Category Archives: Arsenal Analysis

With airstrike allies like Bahrain…

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Retired U.S. General Jack Keane, notorious paid hype-man for war, was doing international interviews overnight bragging about the participation of five Arab, “Sunni-based” air forces in US-led “coalition” airstrikes in Syria against the Arab, “Sunni-based” ISIS organization:

“We have five Arab Muslim Sunni-based nations attacking a Sunni-based terrorist organisation and that is … something we have not seen in the past. That is really quite an accomplishment.”

 
According to Reuters the five were:

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Bahrain were all involved, although their exact roles in the military action were unclear. Qatar played a supporting role in the airstrikes, the official said.

 
We’re all familiar with the record in Saudi Arabia and recent activities by Qatar and by the United Arab Emirates. But Bahrain stands out on that list as particularly problematic to be celebrating militarily, especially as an “Arab Muslim Sunni-based nation,” in the words of former General Keane.

For one thing, Bahrain actually has a repressive Sunni monarchy ruling over a Shia majority. During the Arab Spring in 2011, the government of that small Gulf state violently suppressed democratic protests in the capital, with the help of the armed forces of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (both of which, as noted above, also participated in the airstrikes in Syria on Tuesday).

For another thing, maybe nobody was paying attention to what was going on literally just 4 days ago in Bahrain:

Activists in Bahrain said thousands of pro-democracy protesters took to the streets on Friday, rejecting a proposal made by the Gulf State’s monarchy on reforming the legislative, security and judicial sectors.

The rally was organised by the island’s opposition and came a day after Crown Prince Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa issued a statement detailing proposed reforms with the aim of accelerating “the resumption of dialogue” with opposition groups.

A national dialogue process has been stalled since January due to sharp differences of opinion over Bahrain’s three yearlong uprising and a failure to agree on a format and agenda for the talks.
[…]
Opposition leaders have criticised the crown prince for not consulting them on the initiative and said it does not go far enough to meet their demands – authorities have been previously accused of failing to follow through on promises of reform by activists and human rights groups.

Protesters on Friday rejected this offer en masse with banners showing their steadfastness in holding out for full democratic reform of the governance system.

 
Sounds like that “Arab Muslim Sunni-based” leadership is still not going over so well with the democratic activists who continue to mobilize, more than three years later, under threat of death.

Then again, those detail ares probably not what people like Keane care much about:

Left unsaid during his media appearances (and left unmentioned on his congressional witness disclosure form) are Keane’s other gigs: as special adviser to Academi, the contractor formerly known as Blackwater; as a board member to tank and aircraft manufacturer General Dynamics; a “venture partner” to SCP Partners, an investment firm that partners with defense contractors, including XVionics, an “operations management decision support system” company used in Air Force drone training; and as president of his own consulting firm, GSI LLC.

To portray Keane as simply a think tank leader and a former military official, as the media have done, obscures a fairly lucrative career in the contracting world. For the General Dynamics role alone, Keane has been paid a six-figure salary in cash and stock options since he joined the firm in 2004; last year, General Dynamics paid him $258,006.

 

Map of Bahrain (Credit: CIA World Factbook)

Map of Bahrain (Credit: CIA World Factbook)

Bahrain, a small island nation in the Persian Gulf with a little over twice the area of the City of Las Vegas, is the permanent home of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet and U.S. Naval Forces Central Command.

Chaos at Turkish border as ISIS presses in on Syrian Kurdish enclave

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Although Turkey has already absorbed hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees since the start of the civil war in 2011, one of the government’s big fears has been that the situation directly adjacent to the border, in northern Syria and northern Iraq, will deteriorate significantly and overwhelm the stability and crisis capacity of the lengthy southern border.

This fear has been so powerful in recent months that Turkey recently suspended its longstanding (albeit already somewhat relaxed by improved relations) policy of trying to keep Kurdish militant groups weak and contained, because they decided it would be better to allow Kurdish fighters from Turkey to go to Iraq and fight ISIS than to allow the refugee safe-haven of the Kurdish Regional Government to collapse and flood Turkey with up to a million more refugees.

Although the situation in northern Iraq, after the start of US airstrikes in early August, seems to be stabilizing somewhat in comparison to the earlier months of continuous advances by ISIS across the north, things in northern Syria have been getting worse. Earlier this week, I wrote about an ISIS unit supported by tanks that began attacking villages in an isolated, historically-Kurdish area right along the Turkish-Syrian border:

An armor-supported ISIS division in northern, central Syria has launched an offensive to seize territory from one of the three major Kurdish enclaves in Syria, which have been largely separate from the primary civil war for the past couple years.

