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      Can Self-Help Diplomacy Lower Political Heat in the Middle East?

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      Since the end of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, the United States has been the unchallenged dominant power in the Middle East and North Africa. As such, it often saw its role, for better or worse, as fixing the region’s many problems. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iraq and Saddam Hussein, Iran, high oil prices, Gulf security, Western Sahara, menacing non-state organizations, counterterrorism, human rights, democracy, autocratic leaders, failed states — whatever the concern or challenge, the Americans came to view them as priority issues and their responsibility. Moreover, many regional states and even their citizens often saw America’s involvement as a necessity, sometimes even an obligation to tamp down the region’s frenzied political climate.

      Will Saudi-Iran Talks Lead to Anything?

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      But times have changed. Three recent presidents — Barack Obama, Donald Trump and now Joe Biden — have made efforts to distance the US from its endless, exasperating entanglements in the Middle East. Those efforts had distracted the United States from its principal challenges in the world — China and Russia — and sapped it of its military, economic and political might and influence. America received very little in return on its investment. Furthermore, years of US involvement in the region had also fractured the American public’s support for the more critically important role it must play in anchoring the international order.

      Enter the Others

      Downgrading America’s involvement in the Middle East isn’t necessarily a bad thing. For decades, many in the Middle East and in the US had argued that the region’s problems must be tackled by the governments and people of the region. Outsiders can play a supporting role, but the tough decisions can only be made by the governments themselves. That may now be happening.

      But handing off the task of addressing the region’s manifold challenges got off to a poor start. Neither the US, nor the international community, nor the states of the Middle East seemed able to solve the conundrum of the region’s three failed states.

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      Then, starting around 2015, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman started ordering others around — imposing a blockade on Qatar, detaining the Lebanese prime minister, jailing courageous dissidents and largely harmless millionaires, ordering a hit job on journalist Jamal Khashoggi and jumping into the Yemeni Civil War. And it all went bad, very bad in fact. Additionally, it provoked other would-be movers and shakers to get in the act, including the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Iran, China, Russia and even Israel. And not always with good intent or positive results.

      After years of misdirection, however, governments now seem to be taking a more sober and responsible approach that could prove genuinely beneficial for the region. For starters, they have embarked on a simple approach: dialog. They are talking about their problems, especially those between and among one another. Dialog leads to understanding, which can lead to shared interests. Ultimately, to be effective, dialog must lead to compromise. That involves the inevitable give-and-take that allows nations, especially those close to one another, to live and thrive in peace and prosperity.

      It’s a Start

      One of the most encouraging initiatives may be the most unexpected: dialog between the Middle East’s two major powers, Iran and Saudi Arabia, and hosted by perhaps the most unlikely state, Iraq, unquestionably the region’s most conflict-ridden for decades. The issues are many between these two historic rivals, separated by a narrow gulf on whose name neither seems able to agree. But the larger gulf lies in their differing views of the other, their competing religious sects — the Saudi uber-conservative Wahhabi Sunni Islam vs. Iran’s clerically-led, conservative Shia Islam — perceptions of the other’s role and intentions in the region, their wealth, and relations with and ties to the broader international community, almost non-existent in the case of Iran.

      One especially neuralgic issue for both is their respective roles in the Yemen War. It is now abundantly clear that the Saudis’ overwhelming military power, bolstered by the US and some European nations, cannot defeat the Houthi rebels. Nor can it end either the war or even its costly intervention in it. The Saudis need help. Enter the Iranians, who have been supporting the Shia-affiliated Zaydi Houthis in this war since 2013. With ideology and much-needed weapons and funding, though much less than what Saudi Arabia has expended, the Iranians have empowered the rebels to the point where they are now an established power in a future Yemen, whether unified or bifurcated.

      So, the two regional powers are talking it out. The Saudis want out of the war, but they also want reliable security along their southwestern border. The Iranians want a Shia power on the Arabian Peninsula, but preferably one at peace.

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      Yemen may be the most immediate challenge for the two states. But there are others. More broadly, Saudi Arabia and Iran need to reach a modus vivendi in the region. On-again, off-again formal relations, menacing behavior toward each other’s oil and shipping interests, and verbal assaults do little more than increase the temperature in a region plagued by heat, literally and figuratively.

      Brothers Reconcile?

      Saudi Arabia has also launched a campaign to repair the frayed relations among its Arab neighbors. Last week, Mohammed bin Salman week began a PR campaign to demonstrate a new and improved political environment. In a swing through the neighboring Gulf states of Oman, the UAE, Bahrain and, most importantly, Qatar, he seems to be trying to rebuild what once had been the region’s preeminent multilateral organization, the Gulf Cooperation Council.

      Mohammed bin Salman single-handedly fractured the Gulf alliance when he imposed his 2017 blockade on Qatar, joined by the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt. It backfired. Qatar remained in the good graces of the US, drew the political and military support of peripheral power Turkey and earned the support of Iran. Consider it the young prince’s on-the-job training in global as well as regional politics. He is now devoting particular attention to Doha in the hope of what yet we aren’t quite certain. But this repair work and goodwill tour cannot help but create progress.

      And not to be outdone, the Gulf’s other power, the UAE, has embarked on its own diplomatic repair mission. Like the Saudis, the Emiratis want to lower the temperature in the Gulf, and their position as the region’s prime economic entrepôt gives them special heft. The UAE’s ties to the US, still the unquestioned but now quiescent power in the Gulf, also lend special weight.

      Could It All Be for Naught?

      Looming over all of these laudable efforts, however, is Iranian behavior in the region. All eyes are now on the recently restarted talks over the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in Vienna, Austria. Following a near-six-month hiatus at Iran’s request, the P5+1 group and Iran renewed negotiations to reinstate the JCPOA — aka the Iran nuclear deal.

      But it is the critical non-dialog between the US and Iran — the two countries are still not meeting face-to-face but rather communicating through the intermediation of the other P5+1 countries — that bears the most serious watching. Unless they can agree on a way forward that puts Iran’s nuclear weapons potential well into the very distant future while also lifting America’s onerous and inescapably crippling sanctions on the Islamic Republic, the heat in the Middle East will become white hot.

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      Judging from the US State Department’s uncharacteristically downcast semi-official readout of the first round of the negotiation restart, there is cause for concern. Iran’s counterproductive, albeit predictable, maximalist opening gambit soured the P5+1, even China and Russia. Negotiators met again last week. Unless there is a greater attitude toward compromise, however, pessimism will win out. Positions will harden. And more extreme (and dangerous) measures will become viable.

