(Russian/Русский перевод) By Brian E. Frydenborg (Twitter @bfry1981, LinkedIn, Facebook), July 30, 2022; adapted version featured by Small Wars Journal on August 4 in Why Ukraine Will Defeat Russia and How, from Kherson to Crimea, from Zaporizhzhia to the Donbas, in turn cited by the German news site Buzzard; *update August 1: a key reaction with some additional information is briefly discussed; originally submitted July 18 to a prestigious think tank for publication and which a kindly editor there said he intended to review/edit, but, despite a cordial-back-and-forth via e-mail in the interim, twelve days later that still has not happened (understandably a lot going on at the other end) so here I am self-publishing (oh, the perils of freelancing!).  I think it stands well as is, so I have kept the text the same from July 18 (I had made one time-related change but had made the wrong calculation, so 100% of the text before the update is the same from July 18 after my correction), but with a small number of additional sources added and some of the images updated.  You can see that almost-identical version from July 18 with metadata showing that date here. Also see the sister August 3 article How Ukraine War Will Likely Go Rest of 2022, or, Kherson: The Beginning of the End for Russia and July 14 precursor article, THE THREE MAPS SHOWING WHY UKRAINE IS WINNING AND RUSSIA IS LOSING (and why is isn’t even close); follow-up piece on how specifically these dynamics will play out over the course of the next few months coming very soon.

SILVER SPRING and WASHINGTON—I can respect the fact that many journalists are not terribly steeped in military history, strategy, or tactics, but the writing really is on the wall for Russia in its miserable failure of a war.  And while projecting too much optimism may run the risk losing a needed sense of urgency in some quarters, support for Ukraine has not only been stated as a clear and long-term commitment throughout the West but acted upon with vigor over the more than five months of this war, with support only increasing and more and more support surely on the way.  Thus, analysis that misses Ukraine’s success—not just past or tactically, but in forging, driving, and dominating dynamics that have put Ukraine on the path to surprising victory and Russia on the path to ignominious defeat—is not presenting an accurate picture.

As I noted elsewhere, a simple look at a few maps produced by the Institute for the Study of War in conjunction with Critical Threats reveals that, since late March, Ukraine has been more on the offensive than Russia and is taking far more of its occupied territory from Russia since then than territory Russia has taken since then from Ukraine, never a good sign for any invader.

What this demonstrates is that Russia has essentially lost the ability to dramatically alter the dynamics of the war.  After Russia was routed in late March and early April from the Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy fronts, the supposedly-mighty Russian Army has for months now—more than three—been able to do little more than inch forward kilometer by kilometer in the east, attack defenseless civilians (or even wheat fields), blockade Ukrainian ports, and lob cruise missiles from extreme distances.

Tactical Realities Dictating Russia’s Shrinking Strategic Outlook

At this point, the Russians’ greatest battlefield asset is their massed artillery barrages (Russia, surprisingly, was never able to achieve air superiority and Ukrainian air defenses are only increasing and improving with Western aid).  And yet, Ukrainian tactics and new Western equipment (M777 howitzers, M142 HIMARS [High Mobility Artillery Rocket System], M270 MLRS [Multiple Rocket Launch System])—equipment literally designed to counter the very equipment the Russians are using—have been an effective counter to undermine this major Russian strength.  The more dispersed and nimble Ukrainians are careful about concentrating many soldiers in vulnerable areas while Russians keep offering up packed headquarters with key officers and ammunition depots as easy targets, both crucial for effective use of Russian artillery (and just about everything else Russia has).  And, indeed, the new Western precision systems and ammunition that are being given (and given in increasing numbers to Ukraine), combined with Ukraine’s innovative and brilliant approach to targeting (an app called GIS Art for Artillery), are already outperforming and outgunning Russian imprecise “aim-in-the-general-area” artillery, inflicting far more military casualties per gun per shot than the Russians, including destroying far more Russian artillery pieces along with the ammunition needed to supply them and Russian S-300 or S-400 air defense systems that seem unable to counter the Western weapons.  The new systems are also further disrupting already severely disrupted Russian supply lines.  In recent weeks, as the new Western weapons have been increasingly rolled out by Ukraine, apart from high Russian casualties, there has also been a telling exponential decrease in outgoing Russian artillery rounds even as Ukraine increases its outgoing fire, the result of weeks of precise and effective targeting by—and an increase in the numbers of—these Western-supplied weapons systems, with more of these systems on the way.