[…] the north-central Kurdish enclave where Kobani/Ayn Arab is located is surrounded by ISIS and “moderate rebel” positions on three sides and a largely unsympathetic Turkey with border controls on the fourth. They are mostly cut off from other Syrian Kurds, unless they can cross through Turkey or manage to get through areas now held by ISIS.

 
Over a span of just three days, this nearly encircled area shrank considerably, as 16 captured villages became 60 and thousands of Syrian Kurdish villagers raced out of the countryside toward the border town of Kobani, ahead of advancing ISIS tanks and heavy artillery. YPK defenders were forced to fall back very quickly as well. Now, the only way out for the civilians (and possibly the fighters) is through Turkey.

Map: Ethnically Kurdish zones of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran -- circa 1992. (Credit: CIA)

Map: Ethnically Kurdish zones of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran — circa 1992. Small, southwestern corner of the yellow area is the Kobani region in Syria. (Credit: CIA)

Although it’s a relatively small number of people in this situation compared to the vast northern Iraq crisis, this is precisely what Turkey’s government was afraid might happen. A chaotic border crisis and humanitarian emergency played out live on national television in Turkey, as CNN reported:

An estimated 3,000 to 4,000 Kurds fleeing the violence walked right up to the wire border fence with Turkey, where they initially were not allowed in. They just sat at the border as Turkish Kurds on the other side of the fence tried to persuade the Turkish guards to let them in. The situation on the border could be observed on a live feed from the border and from video footage aired on Turkish news outlets. The refugees also tried to force their way into Turkey, creating chaos as one woman stepped on a landmine. Turkey finally opened the border, relieving some of the mounting pressure in Kobani and allowing refugees to enter Sanliurfa province.

 
Edit: Overnight and into Saturday this number rose from 4,000 to 60,000 refugees as Turkey continued to allow Syrian civilians into the country. Several hundred Kurdish PKK fighters from Turkey were also reported to have crossed from Turkey into the besieged Syrian area to help relieve local resistance.
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Gen. Dempsey outlines proposed “Syrian rebels” plan

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Even as we learn more about the planned arming and training of the mythical moderate rebels in Syria, there is little reason to think the proposal is realistic or executable. Here are the details we know so far, from The Los Angeles Times’ account of the public statements to Congress on the U.S. plan for countering ISIS in Syria:

In a further sign of a measured approach, Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, outlined a narrow mission for the prospective Syrian force, saying the lightly armed fighters might be assigned to recapture and police Syria’s now-open eastern border to prevent militants from crossing into Iraq. “If we can restore the border, it goes a long way to putting pressure on [Islamic State] that will lead to its ultimate defeat,” Dempsey told reporters traveling with him in Paris. He called the border a “sieve.”

 
On the one hand, this is actually the first mildly encouraging thing I’ve heard about this vague and probably impossible “arm the rebels” plan. Why? In terms of feasibility, reliability, and geography, the only available rebel fighters to patrol the eastern border are probably going to have to be Syrian Kurds. Among all possible groups to arm and train for guerrilla rebellion, this is still not ideal but is way better than most of the competing options, given our close relationship to the Kurdish forces and leaders in Iraq. (Meanwhile, though, our NATO ally Turkey is going to be sitting there hand-wringing internally about whether the United States should be arming and training a Kurdish insurgency.) But it’s unclear to me why Arab states would suddenly help with training, as discussed below, if they are in fact Kurdish rebels not Sunni Arab rebels, so that probably means I’m even giving this plan too much credit…

On the other hand, all the actual details of this plan we’ve heard still make close to no sense and aren’t likely to make any impact on the situation any time soon.

Dempsey told the committee it would take three to five months to recruit and screen Syrian fighters for extremist ties, and eight to 12 months to prepare them for battle. He said they would require independent Syrian commanders, not Americans, and that he hoped special operations troops from Jordan or another Arab state would assist them.

 
It’s now September 2014. Best case scenario these guys are in the field in eastern Syria by August 2015. Best case. In western Syria, the rebel base city of Aleppo will almost certainly have fallen to the government by then (barring a direct U.S. offensive against Assad), ending the western rebellion and collapsing the non-ISIS opposition to the regime. So these newly trained rebels certainly won’t be providing substantive help to the resistance in Syria in time to turn the tide.

