that support of Kyiv doesn’t risk direct military confrontation between them and Russia, the US risks becoming directly involved in the Israel/Hamas war. For better or worse, Biden owns it, if it happens.

While most voters are aligned with Biden’s stance on the war, it poses two political challenges to Biden’s 2024 prospects from the Left and the Right.

From the Right, Biden will be accused of projecting weakness on the global stage. Trump is already making the false case that the two major wars of Biden’s term happened only because Biden’s weakness emboldened our adversaries. Trump will argue that the relative ME calm during his administration was due to his strategy of “peace through strength,” particularly with Russia and Iran. He’ll claim that neither would have dared test the US had he been in office.

Will this be compelling for Republican-leaning swing voters? Remember that Trump’s Abraham Accords – which normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan, ignored the Palestinians and helped sow the seeds for the Oct. 7 attack. Also that Trump’s constant threats to NATO were a gift to Putin.

Regardless of what happens next, Biden will always be the president on whose watch these two wars – both of which the US is funding, started.

From the Left, Biden will be accused of enabling Israel’s killing of innocent Palestinians. A CNN poll from earlier this month shows that just 27% of 18-to-34-year-olds view Israel’s military response to the Hamas attacks as “fully justified,” compared to 81% of those 65 or older. Then there’s Muslim and Arab-American voters, around two-thirds of whom backed Biden in 2020. Recent polls show that very few of them plan to vote for Biden again in 2024.

Faced with the Biden vs. Trump choice, these voters (who were an important part of the Democratic coalition in 2020 and 2022) would probably stick with Biden as the lesser evil (or stay home and thereby benefit Trump).

But third-party candidates like Cornel West, who is critical of Israel, could hurt Biden. A USA Today poll shows West already picking up between 4-7% of the vote nationally, primarily from Biden. It would only take 2-3 percentage points for West to be a spoiler in a swing state like Wisconsin, potentially tipping the balance to Trump in a close election.

At the same time, a Middle East crisis that Biden can’t fix could hurt him particularly if the war escalates. Biden will also bear the burden for any terrorist and antisemitic attacks in the US between now and the end of his term.

Can Biden broker a peace when neither side wants one?

For now, Biden is the narrow favorite to win reelection, largely because of Trump’s extraordinary criminality and his unique weaknesses. But if the ME is still dominating our headlines in November 2024, all bets are off.

How Hamas’ Tunnels Affect Proportionality

The Daily Escape:

Halloween Abbey Road Tribute via The Loft

Wrongo said to a few commenters that he would follow up his “Proportionality in Gaza” column with additional information on the Gaza tunnels. How Israel deals with the Hamas tunnels is at the center of the question of proportionality since they are located under heavily populated parts of Gaza City.

As we know, more than 2 million people live in Gaza, and while many of them likely sympathize with Hamas, the best estimates of how many Hamas fighters are in the Gaza strip is around 35-40,000, a tiny fraction of the total population.

So the question is how to deal with Hamas without excessive civilian casualties, when Hamas can hide in tunnels under the city?

Before we begin, Wrongo has questions. Israel’s military confirmed over the weekend that Israel has twin goals: Annihilating Hamas while simultaneously rescuing some 230 hostages abducted from Israel on Oct. 7. But how does Israel expect to negotiate a hostage release from a group that Israel says they are annihilating? Doesn’t the threat of annihilation mean that Hamas will never release hostages to their sworn enemy? Worse, the hostages are believed to be hidden in Hamas’ tunnel network. The current heavy bombing raises the prospect of unmitigated chaos for both Palestinian civilians and hostages alike. It seems to Wrongo that Netanyahu’s twin goals are in opposition to each other.

Back to the tunnels. Lets start with the ground they are built in. We in the west have heard about Palestinian smuggling tunnels collapsing. Those were in the south near the border with Egypt, built in sandy soil. The Hamas tunnels in the Gaza Strip region are composed of limestone and sandstone along with some clay. These soils allow for digging tunnels that aren’t as subject to collapse:

Via the NYT: The network is by now so established that Hamas can manufacture weapons underground. Photo by Mohammed Saber/EPA, via Shutterstock.

The NYT reports that a few of Hamas’ recent tunnels actually begin several meters out in the Mediterranean Sea. But the majority of them are part of a network of subterranean pathways, rooms, cells and even tracks for moving carts containing weaponry. Hamas, which oversees Gaza, is believed to hide weapons, fighters and even command centers in their warren of underground chambers.