In this context, it is crucial to note that, at this point, most of Russia’s best combat infantry troops are dead, wounded, or in units that have been “mauled” into a non-“combat effective” state through casualties, leadership voids, equipment and supply losses/shortages, or a combination (often so) of these.  In a wider sense, Russia’s endemic corruption very much infecting its military and Russia’s strange conscript-contract hybrid military system contributing to a severe lack of cohesion are big parts of the explanation for these losses.  And the overall numbers of massive casualties suffered by Russia and its Donbas Luhansk and Donetsk proxies along with equipment losses (including catastrophic losses of Russia’s poorly-maintained supply trucks) and ridiculous, consistent supply issues mean that Russia’s outsized imperial ambitions far exceed its current and foreseeable capabilities.

Even so, Russia and those Donbas proxies are resorting to drafting locals in regions of Ukraine they occupy while Russia is also pushing hard to raise troops from remote parts of the Russian Federation populated by down-and-out ethnic minorities and pressure veterans whose contracts are up or have already returned home from combat to go back (getting new recruits in Russia is not as simple or as quick as one may think), and even this will take time and will result in most cases in reluctant, poorly trained-and-equipped troops with low morale or people who will simply surrender or defect at worst.  In some cases, troops are even WWII-era or even late-nineteenth-century bolt-action rifles or are manning obsolete Soviet-era relic tanks recently taken out of storage, most notably the T-62M 1983 upgrade of the 1961 T-62, built upon the 1958 T-55 (this last point strongly suggests that Russia has lost most of its best deployable tanks, or why else would they be dragging out much older Soviet tanks from storage?).  Obviously, none of these new soldiers or units will be anywhere near the quality of the best troops and units that have already been decimated or destroyed in the fighting: those elite troops are basically irreplaceable.

None of these moves by Russia reflect winning.

Thus, there simply are currently no good, fast options to replace Russia’s mounting casualties and Russia is basically running out of not just quality troops, but troops in general.  There are not 50,000—let alone 20,000—fresh Russian elite combat forces arriving well-equipped and well-supplied with high-morale and quality leadership at Russia’s fronts anytime soon, and Russia’s current leadership culture is incapable of patiently and methodically training any large numbers of high-quality troops, especially in its current flailing mode.  Even if Russia’s leaders were focusing on producing well-trained troops, it would be a long time before they could be deployable, maybe even too late to prevent a full loss of all Russian gains in Ukraine since 2014, let alone 2022.  It is also crucial to note that Russia’s military machinery cannot be properly maintained or produced anymore without key components manufactured outside of Russia and blocked by Western sanctions.  Even if Russian President Vladimir Putin hits the panic button and begins a general draft mobilization (politically risky for him), that cannot yield serious results anytime soon, either.

*Update August 1: one of the Twitter accounts to follow on the Ukraine war—Trent Telenko, a former U.S. Department of Defense civilian logistics expert—had high praise for this article after I shared it with him, and responded with a thoughtful thread full of additional information on Russian manpower shortcomings. He cited the his analysis (as I have done throughout this article) and that of Kamil Galeev; Telenko has earlier shared two key threads by Galeev, one going into the overall nature of Russian imperialism and how that effects its force composition, deployment, and how casualties are spread across certain peoples, geographies, and units, and another on how the nature of Russian imperialism means that much of Russia is not that Russian, with implications for recruitment/force composition/identity.*

And, as well-known Russia expert Fiona Hill notes, time is not on Russia’s side: as the quality, capability, outfitting, and morale of Russian troops decrease, the inverse is happening with the Ukrainian military which, even before this current stage of fighting, was qualitatively superior (I have explained before that Ukraine actually has more troops than Russia, that these troops are better equipped and supplied, with higher morale, better and simpler logistics, home field advantage, and major international support and aid that Russia lacks).  Ukraine is now only deploying more and more troops with high-morale and Western-style (or even actual Western) training with some of the best Western equipment available, easily overmatching corresponding Russian troops and technology.  This trend began years ago with Western training missions, funding, and equipment for Ukraine’s military, efforts that have only dramatically intensified during this current crisis.  And that acceleration is happening as Russia is increasingly rushing ill-trained raw recruits with inferior equipment against superior Ukrainian forces, with predictable results.  Ukraine may have less of this new technology than Russia has of its inferior technology, but even this imbalance is being mitigated with each new delivery of Western military aid.

