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      Elimination of IS Leader Is a Positive, But Not a Final, Step

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      On January 3, the United States announced the elimination of Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, the leader of the so-called Islamic State (IS) during a counterterrorism raid in Atmeh, a town in Syria’s Idlib province close to the Turkish border. In an address to the nation, US President Joe Biden said that the operation had taken “a major terrorist leader off the battlefield,” adding that special forces were used in the operation in an attempt to reduce civilian casualties.

      Why Now?

      The raid comes after IS conducted an attack on al-Sinaa prison in the northeastern city of Hasakah in January in an attempt to break free its fighters. In the assault, several Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters were killed. According to SDF officials, IS was planning the attack for six months. Nevertheless, the US-backed SDF recaptured the prison about a week later. 

      Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona suspects that the attack on the prison “was the catalyst that led to the decision to act on what was obviously already known location intelligence on … al-Qurayshi.” Francona, who served as the US military attaché in Syria from 1992 to 1995, notes that “Over the past few months, there has been an increase in ISIS activity — more widespread and bolder in nature. This also comes at a time when Iranian-backed militias have also stepped up attacks on US forces in Syria and Iraq.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      Both Qurayshi and his predecessor, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, were eliminated in Idlib province, in areas under the control of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Previously, HTS was known as Jabhat al-Nusra, affiliated with al-Qaeda and initially aligned with IS. In 2013, however, it split from IS and has been at war with the group since 2014. In 2016, it also broke relations with al-Qaeda and rebranded itself as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (JFS). The following year, JFS assumed its current iteration as it merged with other groups. 

      During much of the past decade, Idlib served as a hideout for extremists. In 2017, then-US envoy to the coalition fighting the Islamic State, Brett McGurk, stated that “Idlib Province is the largest Al Qaeda safe haven since 9/11.” Following Baghdadi’s elimination in 2019, former US President Donald Trump suggested Baghdadi was in Idlib as part of a plan to rebuild IS. Indeed, it was surprising to see Qurayshi hiding in Idlib as well. 

      According to David Lesch, professor of Middle East History at Trinity University in Texas and author of “Syria: A Modern History,” “it seems strange that al-Baghdadi and al-Qurayshi were killed in [a] province largely controlled by its rival HTS and overseen by Turkey, but on the other hand it is the only area not under the control of the Syrian government and its allies or the US-supported SDF, all of whom are opposed to ISIS.”

      “Idlib is now home to thousands of IDPs, therefore it was easier for the two to blend in, live secretively, and not be identified as outsiders since most everyone in certain areas of the province are outsiders,” Lesch explains. “Yet they were still found because despite all this they lived in an area still teaming with enemies who were obviously directly or indirectly assets to US intelligence.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      The recent US operation in Idlib, which was reportedly planned over several months, has been the largest of its kind in the country since the 2019 raid that eliminated Baghdadi. Although Qurayshi was less charismatic than Baghdadi, the fact that he was targeted in the US raid confirms his importance.

      It is worth noting that Qurayshi was named as the leader of IS in 2019, following the death of Baghdadi. While IS called on all Muslims to pledge allegiance to Qurayshi as the new “caliph,” it did not provide much information about his bona fides. The use of the name “Qurayshi” seemed to be an attempt to trace his lineage to the Prophet Muhammad. This is a tactic that was also used vis-à-vis Baghdadi with the aim of legitimizing his leadership role. Qurayshi’s real name is Amir Muhammad Said Abdal-Rahman al-Mawla but he is also known as Hajji Abdullah and Abdullah Qaradash.  

      As the US continues to create an impression that it is minimizing its presence in the region, especially following its withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, the raid seems to have been used to demonstrate US reliability to reassure Washington’s partners. It also comes as a needed win for Biden at a time when the Ukraine crisis remains unsolved. 

      However, while Qurayshi’s elimination is a positive development, it may simply be a “symbolic victory,” as Sean Carberry suggests in The Hill. While the operation against Qurayshi may create internal chaos within IS, ultimately, the terror group is likely to name a new leader and move on, which is what took place following Baghdadi’s assassination. Although IS was militarily defeated, the group has not been eliminated and remains a threat. In fact, there have been increased indications, such as the attack on al-Sinaa prison, suggesting that the group is in a state of resurgence. The militants might also seek to use the recent US raid to encourage revenge attacks. 

