February 05, 2012| News | John Glaser

Last month I wrote about “The Incredible Push for Intervention in Syria,” especially from very influential neoconservative Washington-insider groups like the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Foreign Policy Initiative (successor to New American Century), Foundation for the Defence of Democracies, etc. All of these groups have a significant revolving door aspect to them in which their members have been in and out of high government positions for many years. They’re very influential.

I noted there as well that it was back in June that I had first written about the increasingly real potential for a U.S. intervention in Syria, and also that a notable recognition of that in the mainstream had shown up with Josh Rogin’s piece in Foreign Policy explaining that the Obama administration instructed the National Security Council to begin considering options for U.S. intervention in Syria, including what they called the “unlikely” option of setting up a no-fly zone. Although it can’t yet be substantiated, its possible that the Obama administration has already covertly aided the opposition in Syria, but anyways that was really the first notice in officialdom that an intervention in Syria was being considered.

The calls for intervention are getting even more explicit. Unsurprisingly, Senator Joe Lieberman has beaten nearly everybody to the punch on this. On Sunday he said the U.S. should start supporting the Syrian Free Army soon:

“So we should begin thinking about what we can do, particularly with the Arab League,” he said. “I think it begins with support for the Syrian Free Army.”

The hawkish senator said a “range of support” could be given to the rebels, from medical supplies to intelligence and reconnaissance surveillance.

“And then ultimately it is providing them with weapons,” he said during a panel discussion on the Middle East.

Even though Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Saturday that military action in Syria “has been absolutely ruled out,” the behind-the-scenes push for intervention needs to be watched very closely. As I’ve noted, the U.S. and its Arab allies in the Gulf States who have been pushing for a UN resolution for Syria, would welcome the chance to remove Assad from power and perhaps replace the regime with a more Sunni-oriented, pro-Western dictatorship, especially since it would eliminate Iran’s primary ally in the region, thus isolating the regime in Tehran even more.

I talked here with Scott Horton about how disastrous a significant U.S. intervention would be.

Update: Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post writes that the fall of the Assad regime is a strategic imperative for the U.S., primarily because it would undercut Iran. The West should get rid of Assad, he argues:

How? First, a total boycott of Syria, beyond just oil and including a full arms embargo. Second, a flood of aid to the resistance (through Turkey, which harbors both rebel militias and the political opposition, or directly and clandestinely into Syria). Third, a Security Council resolution calling for the removal of the Assad regime.

 

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February 05, 2012| News | John Glaser

Featured in our news section, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has published an important new investigation into America’s drone war in Pakistan, finding that many strikes have deliberately launched follow-up attacks, killing people “who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals.” As Glenn Greenwald points out (again) the Bureau’s methodology for tallying civilian deaths is very rigid and “virtually guarantees significant under-counting of civilian deaths,” but nonetheless the report finds that “at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims” and “more than 20 civilians have also been attacked in deliberate strikes on funerals and mourners.” The high-end estimate for total casualties in the U.S. drone war, according to the Bureau, is 3,019, including up to 815 civilians (175 of them children).

Here’s what I think is the most important passage of the report:

Naz Modirzadeh, Associate Director of the Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research (HPCR) at Harvard University, said killing people at a rescue site may have no legal justification.

‘Not to mince words here, if it is not in a situation of armed conflict, unless it falls into the very narrow area of imminent threat then it is an extra-judicial execution’, she said. ‘We don’t even need to get to the nuance of who’s who, and are people there for rescue or not. Because each death is illegal. Each death is a murder in that case.’

Even if most of the public doesn’t know these facts, millions of informed people do know. What’s interesting is that Obama’s image isn’t tarnished at all, because, after all, he is the president. A common refrain among libertarians is that if commonly accepted government actions were carried out by private individuals, it would be thought of as unthinkable violence and theft unachievable by even the most hardened criminals. Consider Obama, who has spearheaded this policy of rapidly intensified drone campaign in northwest Pakistan, as a private individual. Of course, this reduces him to a mass murderer. But his image and prestige remains that of a Presidential Leader of the Free World and a Nobel Peace Prize winner to boot, not of Ted Bundy.