      President Biden has reiterated the US pledge that Iran will not get nuclear weapons. But neither he nor his secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will state what the consequences of failed talks might be.

      Israel, however, is not so coy. Recent Israeli statements confirm that the military option is very much in play. As if to put an even finer point on the matter, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited Jerusalem late last week for meetings with his Israeli counterpart, Defense Minister Benny Gantz. Both men are retired top generals of their respective armed forces and will have discussed military and other options.

      Military action would be an unspeakable disaster for the Middle East. But so would a nuclear-armed or even nuclear-capable Iran. Even an approach that stops short of armed conflict will impose extraordinary hardship on the region, certainly prompting other states to consider acquiring nuclear weapons and further isolate Iran.

      It would be unfair to place the entirety of the burden for the success of these talks on Tehran. However, unless Iran understands the futility of its mindless pursuit of nuclear weapons, no effort at fostering understanding elsewhere can temper the region’s mercury-popping political heat.

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

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      Will Saudi-Iran Talks Lead to Anything?

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      Saudi Arabia and Iran have engaged in four rounds of talks over the last six months, the most recent of which with the hardliner Ebrahim Raisi already inaugurated as president. A fifth meeting is expected to take place before the end of 2021. The success of the negotiations will depend, to an important extent, on both countries being realistic about Iran’s role in the Yemen conflict.

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      Until now, the negotiations have reportedly revolved around two main issues. The first is the restoration of diplomatic relations between both countries. Bilateral ties were cut off in 2016 when Saudi Arabia executed Nimr Baqir al-Nimr, a Saudi dissident who was a Shia cleric, and protesters in Tehran stormed the Saudi Embassy in retaliation. The second topic of discussion is the Yemen War, which entered a new phase with the 2015 Saudi-led intervention against Houthi rebels who had taken over the Yemeni capital, Sanaa.

      For more than one year, the Saudis have been looking for a way out of Yemen. The enormous economic costs of the conflict became more problematic when oil prices fell as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns.

      Even after the recovery of the hydrocarbon market, the fact remains that six years of war have not brought Saudi Arabia any closer to its two major goals in Yemen: reestablishing Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi as president and constraining the Houthis’ influence. Furthermore, US President Joe Biden, while not as tough on the kingdom as promised in his election campaign, has been less conciliatory with Saudi Arabia than his predecessor, Donald Trump.

      Who Are the Houthis?

      The Saudis often present the Houthis as little more than Iranian puppets. Iran’s official position is that the Houthi movement only receives ideological support from Tehran. Both narratives are inaccurate, to say the least.

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      The Houthis are a homegrown movement that successfully resisted the Yemeni government’s military offensives from 2004 to 2010 without any external assistance. Hussein al-Houthi, the movement’s early leader and from whom its name is derived, was an admirer of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and was influenced by its symbolism and ideology. His brother and current leader of the movement, Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, has also expressed his admiration for the Islamic Republic.

      The first credible reports of Iranian military support for the Houthis date back to 2013. Until 2016, weapons transfers were largely restricted to light arsenal. In the following years, Tehran started to supply the Houthis with increasingly sophisticated missile and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) components. Furthermore, a contingent of Iranian Revolutionary Guards on the ground has been training Houthi fighters. The Yemeni movement’s capacity to target key strategical interests within Saudi Arabia, such as oil extraction facilities, pipelines and airports, cannot be understood without accounting for Iran’s role in the conflict.

      At the same time, and contrary to Saudi claims, the Houthis are largely independent from Iran. Their territorial expansion in 2014 was politically built on its Faustian bargain with the former Yemeni president and arch-rival, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and the unpopularity of the Hadi government, which was backed by Saudi Arabia.

      Moreover, most of the Houthis’ current arsenal has not been sourced from Iran. It has rather been acquired in the local black market — which is well-connected to the Horn of Africa’s smuggling routes — captured in battle or as a result of the defection of governmental military units to the Houthis. Before the war began, Yemen was already a country awash with small weaponry, coming only second to the US in terms of weapons per capita.

      According to the official Saudi narrative, the Houthis necessitate Iranian help to maintain their military effort. While this is most likely the case when it comes to the group’s capability to strike targets within Saudi territory, an abrupt end of Iranian military assistance to the Houthis would make little difference in Yemen’s internal balance of power.

      What Saudi Arabia and Iran Need to Do

      Saudi Arabia needs to come to terms with the fact that its attempt to impose a military solution in Yemen has failed. It has done so because of counterproductive airstrikes, support for unpopular local actors and a misunderstanding of internal dynamics. If Yemen has become Saudi Arabia’s quagmire, this has little to do with Iran’s limited support for the Houthis.

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      Iran, for its part, should understand that its claims of non-interference in the Yemen War have gained a farcical nature over the years, as growing evidence has piled up on Iranian–Houthi ties. Iranian leaders cannot impose on the Houthis an end to attacks against Saudi territory. However, they can decisively constrain them by stopping the flow of UAV and missile technology to the Houthis, as well as ending their military training on the ground. In conjunction with this, Iran can support the direct Houthi–Saudi talks that began in late 2019.

      For Saudi–Iranian negotiations to bear fruits in relation to the Yemen conflict, both sides need to show a realistic appraisal of Iran’s role in the war. It comes down to acknowledging two key facts. On the one hand, Iran has leverage over the Houthis because of its military support for the group. On the other hand, this leverage is inherently limited and cannot be used to grant Saudi Arabia a military victory in Yemen.