Here is an example from the WaPo:

“A decade ago, Israeli authorities discovered a tunnel from Gaza into Israel 1.5 miles long and 66 feet underground. They estimated that it had cost some $10 million and required 800 tons of concrete. But Hamas directed most of its tunnel-building effort on the land beneath Gaza, rather than at the border…”

“Though no exact figures regarding the tunnels’ scale exist, experts say Hamas could control about 300 miles of tunnel….Most of the tunnels are about 150 feet deep…about the length of a 14-story building. But the network is winding, uneven and in some parts fashioned in a zigzag pattern to evade Israeli detection.”

Let’s turn to the challenges posed by any attempt to clear the tunnels of Hamas fighters. Combat inside tunnels is incredibly difficult and requires a specific skill set. The standard infantry tactics and weaponry are often not suitable inside a subterranean setting. It’s difficult to execute offensive operations inside the tunnels because navigation and communication systems often don’t work so far underground, and even night-vision goggles struggle, as they require ambient light.

The NYT quotes Gen. Joseph L. Votel, former leader of the US Central Command responsible for the Middle East who visited a tunnel controlled by the Lebanese militia Hezbollah near Israel’s border:

“This wasn’t just holes in the ground, it was an architecture….They were linked to rooms and built in a way to withstand strikes to the surface…. We should have no illusions about how this is going to be….It will be bloody, brutal fighting.”

But since the tunnels are so integral to Hamas’s operations, dismantling the tunnel network must be equally integral to Israel’s stated goal of eradicating Hamas. This is the proportionality dilemma. Will Israel be willing to forego their bombing and begin destroying tunnels primarily with the forces they have trained for the task? Or will the bombing of Gaza continue unabated? The Economist estimated that by day 18 of the war, Israel had destroyed about 9% of the buildings in Gaza.

An Israeli military unit called Samur, or weasel, specializes in underground warfare, training on mock tunnels in Israel. One Israeli technique, called “purple hair,” has been used to locate the tentacles of a Hamas tunnel. Israeli troops drop smoke grenades into a tunnel, and then watch for purple smoke to come out of buildings in the area. The smoke signals that a house is connected to the tunnel network and must be sealed off before soldiers descend into the tunnels.

However, even if Israel’s “tunnel rats” make headway, Hamas, by taking the hostages underground and releasing them over time, could extend this conflict for months, possibly years. Judging by Hamas’ 10+ yearlong preparation, they seem ready to fight to the last surface-dwelling Palestinian.

The strategic choice seems clear: If Netanyahu wants to get to eliminate Hamas, or at least its ability to wage war, he will have to send the IDF into the tunnels after them, or bomb Gaza into dust. The IDF knows this, but how many of them have the steel to venture into the darkness for months at a time?

And is eradicating Hamas even possible? Wrongo is old enough to remember the US effort to eradicate the Taliban, only to find them back in power on the day we left Afghanistan. And when, not if, Israel withdraws, then what? Who will step in to fill the power vacuum? What confidence can Israelis have that whatever replaces Hamas will be willing to live in peace with Israel?

Biden should be telling Netanyahu to stop the wholesale bombardment of Gaza and concentrate on securing the known tunnel entrances and sending in the tunnel rats. Hamas may blow up some of the tunnels as they’re penetrated causing loss of life to both sides. Then, the IDF must keep finding more tunnel entrances and keep burrowing.

Biden also should be telling Netanyahu to allow humanitarian aid to flow to the Gazans, not just from Egypt, but from the Israeli side as well.

This strategy is fraught with risks. But it contains both the moral costs and military costs for Israel and preserves the possibility of a peaceful coexistence at some point in the future. But the question is: Do the Israelis have the will and the ability to execute such a strategy successfully?

For today’s Monday Wake Up, all sides in the Hamas/Israel war need to rouse themselves from their efforts at what Netanyahu called his “Mighty Vengeance”. This war will certainly get worse before it gets better. And maybe it won’t get better in what remains of Wrongo’s lifetime. As the NYT’s Nick Kristoff said:

“Israel faces an agonizing challenge: A neighboring territory is ruled by well-armed terrorists who have committed unimaginable atrocities, aim to commit more and now shelter in tunnels beneath a population of more than two million people. It’s a nightmare. But the sober question must be: What policies will reduce the risk, not inflame it, while honoring the intrinsic value of Palestinian life as well as Israeli life?”