The training will occur in Saudi Arabia and another Arab nation, reportedly Qatar.

 
They’re going to be trained in Qatar? Given Qatar’s recent record, with or without “screening,” we might as well send these rebels to The Islamist Terror Networks & Logistics Training Academy to get their associate’s degree in kidnap and ransom.

The final detail that struck me as deeply unrealistic was this: Read more

ISIS tanks move on Kurdish enclave in Syria

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An armor-supported ISIS division in northern, central Syria has launched an offensive to seize territory from one of the three major Kurdish enclaves in Syria, which have been largely separate from the primary civil war for the past couple years. This area (see map below) is nominally part of the rebel-dominated Aleppo Governorate but lies across the Euphrates River in a kind of sub-district — far from the city of Aleppo itself — long populated with ethnic minorities including Syrian Kurds, Syrian Turks, and Syrian Armenians.

From the AP report today:

Islamic State fighters backed by tanks have captured 16 Kurdish villages over the past 24 hours in northern Syria near the Turkish border, prompting civilians to flee their homes amid fears of retribution by the extremists sweeping through the area, activists said.
[…]
Islamic State militants have taken over the 16 Kurdish villages in Syria’s northern Kurdish region of Kobani, also known as Ayn Arab, since Wednesday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. It said there were casualties on both sides, but that Kurdish civilians were fleeing their villages for fear that Islamic State group fighters “will commit massacres against civilians.”

Nawaf Khalil, a spokesman for Syria’s powerful Kurdish Democratic Union Party, the Kurdish fighters withdrew or lost up to 20 villages in the Kobani region and evacuated civilians with them.
[…]
Earlier this week, for example, Kurdish fighters captured 14 villages from the Islamic State in other parts of Syria. Now, the Kurds have been forced out of villages elsewhere.

 

Map of the Syrian Civil War as of September 13, 2014. Red = Regime, Gray = ISIS, Green = FSA, Yellow = Kurdish. (via Wikimedia)

Map of the Syrian Civil War as of September 13, 2014. Red = Regime, Gray = ISIS, Green = FSA, Yellow = Kurdish. Kobani region is the central yellow area of the map. (via Wikimedia)

Although the Syrian Kurdish fighters in the YPK have previously been very effective against all comers including ISIS, much of their successes — such as the liberation of the Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar just across the border in Iraq — have occurred either in Iraq (not Syria) or in the northeastern enclave of Syria that is directly contiguous with Kurdish areas of Iraq. The porous border and (relatively) friendly presence on the other side allows them more room to maneuver around approaching enemies or simply melt away. Before the rise of ISIS, this presence allowed the creation of a relatively stable, self-governing Kurdish breakaway quasi-state in the northeast under the Kurdish Democratic Union Party.

In contrast, the north-central Kurdish enclave where Kobani/Ayn Arab is located is surrounded by ISIS and “moderate rebel” positions on three sides and a largely unsympathetic Turkey with border controls on the fourth. They are mostly cut off from other Syrian Kurds, unless they can cross through Turkey or manage to get through areas now held by ISIS.

Depending perhaps on Turkey’s views on the potential future threat posed by the now-beleaguered YPK fighters and the Kurdish villagers they are trying to protect, as well as whether the influential Iraqi Kurdish leadership is concerned about the situation — both of which have a significant voice in setting American military priorities in the region and are much friendlier to Syrian Kurds after months of ISIS advances into Iraq — ISIS tank units attacking Kurdish areas in northern, central Syria seem like a pretty tempting target for American-led coalition airstrikes on ISIS forces in Syria, once those begin in the coming weeks.

Our September 20th, 2014 update on this story can be found here.

Can Guinea-Bissau’s new civilian president dump the military leadership?

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One of the major challenges in trying to reform a country’s military to keep them from interfering with governance is whether the meddlers can be removed without them meddling again. Guinea-Bissau’s Army chief, General Antonio Indjai, who was indicted last year in U.S. court for a scheme to send weapons and drugs to Colombian rebels, has been relieved of command by President José Mário Vaz of Guinea-Bissau this week.

The latter only became president in June of this year in free elections after defeating the military’s candidate. He was a finance minister in an earlier government before it was overthrown. Guess who overthrew that government? Why, none other than General Indjai.