      US Policy in Syria

      The Biden administration’s policy vis-à-vis Syria seems to indicate that the official approach will be “markedly timid,” as Abdulrahman al-Masri and Reem Salahi suggest. It should not be surprising to learn that Syria does not constitute a top diplomatic priority for President Biden. Yet while the US does not want to remain engaged in endless regional wars, it seems to believe that a political settlement in war-torn Syria would only empower President Bashar al-Assad, whom Washington would never back. 

      Moreover, the US and the Kurds are partners, and Washington would not want to portray an image that it has abandoned those who have shouldered the fight against the Islamic State. This was the overall perception when Trump announced the withdrawal of US forces from Syria in 2019, and Biden seems keen to remedy that controversial decision. 

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      It is worth noting that during President Barack Obama’s tenure, Vice President Biden was one of the skeptics when it came to what the US could achieve in Syria. Nevertheless, it should not be taken as a given that as president, Biden may be in favor of removing all US forces from the country. For instance, he criticized Trump’s decision to withdraw forces from Syria, saying it granted IS “a new lease on life.” In the same year, Biden also said he supports keeping some forces in eastern Syria for the foreseeable future. 

      Middle East expert and former US State Department analyst, Gregory Aftandilian doesn’t see the US leaving Syria anytime soon. Aftandilian, who is also a non-resident fellow at Arab Center Washington DC, thinks “It is doubtful [Biden] will do more than the anti-ISIS campaign and humanitarian aid. In light of the attempted prison break in northeastern Syria he may put pressure on some countries to take back ISIS prisoners.”

      For the US to play a role in stabilizing Syria, there needs to be a clear strategy. Unfortunately, at the moment, that strategy is largely lacking. While the elimination of Qurayshi is a positive step, much more work needs to be done to stabilize the country.

      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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      Joe Biden has the weight of the world on his shoulders | Marilynne Robinson