To help us wake up, watch and listen to the late Eva Cassidy along with the London Symphony Orchestra perform the seasonally appropriate “Autumn Leaves”. She had a voice that will never die:

Proportionality In Gaza

The Daily Escape:

Fall colors, Ophir, CO – October 2023 photo by Chirag A. Patel

Welcome to our Saturday Soother. The problem is that getting soothed today may prove difficult. Israel’s military said Friday night (local time) that its “ground forces are expanding” their operations in Gaza. The decision to expand ground operations was made by the Israeli War Cabinet after talks on a possible hostage release reached a stalemate.

More Chaos

The Daily Escape:

Lenticular clouds over Mt. Adams, WA – October 2023 photo by Mitch Schreiber Photography

The news is awful and the time to cover it is short. So here’s a few thoughts on the fly:

First, about Lewiston. This is another American tragedy caused by the AR-15. The effort to paint the problem as another mentally-ill person who unfortunately happened to snap has already begun.

And on average, more than one gun per capita is owned by Americans. The Framers couldn’t have conceived of such violence from one gun. Wrongo is fully aware that it is highly unlikely that guns will ever be brought under better control, unless we happen to become the autocracy that many on the Right want us to be.

The Supreme Court’s ideas about originalism and what was meant by a “well-regulated militia” back in the 1770s, made Wrongo take a look at the demographics of the era. In 1790, the US population was around 3.9 million people, excluding Indians and slaves (as they did back then).

And if you try to determine what a rifle owned by one of America’s well-regulated militia cost in the 1770s, you uncover an almost insoluble problem. There was no national currency, each state had its own. Most were expressed in pounds, but each varied in value in relation to the English pound that they were based on.

Despite all of the problems of comparisons, in 1775, a week’s wages for a Massachusetts agricultural laborer were about 3.75 MA pounds. Across the colonies, a long rifle of medium quality cost between 4-7 pounds, so an average worker could acquire a rifle for less than two week’s wages.

That probably meant that like today, there were at least as many guns as men in colonial America.

The well-regulated militia as a deterrent to tyranny made sense until the time of muzzle loaders came to an end. From roughly 1500 – 1850, militias could fight on relatively equal ground with professional soldiers. But once artillery got good enough to chew up massed formations with only a few cannons, the rifle and other small arms became of secondary value in the fight against tyranny because citizen militias could no longer stand up to formal militaries.

Today, small arms play a different role in combat than when the Constitution was written. If the Second Amendment people were serious about wanting to be able to fight off their government they should be arguing to legalize artillery and explosives. They should conduct anti-armored drone drills, weekend artillery practice, and crowd-fund air defense systems.

Think of it as: Today, guns are worthless for fighting tyranny, but they’re perfect for imposing it.

Now, onward to the House of Representatives, and the new Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, (R-LA). We now have an insurrectionist religious fundamentalist conspiracy theorist who’s second in line for the presidency should something happen to Biden. The House GOP caucus just unanimously elected a traitor.

This needs to be on billboards nationwide.

The election of Johnson represents the surrender by the remaining non-MAGA Republicans to the minority MAGA fringe of their Party. It is a debacle for what the GOP used to stand for in America. And given that funding for the government runs out in a few weeks, a fight between what is now a fully-controlled MAGA House and the House Democrats is inevitable.

To say you’re a Republican in America in 2023 but don’t support Trump makes about as much sense as saying you’re a Communist Party member in the USSR in 1950 but don’t support Stalin.

We should expect a very long shutdown.

House Democrats have to make their fights with House Republicans as loud as possible. They need to make public remarks every day, regardless of their impact on private negotiations. Dems need to make sure everyone knows what the demands by Johnson and the MAGA extremists he leads mean to citizens.

We have to expect that Beltway pundits and the editorial boards of the WaPo and the NYT will attempt to push Biden and Democrats to work with the new Speaker. But, that is a lost cause. House Democrats should work in a bipartisan manner with the (slightly) more reasonable Senate and then turn the fight back to the GOP House in a big public event.

Here’s a tweet by Politico’s Jonathan Martin:

Martin sees this as giving a political advantage to Democrats, but the problem he ignores is the chaos. Is it possible that any order can come out of the MAGA chaos? Johnson is still vulnerable to the rule that a single disgruntled Republican House member can initiate the process to oust him, just as Matt Gaetz (R-FL) did with former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

If four of the other 220 House Republicans agree, he will lose his job. So a reasonable view is to expect more Republican chaos.

Buckle up, it’s going to be a roller coaster ride from here to next November.

What’s Israel’s Strategy If They Eliminate Hamas?