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

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      in Elections

      In Iraqi Elections, Guns and Money Still Dominate Politics

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      Iraqis vote Sunday in parliamentary elections called a year early, after huge anti-government protests. Most parties are appealing to voters on the basis of religious, ethnic or tribal loyalty.BAGHDAD — Outside the headquarters of Asaib Ahl al-Haq, one of the main Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, fighters have posted a giant banner showing the U.S. Capitol building swallowed up by red tents, symbols of a defining event in Shiite history.It’s election time in Iraq, and Asaib Ahl al-Haq — blamed for attacks on American forces and listed by the United States as a terrorist organization — is just one of the paramilitary factions whose political wings are likely to win Parliament seats in Sunday’s voting. The banner’s imagery of the 7th century Battle of Karbala and a contemporaneous quote pledging revenge sends a message to all who pass: militant defense of Shiite Islam.Seventeen years after the United States invaded Iraq and toppled a dictator, the run-up to the country’s fifth general election highlights a political system dominated by guns and money, and still largely divided along sectarian and ethnic lines.The contest is likely to return the same main players to power, including a movement loyal to the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a coalition connected to militias backed by Iran, and the dominant Kurdish party in the semiautonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Other leading figures include a Sunni businessman under U.S. sanctions for corruption.A poster for the Sadrist Movement on display at the entrance to Sadr City, a mostly Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad. Posters for a candidate from another party hang nearby. Andrea DiCenzo for The New York TimesIn between are glimmers of hope that a reformed election law and a protest movement that prompted these elections a year early could bring some candidates who are not tied to traditional political parties into Iraq’s dysfunctional Parliament.But persuading disillusioned voters that it is worth casting their ballots will be a challenge in a country where corruption is so rampant that many government ministries are more focused on bribes than providing public services. Militias and their political wings are often seen as serving Iran’s interests more than Iraq’s.Almost no parties have put forth any political platforms. Instead they are appealing to voters on the basis of religious, ethnic or tribal loyalty.“I voted in the first elections and it did not meet our goals and then I voted in the second election and the same faces remained,” said Wissam Ali, walking along a downtown street carrying the bumper of a car he had just bought at a market. “The third time I decided not to vote.”Mr. Ali, from Babil province south of Baghdad, said he taught for the last 14 years in public schools as a temporary lecturer and has been unable to get a government teaching position because he does not belong to a political party.Anti-government protestors at a demonstration in Bagdad’s Tahrir Square this month commemorating activists killed by security forces and militia gunmen.Andrea DiCenzo for The New York TimesStarting in October 2019, protests intensified, sweeping through Baghdad and the southern provinces demanding jobs and basic public services such as electricity and clean water. The mostly young and mostly Shiite protesters demanded change in a political system where government ministries are awarded as prizes to the biggest political blocs.The protesters called for an end to Iranian influence in Iraq through proxy militias that now are officially part of Iraq’s security forces, but only nominally under government control.In response, security forces killed almost 600 unarmed protesters, according to the Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights. Other estimates place the toll at 800. Militia fighters are blamed for many of the deaths and are accused of killing dozens more activists in targeted assassinations.The current prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, came to power last year after the previous government was forced by the protests to step down.While early elections were a key campaign promise, Mr. Kadhimi has been unable to fulfill most of the rest of his pledges — bringing to justice those behind the killings of activists, making a serious dent in corruption and reining in Iranian-backed militias.While the parties already in power are expected to dominate the new Parliament, changes in Iraq’s electoral law will make it easier for small parties and independent candidates to be elected. That could make this vote the most representative in the country’s postwar history. Despite faults in the election process including, in previous years, widespread fraud, Iraq is still far ahead of most Arab countries in holding national and provincial polls.A poster for an independent candidate hung on the fence of a soccer field in Sadr City. Changes in election rules have made it easier for independent candidates to win seats. Andrea DiCenzo for The New York Times“It’s not a perfect system but it’s much better than the old one,” said Mohanad Adnan, an Iraqi political analyst.He said he believed the protests — and the bloody suppression of them — had resulted in some established parties losing part of their support. Some candidates are hoping to capitalize on a backlash against traditional political blocs.Fatin Muhi, a history professor at al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, said she was encouraged by her students to run for office. Ms. Muhi, who is running with a party affiliated with the anti-government protests, said many people in her middle-class constituency had planned to boycott the elections but changed their minds.“When they found out we were candidates for the protest movement they said ‘we will give you our votes,’” Ms. Muhi said. “We will be an opposition bloc to any decision issued by corrupt political parties.”In addition to anger and apathy, serious fraud in the last parliamentary election has fueled the boycott campaign.To counter voter distrust that led to a record low turnout in the 2018 polls, election workers have been going to people’s doors in some neighborhoods with voter registration cards. Election authorities “wanted to make it as easy as possible for voters who don’t have trust in the system,” said Mr. Adnan, the political analyst. “They are not motivated to register or pick up their cards.”Customers at a cafe in Sadr City with the lights switched off. State electricity provides the cafe with only two hours of power at a time before it must rely on a generator.  Andrea DiCenzo for The New York TimesThe country’s 21 million registered voters include an estimated one million old enough to vote for the first time. Despite TikTok campaign spots and other tactics aimed at reaching young voters, many of them are boycotting the election.“Our country is for us and not for them,” said Helen Alaa, 19, referring to the political parties and the militias. Ms. Alaa, a first-year college student who said she would not vote, was at a demonstration commemorating slain protesters. “We tried so hard to explain to them but they always try to kill us. Now they try to calm down the situation so they can win in the election and bring back the same faces.”Ahmed Adnan, 19, said, “Every election there is a candidate who comes to a mosque near our house and promises to build schools and pave streets.” The candidate keeps being elected, he said, but none of those things have been done.To help support his family, Mr. Adnan, who is unrelated to Mohanad Adnan, works at a shop selling ice, making about $8 a day. He is trying to finish high school by studying at home and going in only to take exams.His friend, Sajad Fahil, 18, said a candidate came to his door and offered to buy his vote for $300.“Every election there is a candidate who comes to a mosque near our house and promises to build schools and pave streets,” said Ahmed Adnan, center. He wants to finish high school but needs to work to help support his family.Andrea DiCenzo for The New York Times“He refused to say which party he was running for,” said Mr. Fadhil, who studies at a technical institute and is also boycotting the vote.In some areas where there is more money and races are more hotly contested, the going price for buying a vote is up to $1,000, according to several tribal officials.Sheikh Hameed al-Shoka, head of the Anbar Tribal Leaders Council, said groups commissioned by some political blocs were buying up people’s biometric voting cards by the thousands. Under that scheme, voters agree to relinquish their cards and later retrieve them outside polling sites — ensuring that they actually do turn out — where they then vote as directed.In a race between the powerful Sunni speaker of Parliament, Mohammad al-Halbousi, and Iraqi businessman Khamis al-Khanjar, Sheikh Hammeed said he had told his followers to support Mr. Khanjar. The tribal leader said both political figures were suspected of corruption, including Mr. Khanjar whom he acknowledged having “corrupt friends.”“But his friends have worked in the government and offered something for people,” said the tribal leader. “The others did not offer anything. They only provided for themselves.”Fishing on the banks of the Tigris river in Baghdad.Andrea DiCenzo for The New York TimesFalah Hassan and Sura Ali contributed reporting from Baghdad. Nermeen al-Mufti contributed reporting from Kirkuk, Iraq. More

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      in US Politics

      Trump White House tried to play down US injuries in attack by Iran, says ex-official