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      Joe Biden has the weight of the world on his shouldersMarilynne RobinsonThe tasks before Biden are vast and the dangers great. He must hold steady and persevere Joseph R Biden has the weight of the world on his shoulders. These words are as true of him as they have ever been of any mortal soul. Until his term ends, he will be alone with the gravest decisions that have ever confronted an American leader. Things might have gone very badly for Abraham Lincoln, but the varieties of loss and destruction now possible if the systems of order fail are great beyond imagining.The design of our government poses one human being against all our troubles, however difficult or threatening. This is only truer now that this president has to deal with an opposition committed to seeing him fail – or be perceived as failing, which for most purposes is the same thing. Our champion in the present trial-by-history is a fine old man of truly vast experience who may or may not show signs of aging which may or may not reflect on his judgment and competence. I am a few days more than a year younger than Biden, so I am sensitive to the association of age with cognitive slippage and less inclined to credit it than the generality of people seem to be. Old as I am, I remember that the press ridiculed Eisenhower for supposedly being inarticulate. No doubt Biden remembers this as well.A habit of ridicule has regularly displaced or distorted press coverage of other presidents. So he could no doubt dismiss it, if it were not so effective at undermining him, at a time when, for example, he is trying to keep the western alliance together in the face of aggressive pressure from Russia. Biden has entered office at a time of unprecedented turmoil, and yet he is judged by the press as if these were normal times and he were simply a dubious claimant to the role, dubious not because there is any doubt about his character and intentions or his remarkable range of experience, or about his win at the polls, but because he is old, and tomorrow he will be older.Of course most of his colleagues, US senators and congressmen, are in his age cohort, and the figures of brash relative youth among them seem to look for guidance to Rupert Murdoch, who is 91. Biden has to deal with the fact of succeeding Donald Trump, who is a few years younger than him but still old, cosmetics notwithstanding. The press has become accustomed to covering a man who writes his own headlines, the more bizarre the better from the point of view of clicks or circulation. Trump was and is such a rambunctious presence that any normally courteous person might seem to recede by comparison. He deals in ridicule and he is ridiculous. So he has pulled political discourse so far into the depths that the words ‘political discourse’ hardly apply. If Biden is to restore normalcy, he has to rise above all this, which will mean he is at great risk of being overshadowed by it. He must resist the impulse to defend himself by reference to his predecessor, even though he has to contend with the turmoil he created and the shambles he left behind.Facts should not be dismissed as excuses. They have a legitimate claim to acknowledgement. Biden is trying to shore up democratic government in the United States, which is threatened in ways and degrees none of his predecessors could have foreseen. He has the pandemic to deal with. The economy is robust, but inflation is rising. And there is the matter of the obstructionist Congress, many of whom are ready to oppose a policy because it would be popular and effective, many of whom are simply doing as they are told, defeating the president the people have elected. Any Democrat holding the office now would be frustrated, prevented from acting on the agenda he offered to the voters, on the basis of which they would have chosen him.An article in Time magazine that marked Biden’s first year in office is titled ‘Big Promises, Bad Outcomes’. The failed promises include to ‘Fix Democracy’. In 12 months he should have repaired our political system, which has been allowed to decline over many years and is