The Daily Escape:

Escalante NM, UT – October 2023 drone photo by Brete Thomas

Last night, President Biden said that the world is at an inflection point. The next stage of the Israel/Hamas conflict is beginning. From the WaPo:

“Israeli troops are massing around the Gaza Strip, poised for a ground invasion that could involve heavy urban combat in the densely populated territory. The buildup of force comes after attackers from the militant group Hamas, which controls the enclave, crossed into southern Israel, killing at least 1,400 people and taking more than 200 hostages.”has and will be written about the next stage concerns what is a “justifiable” retaliatory action by the Israelis. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have already pummeled Gaza with airstrikes, killing more than 3,000 Palestinians, according to the Palestinians.

Much of what the Israelis seemingly are planning on doing is entirely justifiable, so long as there is an overarching strategy behind it. What we do know is that Israel has vowed to “destroy” Hamas. That means an extensive ground war in Gaza.

Without a strategy for what happens after Hamas is rooted out, this will look more like a reprisal strike whenever the IDF leaves Gaza. And there’s absolutely a moral problem with reprisals that kill many civilians. The law (and custom) of war would say there isn’t a problem with reprisals in which you’re killing only Hamas. But if the IDF happens to kill a lot of civilians along the way, even if it is lawful, the world would want to see that Israel has a long-term strategic objective that justifies those actions.

The WaPo quotes Raphael Cohen, a senior political scientist at Rand Corp: (parenthesis by Wrongo)

“Basically what the Israelis are aiming for is complete regime change in Gaza, which is a notable break from past campaigns….If you want to root out Hamas, it’s going to last a lot more than 50 days like Protective Edge, (referring to the IDF’s 2014 Gaza operation)”.

The general rule is that armies are not allowed to target civilians, but you are allowed to target combatants or belligerents of the other side. Urban warfare has always shown that civilians and belligerents are not necessarily distinct from one another. Often the fighters aren’t wearing uniforms.

The US military saw this in Mosul and Raqqa while fighting ISIS. The bad guys are basing themselves in the same buildings that civilians live in. That means the military has to weigh factors like the necessity of the military strike, and whether the expected civilian harm is proportionate to the expected military gain.

Let’s game out how it might look on the ground in Gaza. Remember, that Hamas is thought to have a membership of between 20,000 and 25,000.

First, Israel will have control of the airspace over Gaza. That will make rooftops a very poor place for Hamas sniper and rocket positions.

Second, Israel has amassed artillery and tanks to provide massive firepower. This is an advantage to IDF troops since overwhelming firepower will reduce risk to its soldiers. But it is a huge disadvantage to civilian populations, and it’s incredibly destructive to the city. Also, tanks could be vulnerable to antitank weapons and will be limited by narrow urban streets.

Third, urban warfare tactics will probably be stalemated at the start. Expect Hamas to take up positions in buildings where they will have cover against attacking IDF forces. But Israeli soldiers will bring explosives to blow through walls and enter buildings or rooms from unexpected directions. The size of the IDF forces will gradually wear down Hamas.

Fourth, Gaza has many tunnels built for allowing Hamas to move around the city undetected. The IDF will either flood the tunnels or permanently entomb Hamas soldiers in them using explosives.

Regardless, many people in Gaza will die, some of whom will be Hamas members.

So the big questions are what is Israel’s exit strategy? How will Gaza be governed post-Hamas? And how will the IDF minimize civilian casualties?

Here’s some context. You can read this and say “what about” a fact or two? But the overarching issue is: Can these two peoples with different religions live peacefully in very close contact, given all that has happened since the Balfour Declaration? Israelis came to a land that already had a native population, and the land to share between them wasn’t very large. That required that some of the people who were already on the land had to be moved.

Sounds like America and it’s manifest destiny move westward.

A reality on the ground in Israel and in Gaza is that the Palestinian population is growing faster than Israel’s. This makes for continued contests (legal and illegal) over control of land, and this frozen conflict has now once again burst into active warfare.

And regarding strategy? It may be as simple as let’s get rid of Hamas. Let’s end the cycle of violence and rebuild. No one asked FDR what to do with Germany on D-Day.

If Israel can eliminate Hamas while minimizing civilian casualties, that would be a good start. Then if the Palestinians can put together a government that actually wants: a) to build a functioning economy (without having its existence justified by perpetual war) and b) can check the “Israel has a right to exist” box, perhaps peace could happen.

The Israelis will likely have to be pushed to accept a viable Palestinian state, since this will mean political conflict with its West Bank settlers. A critical question is how hard the US and other nations are willing to push for peace between the parties. It seems likely that the current conflict may create an opportunity to push for peace. Let’s hope Israel is ready to grasp it.

