Middle East Strategy – Page 3

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.

Cartoons + Memorial Day Weekend

(There won’t be a Monday Wake Up column this week. Wrongo will return on Wednesday, May 31.)

Memorial Day, Arlington National Cemetery – 2013 photo by William Coyle

Monday will be Memorial Day, when we honor the sacrifice of those who died fighting in America’s wars. We mourn those we knew, and we pause briefly to remember those we never knew. The American public’s job is to say, “thank you for your service”. Saying it has become a reflex, like “bless you” when someone sneezes. Our default position is to thank, but not to think. For most of us, America’s foreign wars are a kind of elevator music. Always present, but we barely notice it.

Maybe we watch our town’s parade, or shop at the mall. There’s likely to be a cookout. It isn’t about love of country. It’s about sad Facebook emojis, Memorial Day mattress sales, and burgers on Monday. On to cartoons.

The old man remembers the soldier:

RIP Tina Turner:

Requiring a clean Debt Ceiling dies as Biden negotiates with Freedom Caucus:

A handy reminder:

Proposed Israeli Judicial Overhaul Threatens Civil War

The Daily Escape:

St. Augustine Beach, FL – 2015 photo by Wrongo

(New columns will be light and variable for the next 10 days as Wrongo and Ms. Right are off to our annual family reunion in Florida. New writing will begin in earnest sometime after April 12. As always, keep your tray tables in their upright and locked position and your arms inside the blog at all times.)

Are you following what’s going on in Israel? It’s been an important story, but it now seems to be getting bigger. From the NYT:

“Civil unrest broke out in…Israel Sunday night after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for criticizing the government’s judicial overhaul, which Gallant said is causing turmoil in the military and threatens Israel’s security.”

Here’s what Minister Gallant said that got him fired: (brackets by Wrongo)

“The rift within our society is widening and penetrating the Israel Defense Forces….[the schisms have caused]…a clear and immediate and tangible danger to the security of the state — I shall not be a party to this.”

By some media accounts, 600,000 people came out to protest across the country, which would mean that 6.5% of Israel’s population was on the streets.

The judicial overhaul was designed to give the government greater control over the selection of Supreme Court justices and to limit the court’s authority over Parliament. It would give Netanyahu power to handpick the judges presiding over his corruption trial (he’s charged in three cases and faces potential prison time).

The proposed overhaul has pitted liberal and secular Jewish Israelis against more right-wing and religiously conservative citizens. The firing of the Defense Minister also prompted Israel’s largest workers’ union to call a general strike, while leading universities closed down, and Israel’s consul-general in New York resigned. Flights from Tel Aviv’s airport were grounded.

The near-rebellion has caused Netanyahu to announce a suspension of the proposed legislation. From the WaPo:

“Out of national responsibility, from a desire to prevent the nation from being torn apart, I am calling to suspend the legislation….When there is a possibility to prevent a civil war through negotiations, I will give a time-out for negotiations.”

That wasn’t enough for the leaders of the months-long protests against Netanyahu’s push to remake Israel’s judicial system. They called for demonstrations to continue since Netanyahu announced that he was suspending, but still planned to pass the legislation.

The Movement for Quality Government called on the leaders of Netanyahu’s political opposition to continue fighting, saying:

“The coup d’état laws must be shelved completely….Not paused, not halted. Shelved. The suspension of the legislation looks like a cheap political exercise designed entirely to wait for a good time to bring the blitz of anti-democratic legislation back into our lives.”

Wrongo generally doesn’t agree with Tom Friedman, but he’s right about this:

“Netanyahu and his coalition thought they could pull off a quick judicial coup, disguised as a legal “reform,” that would enable them to exploit the narrowest of election victories — roughly 30,000 votes out of some 4.7 million — to allow Netanyahu & Co. to govern without having to worry about the only source of restraint on politicians in Israel’s system: its independent judiciary and Supreme Court.”

More from Friedman on the multi-front wars that Netanyahu has undertaken since being reinstalled as Israel’s Prime Minister:

“Netanyahu’s extremist coalition is now taking on the Palestinians and Iran militarily while ignoring the wishes and values of its most important ally, the US government; its most important diaspora community, American Jews; and its most important source of economic growth, foreign investors.

And it’s doing all of that while dividing the Israeli people to the brink of a civil war.”

Civil war in Israel? Even Netanyahu mentioned the possibility in his offer to suspend the effort to pass the judicial overhaul.