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      Donald TrumpTrump White House tried to play down US injuries in attack by Iran, says ex-officialAlyssa Farah says she was pressured to delay reporting of injuries to more than 100 US troops in Iraq from attack avenging Qassem Suleimani Julian Borger in WashingtonThu 9 Sep 2021 00.00 EDTLast modified on Thu 9 Sep 2021 00.22 EDTDonald Trump’s White House asked the Pentagon to play down and delay reports of brain injuries suffered by US troops from an Iranian missile attack on Iraq last year, according to a former defense spokeswoman.Alyssa Farah said she fended off the pressure from the White House, which came after Trump had first claimed there had been no casualties and then dismissed the injuries as “headaches” and “not very serious”.More than 100 US troops were ultimately diagnosed as having suffered traumatic brain injuries in the missile attack on two bases in Iraq housing US troops on 8 January 2020, launched by Tehran in retaliation for the US drone killing of Revolutionary Guard general Qassem Suleimani five days earlier.Roughly 80% of the American casualties from the missile attack were able to return to duty within days, but dozens had to be evacuated to Germany and then the US for treatment.Iran steps up nuclear plans as tensions rise on anniversary of Suleimani’s killingRead moreFarah described the attack as the “heaviest several hours of my life” in an interview with a new podcast, One Decision, hosted by former CNN journalist Michelle Kosinski and the former head of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency, Sir Richard Dearlove.Farah, who went on to work in the White House, said that when Trump claimed there had been no casualties in the wake of the attack it was “true at the time that we gave those facts to the president”.But she added: “I think where things got shaky was there was an effort from the White House to want to say, this was not successful – the Iranians were not successful in harming our targets in response. And I think that went too far.“And I think that it ended up glossing over what ended up being very significant injuries on US troops after the fact,” Farah told the podcast, due to air on Thursday.She said it was Pentagon policy to release the facts as they arrived and were verified, and as a result the total reported number of casualties climbed throughout January 2020, irritating the White House.“We did get pushback from the White House of, ‘Can you guys report this differently? Can it be every 10 days or two weeks, or we do a wrap-up after the fact?’” Farah said. “The White House would prefer if we did not give regular updates on it. It was this drip, drip of quote unquote bad news.”Farah said she did not give in to the pressure, saying: “My feeling was, if my experience had taught me anything, transparency is always going to be your best friend in that field.”The killing of Suleimani, as his car was leaving Baghdad airport on his arrival in Iraq on 3 January 2020, was highly controversial. The UN’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings at the time, Agnes Callamard, deemed it an “unlawful killing” because Washington had not provided sufficient evidence of an imminent threat from Suleimani.Four days before the air strike a mob of Shia militiamen and their supporters breached the compound of the US embassy in Baghdad before being persuaded to withdraw. After Suleimani was killed the then US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, claimed there was evidence Suleimani was planning an “imminent” attack against US embassies and bases, and Trump said later there was a plot “to blow up our embassy”. But members of Congress said there was no such claim in their intelligence briefing on the drone strike. Pompeo later said the strike was aimed at “deterrence”.Farah insisted there was “extremely credible, thoroughly planned potential to harm US and coalition partners”.“The ‘imminence’ is really the word that I think folks would get hung up on how immediate it was,” she added. Farah said she advised the top officials at the Pentagon not to base the justification solely on the claim of imminent attacks but because “we had a terrorist on the battlefield in Iraq and an extremely bold thing for this leader to be doing, watching the Green Zone be attacked from the ground in Iraq”.US legal opinion is divided on the Suleimani strike. Some scholars said it was justified by the Iranian general’s role across the region of orchestrating attacks on the US and its allies. Others argue that does not provide sufficient cause under international law, because there was no declared state of war between the US and Iran.“I believe that it was in violation of international law because we were not at war with Iran,” said Gary Solis, a retired marine, former adjunct professor at West Point military academy, and author of 2006 book the Law of Armed Conflict. “Not only were we not at war with Iran, but where we killed him was in a state with which we are not at war. So what authority did we have to kill him?”TopicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS politicsIrannewsReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      Israel’s Spy Agency Snubbed the U.S. Can Trust Be Restored?