The Arab states are looking on nervously. The outraged response to the hospital bombing in Gaza reminds us that even authoritarian governments sometimes must be responsive to their citizens. It’s possible that in the future, Israel may still face active challenges from hostile regimes in Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. To assume otherwise is just wishful thinking.

The world is staring down the real possibility that this local conflict might morph into a regional war. There will be both short and longer term global consequences for America regardless of Israel’s strategy post-Hamas.

(Sorry, no Saturday Soother today. Instead, let’s hope for minimized deaths and casualties from the Israel/Hamas war.)

They Have No Plan Except To Fight Each Other

The Daily Escape:

Nauset Beach, Orleans, MA – October 2023 iPhone photo by Wrongo

It’s already been a long year…and there are still 3 months left! Two issues dominated this week: the Hamas war on Israel and the Republican intramurals in the House.

Let’s start with the Republicans. Semafor reports that Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) gave up on his quest to become Speaker even though he had been nominated by his caucus as their candidate:

“Scalise withdrew himself from the speaker’s race just one day after colleagues narrowly nominated him for the job, as it became clear he lacked the 217 votes necessary to secure the chair. But there are serious doubts that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Scalise’s top rival, can pull together the support necessary for a win — in part due to the bad blood over his contest against Scalise.”

This isn’t a time for Republican arm wrestling. The country and the world need attention. As AB Stoddard says at the Bulwark:

“THE REPUBLICANS WHO CONTROL the House of Representatives cannot respond to a new war waged against Israel. They have rejected new aid to support Ukraine in its defense against the Russian invasion. They have no plan to keep the government from shutting down on November 17 when funding next runs dry.”

Right now, there’s no path forward. While many things in this world are broken, this isn’t a case of American politics being “broken”. If as many pundits say, American politics are broken, we’d have seen things just like this when Democrats controlled the House. But they didn’t. What’s broken is the Republican Party.

A few House Republicans have suggested that their only choice might be to strike a bargain with Democrats. But behind closed doors, there hasn’t been a real effort to hatch a bipartisan deal, writes Semafor’s Kadia Goba: (brackets by Wrongo)

“I don’t think there has been legitimate outreach….Sure, those members talk to the press, but not to Hakeem Jeffries [the Democrats’ Majority Leader] or leadership.”

The potentially disastrous consequences of a broken House of Representatives are real, and some Republicans understand that. GOP Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) said the following after Scalise withdrew his name from consideration:

“We are living in a dangerous world, the world’s on fire. Our adversaries are watching what we do — and quite frankly, they like it. I see a lot of threats out there. One of the biggest threats I see is in the [GOP caucus] room, because we can’t unify as a conference and put the speaker in the chair…”

Brian Tyler Cohen, who hosts the podcast No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, summed up where the GOP is at with his post on Xitter:

“The fact that ALL Republicans would rather fight over Scalise (who attended a neo-Nazi event) or Jordan (who allegedly covered up rampant sexual abuse) rather than simply work with Democrats to elect a Speaker says it all.”

There are two possible paths forward: Either the Republicans unite behind one candidate for Speaker, or they accept that it will take some Democratic votes to elect a bipartisan candidate. “Bipartisan” is a dirty word among many House Republicans. They have broken the House and have zero intent to fix it.

They must be stopped before they break us all.

The murderous rampage by Hamas last weekend against Israeli civilians and Israel’s sharp response will reverberate for years to come. Eric Levitz wrote in New York Magazine:

“This weekend in Israel, a far-right Islamist group perpetrated the largest mass killing of Jews since the Holocaust, murdering entire families, including babies…and slaughtering 260 concertgoers. More than 1,000 Israelis were killed in all, and over 100 others taken hostage.

Israel’s far-right government predictably responded by choking off all food, electricity, and fuel to Gaza’s 2 million residents and then preparing a military assault more untempered by concern for civilian casualties than ever before.”

The Israeli Ministry of Defense just notified the UN that Palestinians living in Gaza City should evacuate to the southern part of the Gaza Strip. But more than 1 million Palestinians live in this area. How is it possible for so many people to move, even if they had months to do it?

If you are a member of the center-left, It is difficult to see any positive influence on this situation. It shouldn’t be a question of whether you’re for Israel or against it. Terrorism directed at civilians is abhorrent regardless of who’s doing it.

And here at home, conservative pundits exploited Hamas’ attack to fearmonger about immigrants in America. Several right-wing media figures have baselessly warned that Hamas or other “sleeper cells” are lying in wait to attack major American cities, calling October 13 “Day of Jihad”. They also used this lie against American Muslims after 9/11.