Meanwhile Haaretz reported that Israel’s far-right party Otzma Yehudit said that they have struck a deal to allow Netanyahu to delay the judicial overhaul until after the Knesset recess in return for the establishment of a national guard under the control of the Party’s leader, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Netanyahu caved to Ben-Gvir after the ultra-nationalist minister had threatened to resign over Netanyahu’s announcement to shelve the legislation. The idea of a national guard under Ben-Gvir isn’t new. Early versions of the proposal included siphoning off Border Police officers to the national guard, as well as the recruitment of 10,000 volunteers.

This would be a highly inflammatory step given that Ben-Gvir has, in the past, called for the police to use live ammunition on rock-throwing protesters. Haaretz reports that Ben-Gvir told Netanyahu that he would vote against the state budget if it does not include funds for establishing a new national guard. From Haaretz:

“Israel’s oldest human rights organization, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, responded immediately by describing the proposed national guard as “a private, armed militia that would be directly under Ben-Gvir’s control.”

And the irony of Netanyahu treating ordinary Israelis like, well, Palestinians, can’t be lost on anyone right now. Biden should make it clear that it stands by a democratic Israel, not the one being fashioned by Bibi and his coalition partners.

Saturday Soother – March 25, 2023

The Daily Escape:

The Neon Museum at night, Las Vegas, NV – March 2023 photo by Linda Hoggard Henderson

The US confirmed Thursday that it had struck an Iranian-backed group in northeastern Syria after it launched a drone attack against a US base in Syria, killing one US contractor and injuring another along with five US troops. On Friday, the Iran proxy forces launched seven rockets at a US base in northeast Syria on Friday in retaliation.

Wait. We’re still in Syria? Yep, the US still maintains about 900 troops in Syria after Trump ordered the withdrawal of roughly 2,000 in 2018. Video footage indicates that the strike was in Deir Ez-Zor, a Syrian province that borders Iraq and contains significant oil fields.

We entered Syria uninvited in 2015. Our invasion was based on two ideas, one commendable and the other disastrously stupid from the start.

We were misguided in our effort to identify, train and equip the local “good jihadis” to take on the Syrian government. These so-called good jihadis understood we were gullible dupes from day one. It turned out that all we accomplished was to supply better weapons to ISIS.

The commendable effort was our direct support of the Rojava Kurds in their existential battle against the ISIS jihadis. We had experience fighting with them against ISIS in Iraq. We weren’t invited by Syria to help the Rojava Kurds, but it was a fight against a mutual enemy. And at the time, Syria exercised no control in the region.

The main fighting was by the People’s Protection Units (YPG) of the Rojava Kurds. We entered the conflict by conducting airstrikes aimed at Kobani and embedding two Special Forces teams with the YPG, who later captured Kobani.

Our tiny presence with the YPG metastasized into creation of the Syrian Defense Force (SDF). Now, it’s clear that we have stayed too long. We should have been preparing the YPG and SDF for integration into the Syrian Arab Army (SAA). We failed to do that, and we remain there because we promised both groups we’d stand by them, stoking their false hopes of independence from Syria.

We don’t belong there anymore than the Russian Army belongs in Ukraine. Like Ukraine, Syria is a sovereign state and can choose whomever it wants to align with, and who it doesn’t.

How can we demand that Russia exit Ukraine’s sovereign territory while we remain in Syria, uninvited?

We should leave. With all that’s going on elsewhere, taking Syria off the table should be a no-brainer for Biden. We should coordinate our leaving with Syria and the Russians, so as not to be seen as disappearing into the night.

On the way out the door, we need to make it clear to the Rojava Kurds and the SDF that we’re going to leave, and that now they must negotiate an accommodation with the Syrian government.

That’s enough geopolitics for this week. It’s time for our Saturday Soother. Wrongo and Ms. Right are just back from Napa Valley and our granddaughter’s wedding. And Spring has sprung here on the fields of Wrong. It’s already clear that Wrongo is behind on his annual spring cleanup. The woods are taking on the vague red color of new buds, and our Bradford Pear also has buds. Yesterday, we put out our Bluebird nesting boxes.

Let’s relax for a few minutes and center ourselves before next week brings us another political atrocity, like the firing of a Florida school principal after three parents complained about an art teacher showing a picture of Michelangelo’s 16^th century sculpture of David. Time to get fig leaves put on all the statues in Florida.