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      Israel’s new prime minister, Naftali Bennett, heads to Washington promising better relations and seeking support for covert attacks on Iran’s nuclear program.WASHINGTON — The cable sent this year by the outgoing C.I.A. officer in charge of building spy networks in Iran reverberated throughout the intelligence agency’s Langley headquarters, officials say: America’s network of informers had largely been lost to Tehran’s brutally efficient counterintelligence operations, which has stymied efforts to rebuild it.Israel has helped fill the breach, officials say, its robust operations in Iran providing the United States with streams of reliable intelligence on Iran’s nuclear activities, missile programs and on its support for militias around the region.The two countries’ intelligence services have a long history of cooperation and operated in virtual lock step during the Trump administration, which approved or was party to many Israeli operations in its shadow war against Iran.That changed after the election of President Biden, who promised to restore the nuclear agreement with Iran that Israel so vigorously opposed. In the spring, Benjamin Netanyahu, then Israel’s prime minister, even curtailed intelligence sharing with the United States because he did not trust the Biden administration.The challenge for the two countries — as Israel’s new prime minister, Naftali Bennett, meets with Mr. Biden at the White House on Thursday — will be whether they can rebuild that trust even as they pursue contradictory agendas on Iran. The Biden administration favors a diplomatic approach, reviving and building on the 2015 nuclear agreement, while Israeli officials say that only force can stop Iran from building an atomic bomb.A key goal for Mr. Bennett will be to determine whether the Biden administration will continue to support Israel’s covert operations against Iran’s nuclear program, senior Israeli officials said.Israeli officials hope that any new deal with Iran will not limit such operations, which in the past have included sabotage of Iranian nuclear facilities and the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists.The White House meeting comes just weeks after William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, traveled to Israel to meet his counterpart, David Barnea, as well as Mr. Bennett, a sign of the importance of intelligence cooperation to the bilateral relationship.“The sharing of intelligence and operational activity between Israel and the United States is one of the most important subjects on the agenda for the meeting,” said Maj. Gen. Aharon Zeevi Farkash, a former director of Israeli military intelligence. “Israel has developed unique capabilities for intelligence collection in a number of enemy countries, capabilities that the United States was not able to grow on its own and without which its national security would be vulnerable. ”William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, second from left, recently met with his counterpart in Israel. The two agencies are trying to rebuild trust as their countries pursue contradictory agendas on Iran.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesIn his meeting with Mr. Biden, Mr. Bennett’s hand will be strengthened by the fact that the United States has become more dependent on Israel for information on Iran. The United States has other sources of information, including electronic eavesdropping by the National Security Agency, but it lacks the in-country spy network Israel has..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The risk of such dependence became clear in April when Israel set off explosives at Iran’s Natanz nuclear plant.Mr. Netanyahu had ordered his national security officials to reduce the information that they conveyed to the United States about planned operations in Iran, American and Israeli officials said.And on the day of the attack, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad, gave the United States less than two hours’ notice, according to American and Israeli officials, far too short a time for the United States to assess the operation or ask Israel to call it off.Israeli and American officials interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified operations.Israeli officials said they took the precautions because Americans had leaked information about some Israeli operations, a charge U.S. officials deny. Other Israeli officials say the Biden administration had been inattentive to their security concerns, too focused on reviving the Iran nuclear agreement that President Donald J. Trump had pulled out of.A satellite photo showing the Natanz nuclear facility in April 2021. Days earlier, Israeli operatives set off a large explosion inside the plant. Planet Labs Inc., via Associated PressIn Washington, many American officials said they believed that Mr. Netanyahu was just resuming the grudge he had held against the Obama administration, which negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran.The last-minute notification of the Natanz operation was the starkest example that Israel had changed its procedures since the Trump presidency.Senior Biden administration officials said that the Israelis, at least in spirit, had violated a longstanding, unwritten agreement to at least advise the United States of covert operations, giving Washington a chance to object.Mr. Burns called his counterpart, Yossi Cohen, the Mossad chief, expressing concern over the snub, according to people briefed on the call.Mr. Cohen said that the belated notification was the result of operational constraints and uncertainty about when the Natanz operation would take place.For the American-Israeli intelligence relationship, it was another a sharp turnabout.Relations had soured during the Obama era.The Obama White House, concerned that Israel was leaking information, kept the existence of the negotiations with Iran secret from Israel, a former Obama administration official said. Israeli intelligence learned of the meetings from its own sources.Mr. Netanyahu was also convinced that American spy agencies were keeping him under surveillance, according to a former Israeli official.During the Trump administration, cooperation reached new highs.In the spring, Benjamin Netanyahu, then Israel’s prime minister, curtailed intelligence sharing with the United States because he did not trust the Biden administration.Dan Balilty for The New York TimesWhen the Mossad stole Iran’s nuclear archive in 2018, the only foreign officials briefed in advance were Mr. Trump and his C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo.Israeli officials used the documents to convince Mr. Trump that Iran had an active nuclear weapons program, and Mr. Trump cited them when he withdrew from the nuclear agreement months later, a major victory for Mr. Netanyahu.“This was clever use of intelligence,” Mr. Netanyahu told The New York Times in 2019.Iran has denied that it seeks a nuclear weapon, but the archives showed that Iran had a nuclear weapons program as recently as 2003. According to American intelligence officials, no evidence has emerged that the program continued.During meetings with senior Trump administration officials in late 2019 and early 2020, Mr. Cohen presented a new Iran strategy, arguing for aggressive covert operations to sabotage Iran’s nuclear facilities and killing key personnel to force Iran to accept a stricter agreement.Israel began a wave of covert operations, keeping the Trump administration in the loop on a series of cyber and bombing attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities and on the assassination of Iran’s chief nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, in November 2020, after the American election but before Mr. Biden took office.The two countries also cooperated on two operations in 2020: a U.S. operation to kill the leader of Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, and an Israeli operation to kill a Qaeda leader who had taken refuge in Tehran.Mr. Pompeo, who later served as secretary of state, said that there was no relationship more important during his four years in the Trump administration than the one that the C.I.A. had with the Mossad.“The two organizations really had a moment, an important moment in history,” he said in an interview in June.In January 2020, an American drone strike killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani as he was leaving the Baghdad airport. The strike was aided by Israeli intelligence.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesBut the warmth of the Trump years quickly gave way to chillier relations this year. The Biden administration’s announcement of its plan to return to the Iran nuclear deal and repeated delays of visits by Israeli intelligence officials to Washington deepened skepticism of the new administration in Israel.Mr. Cohen sought to repair the relationship with the United States during his final months as Mossad chief, a senior Israeli official said.On his final visit to Washington in April, a little more than two weeks after the Natanz bombing, he met with C.I.A. officials and Mr. Biden, promising a more transparent intelligence relationship. Mr. Burns gave him a warm reception, and an award for fostering the close partnership between the Mossad and the C.I.A.“You have people within both intelligence organizations that have had relationships for a very long time,” said Will Hurd, a former C.I.A. officer and former member of the House Intelligence Committee. “There is a closeness and an ability to potentially smooth out some of the problems that may manifest from the leaders.”Arguably as important in rebooting the relations between the two spy shops was the departure of Mr. Netanyahu from the prime minister’s office.Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who meets with President Biden on Thursday, said he would use the meeting with Mr. Biden to try to reset the tone of Israel’s relationship with the United States.Amit Elkayam for The New York TimesMr. Bennett says he wants to open a new chapter in relations with the White House, and has promised a more constructive approach.But the Mossad is already planning more secret operations in Iran. The question for the Biden administration is which are acceptable and when, General Zeevi Farkash said.“The U.S. and Israel must jointly identify the red lines so that if Iran crosses them, Israel can act to prevent it from achieving military nuclear capacity,” he said.Julian E. Barnes and Adam Goldman reported from Washington, and Ronen Bergman from Tel Aviv. Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington. More

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      Joe Biden Faces a Dilemma Over Iran

      by

      Everything old is new again, at least when it comes to US President Joe Biden’s deterrence credibility problem with Iran. This must seem like déjà vu to him, since he witnessed similar dynamics play out during an earlier stint at the White House.

      Several weeks ago came news that the FBI had foiled a brazen scheme by an Iranian intelligence network to kidnap an Iranian-born US citizen who is a prominent critic of the Islamic Republic.  The apparent plan was to abduct her from the streets of Brooklyn, spirit her to Venezuela via “maritime evacuation” using “military-style speedboats” and from there deliver her to Iran.  The plan was part of a broader scheme entailing the seizure of other individuals in Canada and the United Kingdom.

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      The elaborate operation, which the head of the FBI’s New York field office described as “not some far-fetched movie plot,” is a flagrant gesture on Iran’s part at a time when the Biden administration is seeking to diplomatically engage Tehran on nuclear proliferation issues. What stands out from this episode is how much Tehran is willing to extend US–Iranian hostility onto the American homeland and how little it seems to fear the prospect of retaliation.