What’s happening now between Israel and Hamas makes you want to throw up your hands in despair. It’s impossible to think of or see a solution that can satisfy all sides. Despite that, we need to take a break from so much frustration. We need our Saturday Soother. We need to stiffen our spines for what will be yet another week of horror and nonsense.

Here on Cape Cod, the weather is seasonably crisp, so we will be wearing jackets to today’s Wellfleet Oysterfest. Later, we’ll go to the beach to watch the sunset that is coming earlier every day.

To meditate for a few moments on the Hamas/Israel war, grab a comfy chair and listen to John Lennon’s “Imagine” from his 1971 album of the same name. Released during the heart of the Vietnam War, Lennon asks us to envision a world of peace and unity. “Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too”:

Sample Lyric:

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Dark Money Keeps Flowing Into Our Politics

The Daily Escape:

Cranberry Bog, Old Sandwich Road, Cape Cod MA – October 2023 photo by Ken Grille Photography

As usual, we’re enjoying our time on Cape Cod. We visited a cranberry bog operator yesterday and learned that the number one use of cranberries in America is making crasins. Those packages of whole cranberries you purchase at Thanksgiving make up just 1% of US cranberry sales.

Two topics today: First, as much as Wrongo would like, he can’t ignore the escalating war between Israel and Hamas. Many have written about the conflict. Wrongo wants to spend a few minutes on this week’s hypocrisy by House Republicans. Ja’han Jones wrote for MSNBC:

“In February, several Republicans signed on to a bill, introduced by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., that was aimed at ending US military and financial aid to Ukraine.”

At the time, Gaetz said:

“America is in a state of managed decline, and it will exacerbate if we continue to hemorrhage taxpayer dollars toward a foreign war…”

But on Sunday, Gaetz said on Meet the Press that we should up our support to Israel:

“The reason we have this multibillion-dollar commitment…to Israel is because we want Israel to have a qualitative military edge over everyone in the region…”

Just last week Gaetz and other Republicans were willing to shut down the federal government over aid to Ukraine. Aiding Ukraine means spending to assist in a fight against Russia, which the MAGAverse is apparently supports only very weakly. But aiding Israel, which this time means spending to assist in a fight against Hamas, is ok. Republicans like spending money fighting Muslims.

Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic warns that the “rules-based world order” is on the verge of breaking down:

“Open brutality has again become celebrated in international conflicts, and a long time may pass before anything else replaces it.”

This applies to both Ukraine and to Israel. We can’t afford to ignore one in favor of the other.

Our second issue today is that the billionaire Charles Koch is using a tax dodge to fund his ongoing political activities. From Judd Legum:

“…Charles Koch…is funneling his wealth into two organizations that can continue his right-wing political advocacy for years. Koch structured more than $5 billion in donations to…allow him to avoid paying capital gains or gift taxes. It’s not surprising that Koch is familiar with the loophole — he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying to create it.”

Legum cites a Forbes article which states that in 2022, Koch donated $4.3 billion in Koch Industries stock to Believe in People, a newly formed 501(c)4 nonprofit organization. The organization is run by Koch’s inner circle, including his son, Chase Koch along with Dave Robertson, co-CEO of Koch Industries, and Brian Hooks, the co-author of Charles Koch’s last book.

From Forbes: (brackets by Wrongo)

“ [Koch] has already quietly transferred $5.3 billion of nonvoting stock to a pair of nonprofits….Forbes estimates those shares account for nearly a tenth of the 42% stake previously held by Charles (though he still has 42% voting power).”

The other Koch nonprofit is called CCKc4. In 2020, Koch also donated $975 million in Koch Industries stock to CCKc4, controlled exclusively by Charles’ son, Chase Koch. Legum reports that in its 2020 IRS filing, CCKc4 listed its mission as “N/A.” The gift to Believe in People is now the largest publicly disclosed donation to a 501(c)4–a type of nonprofit with fewer restrictions on lobbying and politics than traditional charities.

Unlike a traditional 501(c)3 nonprofit, a C4 can own an entire for-profit company indefinitely and (so long as these activities support its principal purpose) benefit private individuals; engage in an unlimited amount of issue lobbying; and get directly involved in politics.

Since Congress exempted donations to C4s from the usual 40% federal gift tax in 2015, a number of billionaires have donated 100% of their companies to C4s. Before Koch’s gift the largest of these C4 donations was by Patagonia’s founder Yvon Chouinard, who transferred all of his outdoor clothing and gear retailer’s nonvoting stock to an environmentally-focused C4 in 2022. At the time of the gift, Patagonia was reportedly valued around $3 billion.