In fact, Indjai staged the military coup in 2012 — which blocked presidential elections from being completed — in response to an earlier effort to reform the military under the supervision of Angolan advisers and troops. (Angola is a fellow ex-Portuguese colony that became independent about the same time.) In 2010, Indjai staged a mutiny to become army chief in the first place. Will he go peacefully this time? The better bet is probably no, but perhaps Vaz has an ace up his sleeve and is confident he can make this go off without a hitch.

Guinea-Bissau is one of the least stable countries in the world, with no elected leader having ever left office peacefully, voluntarily, and/or alive in the four decades since independence. In the last fifteen years, the capital power struggles have been particularly intense and bloody — including three successful coups, two high-profile assassinations, and one civil war. Drug traffickers suggested in 2009 that Guinea-Bissau might actually qualify as more dangerous and unstable than Somalia.

To replace General Indjai, President Vaz appointed a close ally and veteran soldier from the country’s war for independence, which ended in 1974 with the overthrow of the Portuguese home government.

The appointment of General Biague Na Ntan, 61, an ethnic Balanta like Indjai, could smooth over any resentment from the ethnic group that makes up about 60 percent of the army and security forces and 25 percent of the population.

 
He had been commanding the presidential guard prior to his promotion to head of the army.

Far across the continent of Africa, the leader of Lesotho also recently tried to fire the head of his country’s armed forces, only to find himself fleeing a coup attempt, which has now divided the military’s loyalties. That crisis, which has still not been resolved, has to be weighing heavily on the mind of President Vaz in Guinea-Bissau as he tries to remove his own army chief and past coup leader.

As an additional stressor, Guinea-Bissau remains on high alert right now for any signs that the Ebola outbreak might have arrived from neighboring Senegal or Guinea-Conakry, the outbreak epicenter.

Map of Guinea-Bissau and surrounding countries. (CIA World Factbook)

Map of Guinea-Bissau and surrounding countries. (CIA World Factbook)

Have Dems finally resolved their internal social issues split?

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“Turning Tables, Democrats Use Cultural Issues as a Cudgel,” blares the New York Times today. Amid all the gloomy news for Democrats across the country in 2014, this may be the single article that has brought the most joy to me, featuring one race after another where the Democrat is running strongly on — not away from — social issues, on the progressive side.

This is a clear sign to me that, although we’re still facing huge challenges on these issues, the tide has finally turned — not just among voters but among Democratic candidates. For example, in just a few years we’ve gone from Democratic senators being terrified to endorse repealing DOMA to them gleefully beating their opponents over the head with that. It’s a similar story for reproductive freedom issues. While the policy tide on the latter is still running hard in the wrong direction in dozens of states, the campaign trail story is encouraging. And best of all, there’s been no sudden uprising by Christian conservative voters in response.

When I flash back to the dark days of November 2009, as the anti-choice Stupak Amendment suddenly appeared on the U.S. House version of the health insurance reform bill and looked like it might be mirrored in the Senate bill, despite a Democratic majority in both chambers, and I recall my angst over whether socially progressive Democrats should be doing more to purge socially conservative Democrats like Bart Stupak from the party so they would stop hurting the Democratic base (women, gays, et al), I feel a lot better today.

In no small part, that’s probably because the 2010 midterm voters did most of the heavy lifting on purging many of those rotten Democrats out of office. In the short run, it meant that even more hardline socially conservative Republicans often took their seats, unfortunately. But the broader result was that those hardcore socially conservative Democrats were no longer in an authoritative place inside the party over the past three and a half years to shout down the lefty Democrats as they persuaded the moderates to switch positions or take stronger positions, in line with the rapidly shifting electoral landscape. Extremist Republicans in winnable districts will be easier to replace in the general elections of coming years (with socially progressive Democrats) than anti-gay, anti-choice Democratic incumbents would have been in primaries. Meanwhile, moderate Democrats in competitive districts will be better able to rally the Democratic base on progressive social values, to remain in office.

This internal transformation has allowed the Democratic Party to define itself much more clearly, which helps motivate activism and turnout among ordinary Democrats. As to the socially conservative voters who will vote exclusively or heavily on these issue, they’ve already become confirmed Republicans at this point and are now out of reach to even the most conservative Democratic candidates.