      The Saudi Ambassador

      The thwarted abduction is reminiscent of an even more audacious scheme on US territory by Iranian agents a decade ago. In the fall of 2011, the FBI broke up an operation to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington. The plan was directed by the Quds Force, an elite branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that conducts clandestine operations beyond the country’s borders. The plot involved blowing up the Saudi diplomat at an upscale restaurant popular among Washington’s political elite, followed by the bombing of the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington and in Argentina. The high likelihood of mass casualties at the restaurant was dismissed by the operation’s US-based organizer as “no big deal.”

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      The plot organizer sought to outsource the bombings to the Los Zetas drug cartel in Mexico, which the FBI later described as having “access to military-grade weaponry and explosives, and has engaged in numerous acts of violence, including assassinations and murders.” As part of the deal with the cartel, the organizer promised to funnel tons of opium from the Middle East to Mexico. The plan unraveled when the organizer reached out to an individual he believed was a cartel member but who was actually an informant for the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). 

      Reporting on the foiled plot, the Washington Post commented that it resembled “an international cloak-and-dagger operation that reads like the plot of a Bond novel.” Robert Mueller, the FBI director at the time, noted that “Though it reads like the pages of a Hollywood script, the impact would have been very real and many lives would have been lost.” James R. Clapper, the US director of national intelligence, cautioned that “some Iranian officials — probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived US actions that threaten the regime.”

      At the time, the Obama administration was looking to wind down the military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as find a way to halt Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Although then-Vice-President Biden described the botched assassination plot as “an outrage that violates one of the fundamental premises upon which nations deal with one another”, the White House did little beyond prosecuting the hapless Iranian organizer and imposing sanctions on several Quds Force officials.

      James Mattis on Obama’s Response

      The tepid response was particularly criticized by General James Mattis, the head of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), which directs military operations in the greater Middle East. He was dismayed that President Barack Obama kept the details of “the enormous savagery of the intended attack” from the American public and failed to respond forcefully to the provocation.

      Obama would eventually fire Mattis from his CENTCOM post, in part due to the latter’s frequent criticism of the president’s approach toward Iran. Once in civilian life, Mattis publicly lambasted Obama’s response to the attempted assassination. Speaking at a conference in 2013, he claimed the plot was the result of a decision “taken at the very highest levels in Tehran.” He further asserted that “We caught them in the act and yet we let them walk free,” and “They have been basically not held to account. … I don’t know why the attempt on [the Saudi ambassador] wasn’t dealt with more strongly.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      In his 2019 memoir, Mattis blamed the lax US reply on Obama’s keenness to strike a nuclear deal with Iran. He also elaborated on his earlier criticism, lamenting that “We treated an act of war as a law enforcement violation.” He added:

      “Had the bomb gone off, those in the restaurant and on the street would have been ripped apart, blood rushing down sewer drains. It would have been the worst attack on us since 9/11. I sensed that only Iran’s impression of America’s impotence could have led them to risk such an act within a couple of miles of the White House, Absent one fundamental mistake — the terrorists had engaged an undercover DEA agent in an attempt to smuggle the bomb — the Iranians would have pulled off this devastating attack. Had that bomb exploded, it would have changed history.”

      In the end, it was Obama’s successor who delivered the kind of reprisal Mattis thought necessary. In early January 2020, the Trump administration launched a drone strike that killed Major General Qassem Soleimani, the long-time Quds Force commander, while he was on a secret visit to Baghdad. Hundreds of miles away on the very same night, a drone strike in Yemen targeted but missed Abdul Reza Shahlai, a senior leader in the Quds Force. Washington had long accused Soleimani and Shahlai of being the key Iranian officials in putting the bomb plot into motion.

      Biden’s Conundrum

      Like Obama, President Biden now confronts a conundrum: how to shore up eroding US deterrence resolve vis-à-vis an increasing risk-acceptant Tehran while also keeping it in good enough humor to extract significant nuclear concessions. So far, he has eschewed Mattis’ advice about how to dissuade Iran from mounting further attacks on American soil.

      In contrast to his outrage a decade ago, Biden has opted to keep personally silent about the Brooklyn abduction plot while his administration treats it as a matter for law enforcement. It seems unlikely that the incoming Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, will find this response a cause for restraint.

      The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      America’s Afghan War Is Over. But What About Iraq and Iran?

      by

      At Bagram air base, Afghan scrap merchants are already picking through the graveyard of US military equipment that was until recently the headquarters of America’s 20-year occupation of their country. Afghan officials say the last US forces slipped away from Bagram in the dead of night, without notice or coordination. 

      The Taliban are rapidly expanding their control over hundreds of districts in Afghanistan, usually through negotiations between local elders, but also by force when troops loyal to the Kabul government refuse to give up their outposts and weapons. A few weeks ago, the Taliban controlled a quarter of the country. Now it’s a third. They are taking control of border posts and large swathes of territory in the north of the country. These include areas that were once strongholds of the Northern Alliance, a militia that prevented the Taliban from unifying the country under their rule in the late 1990s. 

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      People of goodwill all over the world hope for a peaceful future for the people of Afghanistan, but the only legitimate role the United States can play there now is to pay reparations, in whatever form, for the damage it has done and the pain and deaths it has caused. Speculation in the US political class and corporate media about how the US can keep bombing and killing Afghans from “over the horizon” should cease. The US and its corrupt puppet government lost this war. Now it’s up to the Afghans to forge their future. 

      Iraq

      So, what about America’s other endless crime scene: Iraq? The US corporate media only mention Iraq when our leaders suddenly decide that the over 150,000 bombs and missiles they have dropped on Iraq and Syria since 2001 were not enough, and dropping a few more on Iranian allies there will appease some hawks in Washington without starting a full-scale war with Iran.

      But for 40 million Iraqis, as for 40 million Afghans, America’s most stupidly chosen battlefield is their country, not just an occasional news story. They are living their entire lives under the enduring impacts of the neocons’ war of mass destruction.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Young Iraqis took to the streets in 2019 to protest 16 years of corrupt government by the former exiles to whom the United States handed over their country and its oil revenues. The protests were directed at the Iraqi government’s corruption and failure to provide jobs and basic services to its people, but also at the underlying, self-serving foreign influences of the US and Iran over every Iraqi government since the 2003 invasion.

      A new government was formed in May 2020, headed by Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, previously the head of Iraq’s intelligence service and, before that, a journalist and editor for the Al-Monitor website. Kadhimi has initiated investigations into the embezzlement of $150 billion in Iraqi oil revenues by officials of previous governments, who were mostly former Western-based exiles like himself. He is now walking a fine line to try to save his country, after all it has been through, from becoming the front line in a new US war on Iran.