Legum reports that Koch’s main political spending vehicle, Americans for Prosperity Action (AFP Action), in the 2022 election cycle spent 95% of its money on Republican candidates who were formally endorsed by Trump or who actively campaigned as Trump supporters. AFP Action spent just $3.5 million on candidates not aligned with Trump and zero dollars supporting Democratic candidates.

This is America in the 2020s: $ billions “donated” by billionaires to protect other billionaires. The tax dodge was enacted in 2015 during the Obama administration. This expansion of tax-free funding of political action is something that is unknown to average people, yet it impacts our politics through its substantial invisible influence. It strips money from the government’s coffers while simultaneously further poisoning US democracy. The only way to take back control of our politics is to take back control of the flow of money into our politics.

Is The Palestinian-Israel Problem Solvable?

The Daily Escape:

Early Autumn, Telluride, CO – October 2023 photo by Steven Carr

We wake up this Monday to yet another conflagration in the Middle East. Israel officially declared war Saturday night after Hamas terrorists launched a surprise barrage of thousands of rockets into southern Israel. It is Israel’s first declaration of war since the Yom Kippur War in 1973. On Sunday, another Iran-backed group, Hezbollah, attacked military targets in northern Israel from its positions in southern Lebanon.

From the WSJ:

“Thousands of rockets were fired into Israel early Saturday to begin what Hamas called ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Storm,’ Mohammed Deif, Hamas’s secretive military chief, said”.

The WSJ also reported that Deif blamed an Israeli “desecration” of the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, located on the site known as the Noble Sanctuary to Muslims and the Temple Mount to Jews. It is the most sacred site for Jews, among the holiest for Muslims and one of the most fought-over pieces of land in the world.

But there’s more to Deif’s assertion than has been reported in the US press. The New Arab reports that on October 5:

“More than 800 Israeli settlers stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem on Thursday morning under the protection of Israeli forces.”

We know that the Hamas attacks on Israel began two days later on October 7. From the WaPo:

“The events of the weekend come in the context of 75 years of Israeli occupation of the Palestinians. For Palestinians and supporters across the Middle East who poured into the streets in Tehran, Beirut, Istanbul and Sanaa, Yemen, to celebrate the Hamas attack, the violence was a response to decades of Israeli restrictions, harassment and violence against Palestinians living under Israeli control.”

Even if the Palestinians lose again, which is almost certain, they’ve won. They were able to achieve complete surprise against the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). They overran IDF positions and dragged away IDF soldiers. Video has shown Palestinians driving IDF vehicles. Hundreds of rockets were able to overwhelm Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system. The vaunted Israeli intelligence agency apparently didn’t catch wind of an operation that must have taken months to plan, possibly involving hundreds if not thousands of people.

And Netanyahu, whose main claim to fame is that he’s kept Israel safe, is overseeing the country’s worst military debacle in decades. And against Hamas, who has been seen as largely ineffective.

And the one thing that’s already clear is that Israel, (assuming it wins this fight, which is probable), will exact a terrible price from the Palestinians.

Israel is never far from another election. Each of the recent governments they have elected have been coalitions among far-right parties. In one sense the Hamas attack gives the Israeli hardliners a win. And if they get more powerful, the Israelis will grab more land, they will “cleanse” the land they grab, and as a country, become more theocratic.

So yes, Hamas has scored a short term victory. Let’s see how it plays out two years from now.

In paging through comments on the attack on multiple news services, is appears that it’s impossible to simultaneously condemn Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, while also pointing out that Hamas’ attack on Israel is indefensible. Partisanship prevents a reasoned view.

But the performative knee jerk support by partisans on both sides seems misplaced just now. Two things can be true: The Israeli government and the settlers have been cruel and provocative. They have contributed to the dispossession of the Palestinians; and Hamas is a corrupt anti-democratic institution that does very little for its citizens, and whose attack on Israeli civilians is unjustified and lacks a moral foundation.

Here in America, the Right supports Israel without question. This weekend some were even saying that Biden is funding Hamas, an outright lie. Many Democrats see Israel as a religious-based apartheid power. But few in the US see the Palestinians as freedom fighters.

Time to wake up America! While it may feel good to call the Palestinians simply another group of Islamic terrorists, that provides zero clarity or a solution to the conflict itself. The Palestinians deserve human rights and a say in how they live.

Israel deserves peace and security.