Is Obama’s anti-ISIS operation really just intended to overthrow Assad?

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A New York Times report says President Obama will destroy Syrian air defenses if they respond to the U.S. attack on ISIS, and he believes this would end the regime.

As soon as President Obama said the operations against ISIS within Syria would consist of limited airstrikes, without Syrian coordination, I wondered what was going to happen if Syrian air defenses responded to the uninvited American incursions. Are we going to destroy them like NATO did with Libya’s air defense and detection systems in 2011? Because then that’s not a limited operation anymore, and it is a direct attack on the Syrian government and military.

Sure enough, that seems to be the working plan (edit: confirmed by U.S. officials today). A New York Times article over the weekend reported on a gathering of a “a group of visitors who met with [President Obama] in the White House before his televised speech to the nation,” based on accounts by “several people who were in the meeting.”

[…] he vowed to retaliate against President Bashar al-Assad if Syrian forces shot at American planes […] He made clear the intricacy of the situation, though, as he contemplated the possibility that Mr. Assad might order his forces to fire at American planes entering Syrian airspace. If he dared to do that, Mr. Obama said he would order American forces to wipe out Syria’s air defense system, which he noted would be easier than striking ISIS because its locations are better known. He went on to say that such an action by Mr. Assad would lead to his overthrow, according to one account.

 
The first part of that is one of the big reasons I was and am strongly opposed to any U.S. military intervention against ISIS inside Syria. The United States’ refusal to coordinate with the Syrian regime — which makes sense diplomatically and strategically perhaps, but not tactically — is at worst goading them into hitting back at the United States and at best setting up a situation where anti-aircraft might be deployed accidentally in the heat of the moment and the confusing fog of war. Even if the regime has no plans to fire back, someone could panic upon seeing approaching bombers on a screen and start shooting anti-aircraft batteries at them. This seems like a possibility particularly at the somewhat isolated major government air base and regime-held zone near the heart of ISIS territory (see map below), where central command might be harder to contact in an emergency.

And that’s if it’s by accident. Al-Arabiya, in their coverage of the New York Times report, reiterated the Syrian government’s public determination to treat as hostile any uncoordinated efforts against ISIS within Syrian territory (longer transcript quotes are at the bottom of this page):

In an interview with CNN over the weekend, Assad adviser Bouthaina Shaaban warned against any “act of aggression” by the U.S. against Syria, while voicing readiness to work with Washington to combat ISIS.

“We are ready to be part of any coalition against terrorism, and any strike on Syria without coordination with the Syrian government is considered an aggression against Syria,” she said.

 
Moreover, the Times report indicates that the President noted that regime targets would be easier to hit than ISIS targets anyway — which is an awfully big detour to make from the stated goal of the upcoming operation — and claimed that the destruction of the regime’s air defense systems would cause the regime to fall. This suggests that this entire action may become, intentionally or under its own momentum and collateral consequences, the backdoor route to reboot the administration’s increasingly difficult goal of regime change in Syria.

I wouldn’t suggest that possible motive, were it not for the President’s own speech announcing the policy, in which he re-affirmed an intention to supply money, training, and weapons to the so-called “moderate rebels” in Syria. These rebels are badly, perhaps irreversibly, losing the Syrian civil war right now. Their only realistic hope of achieving victory at this point is if the Syrian regime and military suddenly collapses from some external and much larger force, such as a direct attack by the United States. So either this continued “aid to rebels” plan is a half-baked gesture or the impending operation — theoretically against ISIS, a third party — is supposed to end in a major military setback for the Syrian armed forces that is significant enough to reset the rebellion’s chances of success.

I still have no idea how the regime’s air defense systems being destroyed would, on its own, precipitate the fall of the regime to a light infantry rebellion that doesn’t seem to have had any aircraft in quite some time, if they ever did. But it would certainly make it a lot easier for an external military air power to make the decision to bomb the regime out of existence at a later date. And it might hamper the government’s ability to continue bombing rebel-held areas.

Whatever the plan here is supposed to be, it’s getting out of control before it’s even started.

Map of the Syrian Civil War as of September 13, 2014. Red = Regime, Gray = ISIS, Green = FSA, Yellow = Kurdish. (via Wikimedia)

Map of the Syrian Civil War as of September 13, 2014. Red = Regime, Gray = ISIS, Green = FSA, Yellow = Kurdish. (via Wikimedia)


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