Whatever advances Russia has managed to accomplish in recent months have been painstakingly slow, relatively miniscule, and “uneven”—part of a village or two one day, repulsed another, some small loss of territory after that, a village following that: as representative of Russia’s extremely limited capabilities as anything else and proof its “culminating point” hovers over its operations like an albatross—and even those gains have come at high cost.  Any hypothetical major gains would mean its “exhausted,” bloodied troops will be spread out more thinly, its poorly-managed supply lines extended over longer distances and open that much more to Ukrainian attacks: in other words, not only are any new Russian gains not only not guaranteed to stay in Russian hands long, they make holding onto what Russia held before more challenging and open Russia even more so to counterattacks.

Even where Russia has gained ground, there has been destruction and massive depopulation—including population transfers by Russia deporting Ukrainians to Russia, acts that could legally be considered genocidal (such transfers are a horrific Russian tradition in Ukraine, as I have noted before)—accompanied by looting and war crimes on a large scale.  Yet Ukraine has already received concrete pledges of reconstruction—with individual regions even being “adopted” by individual allies—while Russia’s extremely-sanctioned economy and lines of outside support are weak, any “allies” practically non-existent.

Examined Closely, Dynamics Obviously Favor Ukraine and Will for Foreseeable Future

In short, this is the best Russia has been able to do and the capabilities of its war machine are only set to decline further while Ukraine’s military is only increasing its capabilities, with the above factors almost mathematical in terms of their combined effects.  Russia simply cannot sustain and supply its current efforts spread out across such wide fronts, let alone find fresh, motivated, and well-trained recruits and new state-of-the-art equipment (indeed, it is already losing ground in the south in the face of the buildup of what is supposed to be a massive Ukrainian counteroffensive there, one that could see Kherson retaken and even put Crimea in play, as I posited in April).   In contrast, Ukraine is set for new waves of well-trained troops and the deployment of much larger additions to the less-trained but still highly-motivated Territorial Defense Forces even as wave after wave of Western equipment arrives.

Non-expert news anchors and journalists should familiarize themselves with these dynamics and how they so deeply favor Ukraine.  To be sure, Russia certainly possesses horrific, imprecise weapons that can kill many civilians when deployed indiscriminately against concentrated urban areas, but that does not equate to rosier prospects on the battlefield, a coherent strategy, sound allocation of resources, effective logistical organization, motivating men to perform well as coordinated teams, and an incoming abundance of both new motivated recruits and cutting-edge modern equipment that stack up very well against opposing forces.  Ukraine has all of these things, Russia none of them.

As I wrote, the writing is on the wall.  Russia is not some magical fantasy power, capable of using sorcery to concoct armies led by fearsome undead Nazgûl Ringwraiths with an endless supply of bloodthirsty orcs.  The world, and especially Ukraine, has seen what this Russian enemy has to offer, and it is not impressive.  In contrast, the Ukrainians are most impressive, and—in spite of their own not insignificant losses and the terror of Russia’s crimes against humanity targeting defenseless civilians—they are the ones who will shape the way this war will change in the coming months, driving dynamics that are very much in their favor.  It is time that the analysis given to the public reflects this reality, especially with Western support clearly continuing and increasing.

This article mainly constitutes the “why” Russia will lose; the sister follow-up article: the “how!”

See all of Brian’s Ukraine coverage here and his July 14 precursor article, THE THREE MAPS SHOWING WHY UKRAINE IS WINNING AND RUSSIA IS LOSING (and why is isn’t even close)

© 2022 Brian E. Frydenborg all rights reserved, permission required for republication, attributed quotations welcome

Also see Brian’s eBook, A Song of Gas and Politics: How Ukraine Is at the Center of Trump-Russia, or, Ukrainegate: A “New” Phase in the Trump-Russia Saga Made from Recycled Materials, available for Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook (preview here), and be sure to check out Brian’s new podcast!

If you appreciate Brian’s unique content, you can support him and his work by donating here; because of YOU, Real Context News surpassed half-a-million content views on 8/27/22!!