These objectives must shape any discussion of a cease fire. Unfortunately, as elsewhere in the Middle East, air strikes, rocket attacks and the killing of civilians drowns out dialogue.

America is staring down some major shit with short and longer term global consequences. But some treat it as just another day in the neighborhood. This is a good time to remember that when you throw a stone in the pond, the ripples reach all the way to the shore.

Henry Kissinger’s Reputation

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, Flaming Gorge Reservoir Recreation Area, UT – August 2023 photo by Doreen Lawrence. The Gorge is the largest reservoir on the Green River.

Welcome to your Monday wakeup call! Wrongo has lived a long life, but he’s still 20 years younger than Henry Kissinger. Kissinger turned 100 in May. When Wrongo was in his late teens, he was protesting against the war in Vietnam. At that point, Kissinger was already a foreign policy advisor to the failed presidential campaigns of Nelson Rockefeller.

He would go on to become Nixon’s national security adviser and Secretary of State, a crucial figure overseeing the conflicts in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, that many say included war crimes. Kissinger was never indicted, but Anthony Bourdain wrote the following about Kissinger in his 2001 book “A Cook’s Tour”:

“Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia—the fruits of his genius for statesmanship—and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević. While Henry continues to nibble nori rolls and remaki at A-list parties, Cambodia, the neutral nation he secretly and illegally bombed, invaded, undermined, and then threw to the dogs, is still trying to raise itself up on its one remaining leg.”

But unlike other possible US war criminals like Reagan and Nixon, Kissinger has never needed to rehabilitate his reputation. As Rebecca Gordon says:

“….despite his murderous rap sheet, the media and political establishment has always fawned over him.”

Kissinger is remembered for his initiative to open diplomatic relations between the US and China in 1972, though full normalization of relations with China would not occur until 1979.

Kissinger’s second innovation was inventing the for-profit third act of a public service career. Before him, former foreign policy principals usually wrote a memoir, gave the occasional foreign policy speech, and maybe became head of a nonprofit.

But Kissinger pioneered a for-profit third act in 1982 when he and Brent Scowcroft founded Kissinger Associates (with the help of a loan from the international banking firm of E.M. Warburg, Pincus) to offer advisory services to corporate clients. Kissinger’s prime selling point was that he had access to the corridors of power, not only in Washington, but in Beijing and Moscow.

Wrongo started out being a fanboy, having read Kissinger’s 1957 book “Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy” while in high school. It criticized the Eisenhower Administration’s “massive retaliation” nuclear doctrine. It also caused much controversy at the time by proposing the use of tactical nuclear weapons on a regular basis to win wars. Once Wrongo was running a tactical nuclear missile base in the mid-1960s, he was no longer a fan.

Wrongo met Kissinger in the mid-1980s at an event hosted by David Rockefeller at his Pocantico Hills estate. HK was walking his dog, a particularly obstreperous Golden Retriever. Wrongo asked “What’s the dog’s name?” Kissinger replied: “Madman”. Could there be a more perfect name for a Kissinger family pet?

Kissinger provided advice, both formal and informal, to every president from Eisenhower to Trump (though apparently, not yet to Biden). His fingers are all over the foreign policies of both major Parties. And in all those years, no “serious” American news outlet ever reminded the world of Kissinger’s long history of bloody intervention in other countries.

In fact, as his hundredth birthday approached, he was fawned over in an interview with PBS NewsHour anchor Judy Woodruff. From Rebecca Gordon:

“Fortunately, other institutions have not been so deferential. In preparation for Kissinger’s 100th, the National Security Archive, a center of investigative journalism, assembled a dossier of some of its most important holdings on his legacy.”

A third thing that Kissinger is associated with is the use of the concept of “Realpolitik” in foreign policy. It means conducting diplomatic policies based primarily on considerations of the reality on the ground, rather than strictly following ideology or moral and ethical premises.

Realpolitik has come to mean something quite different in the US: It is associated not with “what is” but with “what ought to be” on the ground. In Kissinger’s realpolitik, actions are good only when they sustain and advance American strategic power. Any concern for human beings that stand in the way, or for the law and the Constitution, are not legitimate.

The Wrongologist

Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Category: Middle East Strategy

Can A Peace Be Brokered Between Israel And Hamas?

The Stakes For Biden (And The US) In The Hamas War

How Hamas’ Tunnels Affect Proportionality

Proportionality In Gaza

What’s Israel’s Strategy If They Eliminate Hamas?

Dark Money Keeps Flowing Into Our Politics

Is The Palestinian-Israel Problem Solvable?

Henry Kissinger’s Reputation