Another quick thought experiment, also brought up in the Bureau’s report, is to think what the reaction of the Obama administration would be if their drone war were being carried out by another state, say Russia or China. Very clearly, it would be vehemently condemned. Obama’s top counterterrrorism adviser, John Brennan, defended the drone program with this: “Because we are engaged in an armed conflict with al- Qaeda, the United States takes the legal position that, in accordance with international law, we have the authority to take action against al-Qaeda and its associated forces.” Indeed, that is almost precisely the excuse used by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in killing well over 5,000 Syrians. He says his country is being threatened by terrorists and he is legitimately protecting Syrians and his government with appropriate force. Obama responded to that excuse by calling Assad’s crackdown “indiscriminate violence” and highlighted the “murder” of innocent Syrians “including women and children.” After his administration pushed for a UN Security Council resolution aimed at removing Assad from power, Obama said, ”Any government that brutalizes and massacres its people does not deserve to govern.”

And what about someone who has institutionalized extra-judicial execution and committed mass murder of innocent men, women, and children? Does he deserve to govern?

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February 05, 2012| China, Liberal Interventionism, News, Russia, Syria | Angela Keaton

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February 03, 2012| News | John Glaser

From Secrecy News:

A House-Senate conference report this week called on the Administration to accelerate the use of civilian unmanned aerial systems (UAS), or “drones,” in U.S. airspace.

The pending authorization bill for the Federal Aviation Administration directs the Secretary of Transporation to develop within nine months “a comprehensive plan to safely accelerate the integration of civil unmanned aircraft systems into the national airspace system.”

See Drones: Coming to the Skies Near You (Part I)

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February 02, 2012| News | John Glaser

The Obama administration wants to sanction Iranian oil without negatively effecting global oil markets. No, seriously:

The White House said on Thursday the Iran sanctions proposed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama should be enforced in a way that does not hurt the United States’ allies or disrupt oil markets.

“We want to make sure that the implementation of those sanctions is handled in a way that does not inadvertently do any harm to our allies or to the oil markets,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.

But a recent Energy Brief from the Council on Foreign Relations concludes that is wishful thinking. The U.S.’s efforts “to sanction Iran’s crude oil exports,” says the CFR report, “has already pushed Iran to threaten ”to disrupt the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil chokepoint, through which nearly seventeen million barrels per day (mb/d), or about 35 percent of seaborne traded oil, moves.”

The escalation has already added a significant, perhaps five to ten dollars per barrel, risk premium into the price of crude oil. The prospect of any further “Iran premium” on oil prices deeply troubles U.S. and EU officials, given the fragile global economy. Currently, they are designing sanctions to minimize the risk that Iran’s exports will be reduced, since that would raise global oil prices. Instead, sanctions would aim at reducing what Iran earns on its sales. Nevertheless, market participants are concerned that the standoff will escalate beyond limited sanctions and disrupt physical supply at a time when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) spare capacity is insufficient to comfortably offset the loss.

The report lays out four scenarios and the deleterious effects each of them would have on oil markets and the economic outlook:

  • Partial sanctions on Iran’s crude oil exports; Iran harasses gulf production and shipping
  • Complete or nearly complete sanctions on Iran’s exports
  • An Israeli or U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, but no oil infrastructure damage or disruption
  • A regional conflict, including temporary closure of the Strait of Hormuz

All of these possibilities carry dangerous consequences generally, and specifically on oil markets. The last scenario, the report says, “would dwarf any disruption in modern history.” So much for Obama’s cautious approach.

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February 02, 2012| News | Jason Ditz

Yesterday’s bloody soccer riots in the Egyptian city of Port Said left at least 73 people dead, and top members of the new Egyptian parliament blame the military junta for escalating the violence.

Protesters, many of them soccer fans, are now taking to the streets of Egypt, condemning the junta. And while there are certainly plenty of reasons to condemn Egypt’s junta at any given moment, it isn’t clear that a soccer riot is one of them.

Indeed, soccer riots are a relatively common occurrence, and while 73 is a high death toll, it struggles to make it into the top ten deadliest soccer riots of the past fifty years. It almost seems tame in comparison to the riot at a Peruvian match in 1964, spurred by a referee’s blown call, which took 318 lives, or the October 1982 riot at Moscow’s Lenin Stadium, caused when a late goal convinced people who were leaving the game early to rush back to their seats.

In fact, this isn’t even the deadliest soccer riot in Africa in recent years. In 2001, police in Accra, Ghana, started a riot at a rivalry game, firing tear gas into the stands, resulting in the deaths of 120 fans who tried to leave the stadium. The death toll inspired a national day of mourning.

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