now under direct, calculated assault from outside and inside our government. He, alone, cannot fix it. Any grownup should know this. Unreasonable expectations simply find failure where there is difficulty and a need for thought, patience and collaboration. They pass among the press for tough-mindedness. In fact they only demonstrate a failure to acknowledge the gravity of our situation.Biden’s long institutional memory, his lifetime of watching presidents come and go, might have made him aware of a recurring pattern in our politics. When an administration with a liberalizing agenda comes into power, obstructionism asserts itself, the agenda is curtailed at best, blocked at worst. So the faction called ‘conservative’ has succeeded in fixing the terms of American life into the indefinite future.Over time American identity, like American law, is established by precedent. We find out who we are by seeing what we do – within the constraints of the constitution, which is, on principle, open to interpretation. Precedent has gone very wrong. This can happen, as when the US supreme court ruled against Dred Scot. For some time our politics has given us a narrow, arid conception of what is possible, which is now thought of as ‘American’. As a nation, we don’t do much. This is consistent with a recently authoritative view that economics can and should make most of our decisions for us while government stands out of the way.This order of things has produced profound global discontent. It is so unpopular and unpopulist that it is no longer an effective rationale for obstructionism, which has fallen silent, putting aside talk of M&Ms, civil war, socialism and the like, because it no longer needs a rationale. It can hope to make the Biden presidency fail simply by sitting on its hands. What the consequences of an ineffective presidency will be for the world is no concern of theirs, apparently.In post-war history it is true that Democratic administrations propose reforms, Republicans quash them, and the conclusion drawn from this is that the reforms were radical, not acceptable to the American people. Harry Truman’s Fair Deal, modeled on Roosevelt’s New Deal, would have made racial discrimination in employment illegal. The powerful opposition at the time, largely Dixiecrat, were “conservative” in the matter of discrimination and segregation, so the experience of another generation was added to the towering social cost of injustice. Truman did manage, by executive order, to make discrimination illegal in the federal government and its contractors. But America was still defined by obstruction, by discrimination. The good impulse toward justice was as ineffectual as obstruction could make it.President Truman proposed a national health system, as his Democratic successors have done. It was lost to Dixiecrat and Republican opposition, as were many worthy and forgotten reforms. President Obama finally succeeded in contriving a system of wider access to medical care that could withstand determined and continuous attack and Biden has broadened it. But a true national system of health care has assumed the character of a negative definition of America. It is preeminent among the things we don’t do. This despite the fact that it has been on the agenda of a series of Democratic presidents, who, as Democrats, enjoy the distinction of having been elected by majorities.Largely because obstruction sets the agenda for the press, it is by now fully institutionalized. Has the President failed? Can he possibly recover? The right answer is always, probably not. Are Americans disappointed? Not, of course, in the bloc that put policies that would have improved their lives and their children’s lives out of their reach. Journalistically speaking, It all rests on the shoulders of a man old enough to remember when America was defined by the Marshall Plan and the GI Bill, by generosity, reform and a positive view of the future.
      Marilynne Robinson is an American novelist and essayist. Her latest book is Jack
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      Ukraine-Russia crisis: who’s winning the international influence war?