Let it go. Now, sit in your favorite chair and watch and listen to Alana Youssefian and the Voices of Music perform “Spring” from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on original instruments used in Vivaldi’s time. This features Youssefian playing a baroque violin. They bring life to this Vivaldi old favorite that you’ve heard many times, making it something fun, and joyful. It’s definitely worth your time:

China’s Triangulation Of Russia And The West

The Daily Escape:

Joshua tree in bloom, Joshua Tree National Landmark SW, UT – March 2023 photo by Lisa Simer

We’re back at the Mansion of Wrong after a few lovely days in St. Helena, CA. Surprisingly, it seems that lots of things happened while we were away. From Heather Cox Richardson:

“So, for all the chop in the water about the former president facing indictments, the story that really seems uppermost to me today is the visit China’s president Xi Jinping made today to Moscow for a meeting with Russia’s president Vladimir Putin.”

In 2015, shortly after Russia intervened in the Syrian Civil War, Wrongo asked a visiting Russian author who spoke at our local library whether Putin wanted to move Russia closer to the west or to the east. He said unequivocally that Putin was a product of the west and would keep Russia in the west’s orbit.

It’s clear that he was wrong. Russia has moved away from the west, possibly permanently. Earlier in March, Wrongo said the following:

“The US is attempting to isolate both China and Russia. With Russia, we’re using ever-tightening economic sanctions. With China, we’re building a geographic containment strategy among our allies in Asia.”

And on Monday, Chinese President Xi met with Russian President Putin in Moscow. Here’s a meeting summary from the blog Institute for the Study of War:

“… [the meeting]…on March 20…offered a more reserved vision for Russian-Chinese relations than what Putin was likely seeking. Xi and Putin touted the strength of Chinese-Russian relations in their meeting…but offered differing interpretations of the scale of future relations….on March 19 Putin published an article in Chinese state media in which he argued that Russia and China are building a partnership for the formation of a multipolar world order in the face of the collective West’s seeking of domination and the United States pursuing a policy of dual containment against China and Russia.”

….Xi offered a less aggressive overarching goal for Russian-Chinese relations in his article published in Russian state media….in which he noted that Russia and China are generally pursuing a multipolar world order but not specifically against an adversarial West. Xi instead focused…on presenting China as a viable third-party mediator to the war in Ukraine….

David Ignatius concluded in the WaPo that the meeting was about:

“A strong China…bolstering a weak Russia….The Chinese aren’t providing weapons (yet), but Xi certainly offered moral and psychological support in what might be described as a get-well visit to an ailing relative….The paradox of the Ukraine war is that Putin’s bid for greater power in Europe has made him weaker. This diminished Russia will fall increasingly under China’s sway….Maybe that’s the biggest reason for Xi’s…visit: He is bolstering a flank against America and the West.”

China’s dominance over Russia will grow if Russia cannot find a way to end the war in Ukraine. Russia has lost its energy markets in Europe because of the invasion, so it must depend heavily on demand from China. China’s growing economic power in Asia coupled with its capabilities in space, cyber, and artificial intelligence will increasingly dwarf Russia’s.

Russia’s economy is concentrated on exports of energy. It also has a major population problem. The Economist reports: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Over the past three years the country has lost around 2million more people than it would ordinarily have done, as a result of war, disease and exodus. The life expectancy of Russian males aged 15 fell by almost five years, to the same level as in Haiti. The number of Russians born in April 2022 was no higher than it had been in the months of Hitler’s occupation.”

“…the life expectancy at birth of Russian males plummeted from 68.8 in 2019 to 64.2 in 2021, partly because of Covid…Russian men now die six years earlier than men in Bangladesh and 18 years earlier than men in Japan.”

And the Economist says the exodus of well-educated young people at the start of the Ukraine War also hurts Russia’s future. According to its communications ministry, 10% of IT workers left the country in 2022. Many were young men, further skewing Russia’s unbalanced sex ratio. In 2021 there were 121 females over 18 for every 100 males. More:

“Demographics is rapidly making Russia a smaller, worse-educated and poorer country, from which young people flee and where men die in their 60s.”

As Wrongo said, separating China from Russia used to be a central goal of US foreign policy. The Biden administration tried that strategy in reverse: Warming relations with Moscow at the June 2021 summit in Geneva in part to concentrate on the challenge China presented.

How did that work out?

Now it’s China trying the role of triangulator. Xi’s playing off the split between the US and Russia, helping Putin, but also keeping some distance while building China’s bona fides with the third world.

Xi’s also used China’s close relations with Iran to make a diplomatic breakthrough between the Saudis and the Iranians, something that the US could never achieve.

We seem powerless to blunt what’s happening before our eyes.

And all the while, the Republican Party of the world’s greatest superpower argues about drag queens and wokeness.

Wake up America! Check out what China, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia are building for us. You’re not going to like it.

The Wrongologist

Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Category: Middle East Strategy

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Saturday Soother – March 25, 2023

China’s Triangulation Of Russia And The West