      Recent US airstrikes have targeted the Hashd al-Shaabi, known in English as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). The PMF, which is made up of mostly Iraqi Shia armed groups, was formed in 2014 to fight the Islamic State (IS). At the time, IS had seized territory spanning both Iraq and Syria, breaking the border between the two countries and declaring a caliphate. The PMF comprises about 130,000 troops in 40 or more different units. Most of them were recruited by pro-Iranian Iraqi political parties and groups. Now, the PMF is an integral part of Iraq’s armed forces and is credited with playing a critical role in the war against IS.

      Western media represent the PMF as militias that Iran can turn on and off as a weapon against the United States. But the PMF has its own interests and decision-making structures. When Iran has tried to calm tensions with the US, it has not always been able to control the PMF. General Haider al-Afghani, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard officer in charge of coordinating with the PMF, recently requested a transfer out of Iraq. He complained that the PMF paid no attention to him.

      Ever since the US assassination of Iran’s General Qasem Soleimani and PMF commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in January 2020, the PMF has been determined to force the last remaining US occupation forces out of Iraq. After the killing, the Iraqi national assembly passed a resolution calling for US forces to leave Iraq. Following US airstrikes against PMF units in February 2021, Iraq and the US agreed in early April that American combat troops would soon depart. 

      But no date has been set, no detailed agreement has been signed, many Iraqis do not believe US forces will leave, nor do they trust the Kadhimi government to ensure their departure. As time has gone by without a formal agreement, some PMF forces have resisted calls for calm from their own government and Iran and stepped up attacks on US forces. 

      At the same time, the Vienna talks over the Iran nuclear agreement have raised fear among PMF commanders that Iran may sacrifice them as a bargaining chip in a renegotiated nuclear agreement with the United States. So, in the interest of survival, the commanders have become more independent of Iran and cultivated a closer relationship with Kadhimi. This was evidenced in Kadhimi’s attendance at a huge military parade in June to celebrate the seventh anniversary of the PMF’s founding. 

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      The next day, the US bombed PMF forces in Iraq and Syria, drawing public condemnation from Kadhimi and his cabinet as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty. After conducting retaliatory strikes, the PMF declared a new ceasefire on June 29, apparently to give Kadhimi more time to finalize a withdrawal agreement. But six days later, some of them resumed rocket and drone attacks on US targets.

      Whereas Donald Trump only retaliated when rocket attacks in Iraq killed Americans, a senior US official has revealed that President Joe Biden has lowered the bar, threatening to respond with airstrikes even when Iraqi militia attacks do not cause US casualties. But US air strikes have only led to rising tensions and further escalations by Iraqi militia forces. If American forces respond with more or heavier airstrikes, the PMF and Iran’s allies throughout the region can respond with more widespread attacks on US bases. The further this escalates and the longer it takes to negotiate a genuine withdrawal agreement, the more pressure Kadhimi will get from the PMF and other sectors of Iraqi society to show US forces the door.

      The official rationale for the US presence and that of NATO training forces in Iraqi Kurdistan is that the Islamic State is still active. In January, a suicide bomber killed 32 people in Baghdad. The group still has a strong appeal to oppressed young people across the Arab and Muslim world. The failures, corruption and repression of successive post-2003 governments in Iraq have provided fertile soil.

      Iran

      But the United States clearly has another reason for keeping forces in Iraq, as a forward base in its simmering war on Iran. That is exactly what Kadhimi is trying to avoid by replacing US forces with the Danish-led NATO training mission in Iraqi Kurdistan. This mission is being expanded from 500 to at least 4,000 forces, made up of Danish, British and Turkish troops. 

      If Biden had quickly rejoined the nuclear agreement with Iran after taking office in January, tensions would be lower by now and the US troops in Iraq might well be home already. Instead, Biden obliviously swallowed the poison pill of Trump’s Iran policy by using “maximum pressure” as a form of “leverage,” escalating an endless game of chicken the United States cannot win — a tactic that Barack Obama began to wind down six years ago by signing the JCPOA.

      The US withdrawal from Iraq and the Iran nuclear deal are interconnected, two essential parts of a policy to improve US–Iranian relations and end Washington’s antagonistic and destabilizing interventionist role in the Middle East. The third element for a more stable and peaceful region is the diplomatic engagement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, in which Kadhimi’s Iraq is playing a critical role as the principal mediator.    

      The fate of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the Iran deal is formally known, is still uncertain. The sixth round of shuttle diplomacy in Vienna ended on June 20 and no date has been set for a seventh round yet. Biden’s commitment to rejoining the JCPOA seems shakier than ever. Ebrahim Raisi, the president-elect of Iran, has declared he will not let the Americans keep drawing out the negotiations. 

      Embed from Getty Images

      In an interview in June, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken upped the ante by threatening to pull out of the talks altogether. He said that if Iran continued to spin more sophisticated centrifuges at higher and higher levels, it will become very difficult for the United States to return to the original deal, which was signed in 2015 under Obama. Asked whether or when the US might walk away from negotiations, he said, “I can’t put a date on it, [but] it’s getting closer.”

      What should really be “getting closer” is the US withdrawal of troops from Iraq. While Afghanistan is portrayed as the “longest war” the United States has fought, the US military has been bombing Iraq for most of the last 30 years. The fact that the US military is still conducting “defensive airstrikes” 18 years after the 2003 invasion and nearly 10 years since the official end of the war proves just how ineffective and disastrous this US intervention has been.

      Biden certainly seems to have learned the lesson in Afghanistan that the US can neither bomb its way to peace nor install puppet governments at will. When pilloried by the press about the Taliban gaining control as US troops withdraw, Biden said: “For those who have argued that we should stay just six more months or just one more year, I ask them to consider the lessons of recent history.” He added: “Nearly 20 years of experience has shown us, and the current security situation only confirms, that ‘just one more year’ of fighting in Afghanistan is not a solution but a recipe for being there indefinitely. It’s the right and the responsibility of the Afghan people alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country.”  

      The same lessons of history apply to Iraq. The US has already inflicted so much death and misery on the Iraqi people, destroyed so many of its beautiful cities and unleashed so much sectarian violence and IS fanaticism. Just like the shuttering of the massive Bagram base in Afghanistan, Biden should dismantle the remaining imperial bases in Iraq and bring the troops home.

      The Iraqi people have the same right to decide their own future as the people of Afghanistan. All the countries of the Middle East have the right and the responsibility to live in peace, without the threat of American bombs and missiles always hanging over their heads. 

      Let’s hope Biden has learned another history lesson: that the United States should stop invading and attacking other countries.