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      Ukraine-Russia crisis: who’s winning the international influence war? The balance of power in the diplomatic battle is shifting constantly. But are any of the key players making real advances?Briefly raised hopes of averting a “horrendous” war in Ukraine are fading again after the US predicted an invasion in the “next several days” and British officials said they believed Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, had decided to attack.The mood in Washington and London had shifted abruptly after Russian-backed separatists shelled Ukrainian targets in the disputed eastern Donbas region. Moscow claimed Kyiv’s forces opened fire first. Clashes are continuing.Analysis: what can the west expect if Putin gives order to invade?Read more US president Joe Biden said that Russia was “engaged in a false-flag operation to have an excuse to go in” and was increasing, not reducing, troop numbers. That analysis was echoed in other Nato and EU countries, which are preparing punitive sanctions. Diplomatic efforts to halt the slide to war are not yet exhausted. Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, is due to meet his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in Europe this week – assuming there is no invasion. They will discuss Russia’s demands, delivered in writing last week, for a Nato withdrawal from eastern Europe and curbs on US missile deployments. Lavrov will also insist Ukraine be permanently denied Nato membership.In the documents, which are a formal response to American proposals for continued dialogue, Russia warns it will be forced to take measures of an unspecified “military-technical character” if its concerns are not addressed.Western leaders, including Boris Johnson, Kamala Harris, the US vice-president, Olaf Scholz, Germany’s chancellor, and Ukraine’s president will discuss the crisis this weekend at the annual Munich security conference. Unusually, Russia and China will not attend.Meanwhile, global stock markets reacted badly to increased fears of war, with share prices falling sharply. Gloom about the prospects for peace overwhelmed a midweek surge of optimism, sparked when predictions that Russia would invade last Wednesday proved wrong. Instead, Putin said he was pulling back some forces from Ukraine’s border. It seemed catastrophe had been averted. Yet within hours US and Nato officials were claiming the pullback was illusory. The White House flatly accused Russia of lying, saying troop numbers have swelled to around 150,000.For his part, Putin alleged, without evidence, that “genocide” against ethnic Russians was under way in the Donbas – another possible pretext for invasion. He continues to insist his troops are withdrawing and that there is no intention to attackWho and what to believe? The next few days could be a turning point. Or the stand-off could drag on inconclusively for months. The only certainty is that the future of Ukraine, and of relations between Russia and the west, hangs in the balance this weekend. Although an armed invasion has not yet happened, the 2022 “war for Ukraine” is already being waged on multiple non-military, political, diplomatic, economic, technological and covert fronts. So who’s winning so far?Vladimir PutinThe question on everyone’s lips: what does Putin want? One theory is this former low-level KGB officer and part-time taxi driver has a massive chip on his shoulder.He has a small man’s visceral need to prove his (and Russia’s) superiority to the western victors of the cold war – but also to the former Soviet elites, from whose ranks he was excluded.A less complex explanation is that Putin views Ukraine as an integral part of historical Russia and Ukrainians and Russians as one people. He claims Ukraine is not a real country. For him, re-absorption into the fatherland is natural and logical, while efforts by Kyiv’s leaders to align with the west are anathema.Experts say Putin is intent on recreating the supposed glories of the Soviet era. He calls the collapse of the Soviet Union a geopolitical tragedy.Looked at this way, a conquest of Ukraine is part of a larger scheme to rebuild a Russian sphere of influence encompassing eastern Europe and central Asia. More mundanely, Putin’s actions can be explained by genuine fear that Russia’s security is threatened, his (disputed) belief that Nato broke a pledge not to expand up to Russia’s borders, and concern that it may accept Ukraine’s membership. Putin, a de facto dictator, feels threatened by a pro-western, democratic Ukraine on his doorstep.Is he winning? Putin has succeeded in forcing the west to consider his security concerns. He has intimidated Ukraine. And he has reminded a rattled Europe of its dependency on Russian gas.At the same time, he has hugely reinvigorated Nato, permanently changed western security assumptions, united the US and Europe against him, and reinforced Russia’s reputation as a rogue state that ignores international law and breaks its word.Joe BidenThe US president was relatively quick out of the blocks over Ukraine. He needed to be. Last year’s chaotic US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and the resulting damage to Nato’s credibility were laid at his door. With Covid and economic woes already hurting his domestic approval ratings, Biden could not afford a repeat foreign policy disaster.Having made promotion of democracy and human rights around the world a key foreign policy objective, Biden could also not stand back as Russia threatened a free, independent, democratic state.Biden’s approach to the crisis is influenced by two additional strategic factors. One is his aim to reboot the transatlantic alliance, undermined by his predecessor Donald Trump. The other is his desire to demonstrate to China, Russia’s ally, that the US will stoutly support its friends, be they in Ukraine or Taiwan.Biden has sent US troops to reinforce Nato’s eastern flank, assured Kyiv of non-military US support, and stiffened European backbones via an intense diplomatic offensive. In an unusual step, the US continues to disclose detailed (mostly unsubstantiated) intelligence about Russian intentions in an apparent attempt to pre-empt and forestall Putin’s next move.Biden’s tactics may have succeeded in heading off an invasion until