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By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) June 27, 2021; Also see my subsequent article “Why is Putin pulling all this crap now?“, published February 21, 2022, and excerpted from my Small Wars Journal article from the same day, “The Utter Banality of Putin’s Kabuki Campaign in Ukraine“

SILVER SPRING—As the West increasingly faces a Russia dealing out far more damage to the West than it suffers in response, the United States has a unique capacity to weaponize its oil and natural gas and oil sectors to alter the dynamics of the corresponding European markets in ways that can seriously weaken Russian power and influence in Europe, damage the Kremlin’s economic strength that has been itself weaponized against the West, and increase Western unity and economic ties.

A New Cold War

There was optimism as Putin stabilized a chaotic post-Soviet Russia, but towards the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, that optimism quickly gave way to dread as he plunged Russia into cyberwarfare against NATO-member Estonia in 2007 and, even worse, invaded and annexed parts of Georgia in the middle of the 2008 Summer Olympics.  Cyberwarfare against the West (as I chronicled recently), military adventurism, brazen political interference, bad-faith behavior, and gaslighting have been Russia’s norms ever since, from invading and annexing parts of Ukraine to helping to install Trump in the White House and from routine bombing of hospitals and other civilian infrastructure in Syria to pushing coronavirus disinformation.

The U.S. has staked much of its blood and treasure over decades to ensure military security, political stability, and economic prosperity throughout the continent.  Conversely, Russian President Vladimir Putin has increasingly staked many of his efforts as the twenty-first century has unfolded to undermine all of this.  Simply put, Russia usually does not treat diplomacy or international law with respect and has not shown itself amenable to changing course through good-faith engagement; rather, it continues to behave as a hostile, bad-faith actor vis-à-vis the U.S., Europe, NATO, and the West.  The impunity that Russia has enjoyed under Putin is enabled by a lack of consequences and punishment for Russia’s bad behavior that itself enables further destructive behavior in a geopolitical negative feedback loop.  Thus, relatively consistently weak responses from the West have succeeded not in deterring Putin, but in emboldening him.

Clearly, a much tougher approach is warranted, as I have argued for some time.

While imposing sanctions—in particular through Magnitsky legislation and going after Putin regime finances—derailing the nefarious Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and expanding Western military alliances and deployments are obviously crucial ways Russia can be punished and countered, good-old-fashioned economic competition can be as effective as more traditional political and military statecraft, perhaps even more so.

And on this front, America and Europe can work together to hit Russia where it is particularly vulnerable.

An Economic Geopolitical Arms Race with Europe As the Proving Ground

Perhaps most surprising among all of Putin’s achievements in recent years has been the extent to which Russia has infiltrated Europe.  Using Europe’s openness against it, Putin and his allies have used a “firehose” of disinformation to affect public opinion throughout Europe to its advantage (part of why I recently proposed major reform to NATO’s founding charter when it comes to cyberwarfare and disinformation) while also finding allies among major European political figures through financial corruption, appealing to far-right nativism, or a combination of the two.

Indeed, for years Putin has funded far-right (and sometimes far-left) extremist parties and figures in his constant quest to weaken the European center and destabilize the continent, sometimes even forming formal alliances through his own thoroughly banal political party, United Russia, with other similarly inclined revanchist chauvinistic right-wing parties in Europe, including in NATO heavyweights Italy, Germany, and France.

The issue of financial and economic infiltration in Europe was an especially sensitive and worrisome one as presented by a report on Russia authored last year by the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) of the UK Parliament, which noted systemic infiltration of Britain’s economy and society by Russia through Russian businesses, noting “it is widely recognized” that Russian businesses are “completely intertwined” with “Russian intelligence” (in fact, as I have noted repeatedly, it is often difficult to distinguish between the Kremlin, Russia’s infamous oligarchs, and the Russian mafia, which often act together as one towards the same purposes, a Holy Trinity in Putin’s religion of realpolitik raw power).  The infiltration is at such deep levels that the report (which I discussed in detail) states “this cannot be untangled and the priority now must be to mitigate,” a disheartening official admission that Russian malign influence is currently too big to be defeated outright, with the report also noting similar mechanisms of influence spreading throughout Europe. 

Simply put, one of the main weapons in this overarching campaign against Europe is Russia’s economic might.  Particularly weaponized by the Kremlin for geopolitical aims are Russian oil and natural gas, with taxes on the oil and gas sectors in Russia accounting for 39.25% of the Russian federal government’s revenue in 2019 (leaving the aberrant 2020 pandemic year aside) and the two industries accounting for a huge part of the oil-and-gas-dependent Russian economy.