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

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      The Reassuring Presence of Multiple Threats

      by

      In April, the US director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, presented an important document produced by the nation’s intelligence community, the 2021 Annual Threat Assessment. It was designed to demonstrate that the newly inaugurated president, Joe Biden, is ready to respond to any or all of the manifold threats, fear of which has been the key to unifying the nation.

      China and Iran figure prominently, as do the Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaida. Beltway politicians will find the continuity with the fears of previous administrations reassuring. Even though the last three — the Islamic Republic of Iran, IS and al-Qaida — would not even exist today had the United States not actively provoked them into existence through its obsessive meddling in Middle Eastern affairs, many will be pleased to note that their confirmed presence on the list continues to justify the intelligence community’s ever-expanding scope. China, of course, is a special case because it has never threatened the US militarily or economically. Yet the headline of a New York Times article on the report reads, “China Poses Biggest Threat to U.S., Intelligence Report Says.”

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      How indeed should we understand the Chinese threat, announced as the biggest of them all? Haines explains that China is guilty of “employing a comprehensive approach to demonstrate its growing strength.” The Chinese leadership has apparently failed to understand that only one nation in the world is authorized to “demonstrate its growing strength.” They should accept that it is madness to think there may be a need for China’s strength to increase. If the Chinese simply allow the US to govern the world’s affairs, they can be assured that they will always be in safe, democratic hands.

      Russia predictably appears in the full list of threats, although Haines admits that it “does not want a conflict with the United States.” That may be so, but everyone who has paid the slightest attention to the verities associated with Russiagate should now realize that Vladimir Putin’s cronies or lackies have developed a quasi-nuclear capacity to publish misinformation on Facebook, a reprehensible act that no other nation, party or person would ever think of doing. It appears that such practice can be fatal for democracy, even leading to the corrupting of an American election, the pristine model of transparent democratic procedure. 

      Haines focuses on Russia’s use of “malign influence campaigns.” This apparently means cherry-picking only negative things to say about the United States, whether factual or invented. Haines recycles the favorite trope of Russiagate enthusiasts over the past five years when she speaks of Russia’s intent to “sow discord.” Whenever Americans don’t agree on some fundamental things about their own country, the Russians must have had something to do with it.

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      Haines gets to the end of her list without mention one nation some people find profoundly disturbing: Saudi Arabia, known for its extremely repressive social practices, its summary justice against anyone suspected of “sowing discord” (which may even include Washington Post journalists) and its brutal military campaigns designed to produce the world’s worst humanitarian disasters. But for the fact of its special relationship with the US based on oil and money, there might be some merit in considering Saudi as a possible threat, especially after the 2019 shooting of three Americans by a Saudi officer in Pensacola, Florida and the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

      New evidence emerged this week concerning the training in the US of Khashoggi’s murderers. It revealed a suspicious level of complicity between the Saudi regime, which has funded terrorism for decades, and the US State Department, which authorized the educational collaboration. When asked for comment, State Department spokesman Ned Price explained: “This administration insists on responsible use of U.S. origin defense equipment and training by our allies and partners, and considers appropriate responses if violations occur. Saudi Arabia faces significant threats to its territory, and we are committed to working together to help Riyadh strengthen its defenses.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Significant threats:

      For the US government, any person, group, nation or even abstract idea that in any way challenges the global network of bulwarks and bastions, weapons and sanctions that constitute a body of resources dedicated to national defense, equally including the regimes of sanguinary dictators, predatory businesses and the actions of irresponsible mercenaries, all of whom are guided by the democratic ideals that drive such policies and actions

      Contextual Note

      The twin concepts of threat (the action of others) and defense (our actions) sum up the logic of the security state. So long as a threat exists — and the more that can be listed the merrier — the system of defense can thrive and grow. Haines calls the money spent on defense and surveillance an investment, which most experts on Wall Street and any true economist might find slightly abusive. Here is how she describes the value of the intelligence assessment of threats: “In short, at no point has it been more important to invest in our norms and institutions, our workforce, and the integration of our work. Doing so, provides us with the opportunity to meet the challenges we face, to pull together as a society, and to promote resilience and innovation.” Investment, in this sense, simply means more money that the US can spend, basically on creating or entertaining fear.

      Fomenting fear is easy, especially if you have the means (unlimited budget) of making it appear serious, detailed and scientific. Interestingly, in her quest for thoroughness, Haines correctly designates climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic as major threats. Everyone already knows the threat is real. Rather than using her platform to trumpet what everyone knows, it might be more productive to look at mobilizing resources to confront such threats. She could, for example, have signaled the urgency of finding ways to allow the developing world to produce its own vaccines rather than beg for Western handouts. But that would raise the delicate question of pharmaceutical patents, which must be protected even at the cost of the world’s health. Instead, the threat she chooses to highlight is the “vaccine diplomacy” of Russia and China.

      As for climate change, Haines highlights the grim perspective for the globe itself and especially for “vulnerable populations.” But there is nary a word about the contributing causes or the prospect for possible solutions, such as calling into question the economic system that feeds the crisis. This in spite of Haines’ insistence that the intelligence agencies are not simply Cassandras, put in place to strike fear into brave citizens’ hearts, but have a positive role to play. “The American people should know as much as possible about the threats facing our nation and what their intelligence agencies are doing to protect them,” she says. It would be nice to learn more about the “doing” part of it.

      Historical Note

      Since the Second World War, the entire pattern for economic success and industrial growth has been structured around the notion of fear. The Cold War officialized fear as the major motivating factor serving to keep capitalism intact, essentially by transforming free market capitalism into monopolistically structured state capitalism (privatized socialism), in which the needs of defense drive innovation. In the first half of the 20th century, free market capitalism had begun to reveal all the contradictions Karl Marx predicted for it. After the Wall Street crash in 1929, capitalism was on the brink of collapse in the US, which also happened to be the nation that controlled the debt of the European nations who had spent all their capitalistic resources in a catastrophic world war.

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      During the 1930s, Nazism and Soviet communism, two brands of militaristic totalitarianism, became the principal objects of fear for Americans. The business class feared the communists and the working class, decimated by capitalism’s failure, feared the fascists. The Nazis emerged as the threat that justified the war effort. Once that was successful, Washington’s elite elected the Russian communists to play the role.

      After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, Islamist terrorism eventually slid into the role of existential threat number one. But the policies mobilized to defeat it had the effect of seriously weakening the American system of state capitalism. With things becoming desperate, new threats were needed. Avril Haines and the Biden administration have produced the updated catalog.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

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