now. There are two large caveats. One is that Washington’s attempts to find a diplomatic solution have struggled, while its tough stance may have compromised European efforts. This vacuum is dangerous. The other big reservation is that Biden controversially vowed from the start that US forces would not fight to defend non-Nato Ukraine – despite past US interventions in non-Nato Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and elsewhere.Putin could yet take catastrophic advantage of this most un-American display of caution.Volodymyr ZelenskiyUkraine’s president impressed world leaders in the Munich security conference this weekend with a brave and punchy speech after ignoring warnings to stay at home for fear of a Russian-inspired coup attempt. His response to the unfolding crisis has surprised some in the west. Criticising alarming claims in Washington and London about an “any day” invasion, Zelenskiy said such suggestions risked causing panic and harming his country’s economy. As Russian military pressure increased last week, the official tone in Kyiv shifted. But by and large Ukrainians appear unimpressed by frantic talk of war. A “day of unity” last Wednesday – the supposed invasion D-day – was not widely supported. As western diplomats and nationals hastily evacuate, most Ukrainians are firmly staying put.One explanation is that people have learned to live with threats from Russia. Low-intensity conflict with Russian-backed Donbas separatists has become the new normal since 2014, when Moscow annexed Crimea. Last week’s passage of a resolution in the Russian Duma (parliament) supporting independence for the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” in the Donbas was an attempt to increase Putin’s leverage. Such a unilateral move would spell the end for the so-called Minsk accords, whose terms are disputed by both sides.Ukraine’s aspiration to join Nato lies at the heart of the crisis. Zelenskiy is being pressed by European governments to drop this objective, a key Russian demand, and adopt a neutral, non-aligned status. So far at least, the Kyiv government, cast in the role of underdog, has benefited from increased international support, weapons deliveries and financial aid. It says any war would be about Europe’s future, not just Ukraine’s.True or not, Ukrainians will be the big losers if Putin resorts to force.Emmanuel Macron and Olaf ScholzEmmanuel Macron, the French president who also holds the rotating presidency of the EU council of ministers, has thrust himself into the diplomatic frontline. As the Americans and Russians haggled over Moscow’s demands for new security arrangements in Europe, Macron met Putin in Moscow and sketched possible compromises.These ideas, including recognition of Russian concerns about Nato expansion, its forward deployments in eastern Europe, and current and future US missile capabilities in Poland and Romania, may yet provide the basis for a deal. Macron also raised the possibility of Ukraine adopting neutral status, not unlike Finland during the cold war.Macron publicly supports the US-orchestrated plan to impose severe sanctions on Russia should it invade, and insists he acts in close consultation with Washington. But his Moscow talks raised eyebrows. British officials accused him of appeasement and of undermining the west’s united front.While Macron can shrug off criticism from London, he needs the backing of Germany, the biggest European player. But Olaf Scholz, its newly elected chancellor, has appeared in two minds. On the one hand he wants to salvage the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia. On the other he is under intense pressure from Biden to abandon it in support of anti-Kremlin sanctions.Yet Scholz surprised his critics last week when he met Putin in Moscow. He delivered a feisty performance, raising questions about media freedom and human rights.That may have reassured hawkish allies such as Poland and the Baltic republics, which have accused him of being “soft” on Russia. At the same time, Scholz extracted a commitment from Putin to continue dialogue in line with Macron’s approach.The EU commission has been sidelined during the crisis. But the French and German leaders have emerged with reputations enhanced. So far.Boris JohnsonBeset by scandals arising from illegal lockdown parties and reportedly anxious to change the subject, Boris Johnson seized on the Ukraine crisis in late January after having previously largely ignored it.At his direction Downing St began briefing about a big, cross-departmental Whitehall push to tackle the crisis. Britain, Johnson claimed, would lead western attempts to deter Russia. But saying it does not make it so. Suggestions that this new effort to aid Ukraine was part of so-called Operation Save Big Dog to rescue his career were denied, naturally.The UK has since sent extra troops to Estonia, missiles to Ukraine, and placed Royal Navy ships on alert. It is typically iffy about accepting refugees, but has offered humanitarian aid.But Britain’s emphasis on muscular deterrence has come at the expense of diplomacy. It has contributed almost nothing to peace-making efforts. When Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, met Lavrov in Moscow, their talks ended in an icy standoff.Johnson has gratuitously undermined Macron’s Moscow initiative while Ben Wallace, the UK defence secretary, spoke disparagingly of a “whiff of Munich”. Meanwhile, the government has yet to enforce effective measures to curb Russian money-laundering in London.All else aside, the Ukraine crisis has brutally underscored Britain’s diminished international influence abroad. Separated by choice from the EU, the UK is now viewed in Russia (and much of Europe) as little more than a cheerleader and errand boy for America.When Johnson asked Biden what else the UK could do in a phone call last week, the US president replied: “We’re not going anywhere without you, pal.” That summed up Britain’s war to date. The rule of thumb for post-Brexit foreign policy: ask politely what Washington wants, then follow directions.TopicsUkraineThe ObserverRussiaVladimir PutinUS politicsJoe BidenVolodymyr ZelenskiyEmmanuel MacronfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Let’s Go Brandon: the Nascar driver who became a hero in an unwinnable culture war