Logically, the U.S. targeting Russia’s share of those commodities’ markets in Europe can advance collective Western interests and unity while weakening and punishing Putin in ways long overdue.  It would only be fitting since Russia has long used its oil and gas exports and other economic ties to Europe as a geopolitical club, bribing and bludgeoning nations and politicians throughout Europe to bend them to its will or otherwise expanding its influence.  The most dramatic example of this is clearly Ukraine, which I have chronicled in detail for years.  But apart from Ukraine, most of Europe is heavily dependent on Russian oil and natural gas, while Russia itself is dependent economically on its exports to Europe, as the below tables I created demonstrate along with America’s ability to push its way into Russia’s European market share (click on each chart to see the full-size version; also available all together as a single image or in one Excel file):

In fact, it is the U.S. that has become the world’s top oil and natural gas producer ever since the Obama Administration, and in the decade before 2019, the U.S. increased its oil production at almost six-and-a-half times the pace per year on average as Russia and increased natural gas production at almost five times the rate per year on average compared with Russia.

Until recently, the United States was not even a player in the European gas market, dominated by neighboring Russia.  But the last decade has seen an explosion of both U.S. and Russian exports of liquified natural gas (LNG), which can be transported without pipelines, with the U.S. increasing its LNG exports by nearly 370 percent to Russia’s roughly 200 percent in 2019.  U.S. entry through LNG has meant a dramatic increase in its overall gas presence in Europe in recent years while Russia’s gas exports to Europe only increased 3.9 percent in 2019, the lion’s share of that through its vast pipeline network. 

So while Russian gas exports to Europe dwarf those of the U.S. (well over 1,000 percent more), the U.S. has demonstrated far more ability to grow its European market share in recent years and will be able to keep doing so in the years soon to come, its European gas exports only amounting to about 15 percent of all its gas exports while Russia’s gas exports to Europe are over 81 percent of its total gas exports.  Similar dynamics are at play when it comes it comes to oil, with the U.S. sending a bit under 18 percent of all its oil exports to Europe while Russia sends 57.5 of all its oil exports to Europe.   

And though U.S. oil and gas exports are well under 7 percent of all its exports and are not even 1 percent of its GDP, for Russia, oil and gas exports account for over 56 percent of all exports and 13.5 percent of its GDP.  Taken together, it is clear that oil and gas trade with Europe is huge portion of Russia’s economic trade and a significant portion of its GDP and that it would be fairly easy for the U.S. to weaken Russia’s economy profoundly by simply displacing big portions of Russia’s vital European oil and gas trade with oil and gas from the U.S., a prospect that Europe seems eager to make a reality.

While Russian exports are utterly dominated by massive state-owned companies (like Gazprom and Rosneft, among others) following Putin’s will, the U.S. has its own long tradition of subsidizing its oil and gas industries, so subsidies to make U.S. oil and gas exports to Europe more profitable and desirable would hardly be anything dramatic.  Costs of taxes, tariffs, and transportation could all be mitigated through various government initiatives and, indeed, the U.S. has a number of provisions currently in place, though those subsidies may not be required since U.S. market share in Europe has been booming.  Still, even as new U.S. President Joe Biden seems keen (for good reason) on eliminating such subsidies for oil and gas, giving the U.S. oil and gas sector incentives to focus much more of their business on Europe could further justice in punishing Putin and it would be a good idea here to view the economic and foreign policy goals as going hand in hand.  Pursuing each without view of the other may weaken the payoff of each policy, but combining them would align with a host of Biden Administration and traditional U.S. priorities, such as promoting human rights and transparency, strengthening transatlantic relations and traditional alliances, invigorating the rules-based international order, holding bad actors accountable, promoting European unity, and furthering U.S. economic interests.

Of particular note from recent history is that the U.S. under Obama may have coordinated with Saudi Arabia to work to manipulate oil markets to drive down prices and hurt Russia economically for its dismembering of Ukraine and supporting the murderous regime of dictator Bashar al-Assad in Syria, giving potential inspiration for the U.S. to get creative and ambitious concurrently when it comes to Russia and energy geopolitics today.