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      Let’s Go Brandon: the Nascar driver who became a hero in an unwinnable culture war In October, Brandon Brown unwittingly became a rightwing meme. Now he is delicately treading the line between profit and politicsBrandon Brown was not an especially fearsome stock car driver, nor did he figure as the sort to crack open sport’s Pandora’s box entering last October’s Sparks 300 – a race in Nascar’s mid-tier Xfinity series. In most cases a mid-pack qualifying position would not bode well. But at Talladega Speedway, a crash-happy oval circuit where anything can happen, the best drivers are the ones who survive the carnage. And after two multi-car pile ups, Brown assumed a narrow lead with 13 laps to go. A final accident two laps later that took out seven cars sealed his first Xfinity series triumph in 114 tries. With night falling on the Alabama circuit, the 28-year-old Virginia native emerged from his Chevrolet Camaro machine in a daze for the post-race TV interview. As he breathlessly thanked his sponsors and revisited his driving tactics, some in Talladega’s packed crowd began chanting “Fuck Joe Biden” loud and clear enough to come across Brown’s microphone. Desperate to keep the interview going with her producers unable to bleep the background noise, NBC Sports reporter Kelli Stavast tried to Jedi mind trick her viewers. “You can hear the chants from the crowd – Let’s go, Brandon,” she said.Since then, Let’s Go Brandon has gone from awkward TV moment to harmless meme to conservative dog whistle on par with Maga hats and OK hand gestures – a way of insulting the president without triggering censorship. It adorns lawn signs and bumper stickers. One guy said it directly to Biden last Christmastime as the president and first lady were taking calls into Norad’s Santa tracker from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Another guy got kicked off a flight this week for having Let’s Go Brandon writ small on his facemask. As the slogan exacerbates the deepening political divide in the country, Brown has so far struggled in his attempts to ride the median.Caller tells Joe Biden ‘Let’s go Brandon’ during White House Christmas eventRead moreBrown laughed off the Let’s Go Brandon cheers initially, then went silent when it morphed into something more sinister. Finally, in a December New York Times interview, he expressed a wish to distance himself from the now politically charged slogan, not wanting to cost his family-run team hundreds of thousands in potential sponsorship support. “If they’re going to use my name,” Brown, a Republican, said of his fellow conservatives, “I’d like for it to be productive.”In a subsequent Newsweek op-ed titled My Name Is Brandon, he described himself as a driver “in the passenger seat of my own viral moment,” albeit a squarely middle-class one with a lot of thoughts about inflation affecting prices at the pump. (“I buy more gas than most,” he quipped.) Still, he was quick to assure readers that he wasn’t “going to tell anyone how to vote” or had any “interest in leading some political fight.”But then just before the new year, Brown appeared to quickly abandon those ideals for a two-season, eight-figure sponsorship pact with LGBcoin.io, a cryptocurrency that’s literally short for Let’s Go Brandon. The announcement unveiling Brandon’s red, white and blue repainted car called him “truly America’s driver.” But as with most things crypto, the wealth infusion – a lifeline for a family-run racing operation that came close to closing its doors – disappeared as quickly as it arrived.But instead of a cyber raider or a pyramid scheme it was Nascar president Steve Phelps who pumped the brakes on the deal out of a desire to unseat the sport from any politics on either side of the aisle, lest it turn off the new fans the sport urgently seeks. And then the invisible hand of the crypto market dealt the finishing blow. After achieving a peak liquidity pool value of $6.5m at the start of the year, the coin crashed and burned. It is now worth close to zero.The lost funding puts Brown back in the position of having to cobble together sponsors, an effort that will be obvious in the varying paint schemes and decals that adorn his car this year – beginning with the Saturday race that undercards Sunday’s Daytona 500. And Brown, who starts from the back of the pack yet again, will have his work cut out for himself throughout the season in the hustle for patronage. The Original Larry’s Hard Lemonade, a sponsor on Brown’s Talladega-winning car, dropped him in response to the bitcoin deal. “All money is not good money,” company founder Vic Reynolds cautioned in a farewell statement. Politically motivated sponsorship might seem toxic now, making it easier for Phelps to drop the hammer on Brown, but precedent suggests it’s only a matter of time before they have it both ways. Not only have drivers raced machines with Bush-Cheney and Trump-Pence livery in the recent past, but it wasn’t even two years ago that Bubba Wallace raced a Black Lives Matter car on the way to leading a campaign to banish displays of the confederate flag from the sport – although the organisation didn’t pay him for that exposure.Sponsorship dollars are hard enough to chase down in this economy. If anything, Brown may have unwittingly stumbled upon an untapped market: political zealots. If his efforts to exploit them continue to get struck down, don’t be surprised if this becomes the movement that emerges in response to Wallace’s progressive push on the way to Nascar becoming the next front in the raging culture wars – and here at least those zealots have a point. With everyone from the former president to mom-and-pops cashing in on the Let’s Go Brandon craze, it seems the only one who isn’t making much money off of this is the guy who inspired the whole thing –and arguably deserves to profit most. For now, though, Brown seems content not to push the issue while continuing the hustle for sponsorship. But, really, there’s no telling how soon he could find himself facing back inside a conference room with another would-be supporter with real money and right-wing ideology. At that point he’ll have to decide whether selling out is worth his soul and his sport’s, leaving the lid on Pandora’s box well in the dust.TopicsNascarMotor sportUS sportsJoe BidenUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Will diplomacy win over war? Politics Weekly Extra – podcast

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      As scepticism continues over Russia’s claims it has withdrawn troops from the Ukrainian border, Joan E Greve speaks to congressman Tom Malinowski of New Jersey, who was in Ukraine a couple of weeks ago. He shares his thoughts on the Biden administration’s approach so far

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      Send your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com. Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts. More