A Relatively Easy, Risk-Averse Way to Strike a Blow for the West Against Russia

In concert with Europe, the U.S. has the ability to deal a well-deserved punishing blow to Putin and his rogue government by exporting significantly more oil and natural gas into Europe, weakening the Kremlin economically and reducing its growing stormcloud of influence in Europe in a manner that strengthens transatlantic relationships at the heart of the Western-led global international order and promotes the interests of the U.S. and Europe alike.  While President Biden has clearly shored up the West’s diplomatic front against Russia at the recent G7 and NATO summits in Europe, the economic front discussed herein is another timely opportunity for robust, efficient, and lucrative action.

© 2021 Brian E. Frydenborg all rights reserved, permission required for republication, attributed quotations welcome

Also see my subsequent article “Why is putting pulling all this crap now?“, published February 21, 2022, and excerpted from my Small Wars Journal article from the same day, “The Utter Banality of Putin’s Kabuki Campaign in Ukraine“; see my other related article on the UK Parliament’s singularly excellent Russia report, and my discussion as a member of a panel with author and Senior International Correspondent for The Guardian, Luke Harding, on Russia’s bad behavior

Also see my eBook, A Song of Gas and Politics: How Ukraine Is at the Center of Trump-Russia, or, Ukrainegate: A “New” Phase in the Trump-Russia Saga Made from Recycled Materials, available for Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook (preview here), and be sure to check out Brian’s new podcast!

If you appreciate Brian’s unique content, you can support him and his work by donating here

Feel free to share and repost this article on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. If you think your site or another would be a good place for this or would like to have Brian generate content for you, your site, or your organization, please do not hesitate to reach out to him!

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) December 10, 2019; see Brian’s related Dec. 24, 2020 article: The History of Russia’s Cyberwarfare Against NATO Shows It Is Time to Add to NATO’s Article 5 and June 7, 2021 article: Already in a Cyberwar with Russia, NATO Must Expand Article 5 to Include Cyberwarfare

WASHINGTON & ARLINGTON —  U.S. “engagement” with Russia needs to shift dramatically to acknowledge obvious reality: Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin is actively hostile to the United States and constantly seeking to undermine its interests and those of our allies and Western democracy in general.  While open military conflict is obviously the wrong approach, far short of such action, America must meet Russia’s state of hostility with hostility, countering Russian moves to undermine America with our own forceful undermining of Putin’s power and the Kremlin’s reach and credibility.

Russia is not our friend and does not act in good faith.  Pretending otherwise gives the U.S. no advantages.  From Syria to Ukraine, from arms control to our own election security, treating Russia as a serious partner willing to play ball has only led to frustration, destabilization, death, and humiliation.  To make matters worse, the current extraconstitutional U.S. presidency, in particular Donald Trump’s White House, is clearly compromised by the Kremlin to the degree that, unwittingly or not, Donald Trump is acting in the Kremlin’s interests and is undermining American interests, despite the best efforts of his own political appointees, career intelligence officials, diplomats, bureaucrats, and other “adults-in-the-room.”  Furthermore, the Republican Party as a whole has been coopted to a degree by Russia, too, with an unprecedented amount of Russian money going to fund and promote Republicans and Republican-affiliated organizations like the NRA and with Republican leadership and rank-and-file all too happy both to turn a blind eye to election security (since doing so benefits them) and to adopt Kremlin talking points and tactics.

In the entire history of Russo-American relations, never has the U.S. been at such an overall disadvantage, let alone a major disadvantage, as it is now, but with Russia’s own Agent Orange in the Oval Office, it is what it is.  The question, now, from our compromised position, is: what do we do to fix it and deal with Russia effectively?

We can play hardball, with or without President Trump. Simply put, Russia—Putin’s Kremlin specifically—has greatly benefitted from its hostile posture towards the United States with minimal cost in return.  It will continue to do so until it becomes more harmful than beneficial, and for this to be understood, Russia must experience harm in a way that sinks deep and puts fear back into calculus of the Kremlin, as was the case during the Cold War.

We know that Russia has been owning us as far as cyberwarfare.  We, too, can hack secrets of prominent Russian politicians and release them through third-parties like the Russians did with WikiLeaks in 2015-2016.  We can impose severe penalties on platforms like Facebook and Twitter for disseminating what is clear Kremlin propaganda online.  We can also ban RT and Sputnik in the U.S.  The U.S. must also set up its own media arms like RT and Sputnik to be broadcast aggressively and to offer free VPN services for native Russian speakers and readers that will allow them to bypass any censorship the Kremlin can muster against them.

The United States, not Russia, is the world’s largest natural gas producer.  If the Kremlin wants to play hardball with its gas assets, so can the U.S., and more so.  Russia’s state-run Gazprom often sells at a loss to further the Kremlin’s geopolitical aims; the U.S. government, in turn, can buy up stocks of natural gas from its own private sector and then sell at far lower rates than Gazprom to Europe even as it sanctions Gazprom for any of an array of offenses the company has committed over the years.

Russia has supported secessionist movements to harm the West, from Brexit and Scotland to Catalonia and Donetsk.  The Russian Federation is rife with minorities with centuries of grievances against Russia whose pots can also be stirred by propaganda.  And where Russia has aggressively countered Western influence in places like Moldova and the Central African Republic, the U.S. can offer even more economic aid in exchange for alignment with the U.S. and democracy.

We can offer far more military support to Ukraine and engage in deniable special operations missions.  Russia’s one aircraft carrier, the aging Admiral Kuznetsov, might meet with an unfortunate accident next time it ventures far from home…

Perhaps most effectively, we can go after Putin’s and his henchmen’s money.

From the internet to gas, we can outplay Russia with the strengths it has used against us.  Most actions can be undertaken by Congress even without the president.  The time to act is now.

See Brian’s see Brian’s related Dec. 24, 2020 article: The History of Russia’s Cyberwarfare Against NATO Shows It Is Time to Add to NATO’s Article 5, June 7, 2021 article: Already in a Cyberwar with Russia, NATO Must Expand Article 5 to Include Cyberwarfare, and e-Book, A Song of Gas and Politics: How Ukraine Is at the Center of Trump-Russia, or, Ukrainegate: A “New” Phase in the Trump-Russia Saga Made from Recycled Materials, available for Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook; preview here

© 2019 Brian E. Frydenborg all rights reserved, permission required for republication, attributed quotations welcome

Brian E. Frydenborg is an American freelance writer, academic, and consultant from the New York City area. You can follow and contact him on Twitter: @bfry1981

If you appreciate Brian’s unique content, you can support him and his work by donating here

Feel free to share and repost this article on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. If you think your site or another would be a good place for this or would like to have Brian generate content for you, your site, or your organization, please do not hesitate to reach out to him!

Originally published by Hill Reporter August 1, 2018

(Russian/Русский перевод) By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981), March 6, 2019

See related article: Cohen’s Shady Family Business Dealings’ Unexplored Links to Key Trump-Russia Figures Demand Scrutiny

AMMAN — To many people following the Trump-Russia investigation for the start, it might be surprising that Michael Cohen, a longtime Trump “lawyer” and soldier, and Paul Manafort, a longtime Republican operative, political wizard for a rogue’s gallery of dictators over decades, and Campaign Chairman for Trump’s campaign during arguably the most crucial stretch of 2016, would become two of the most significant current centers of gravity in the Trump-Russia investigations.

But to those who have been paying close attention, this is not surprising at all (I’ve been writing about Manafort for over two years and Cohen for over a year).  And their specific work that raises significant concerns about Kremlin attempts to co-opt Trump and people close to him over the years overlaps in meaningful ways, an overlap that has generally been overlooked, but that merits a closer inspection.

Currently, Cohen is the subject of “many” inquiries that have been ongoing for months, and it seemed as though he could have been arrested at any moment. Now, Cohen seems both to have turned on Trump and to be cooperating with authorities (rather enthusiastically, it seems, with Team Cohen releasing a profoundly relevant and incriminating conversation of a private conversation with Trump and more potential tapes on the way). Cohen’s apparent change of heart occurred after he started feeling as if Trump betrayed him and left him out to dry, taking his loyalty for granted.

Meanwhile, Manafort is, yet again, being further investigated and is locked up in jail because of his attempts to obstruct justice and tamper with witnesses with the assistance of his old long-time colleague, Konstantin Kilimnik. Kilimnik, U.S. officials, including Special Counsel Robert Mueller, assert was (and may still be) a Russian military intelligence operative, and is now starting what looks to be a grueling trial in federal court in Virginia, with another trial set to begin in Washington in September.

But one must go back decades to correctly understand why both Cohen and Manafort are so central to the Trump-Russia probe.  And no, this is not about the surprisingly and impressively graceful and tenacious pornstar Stephanie Clifford (a.k.a. Stormy Daniels), who, if anything, has received a disproportionate amount of coverage that has drowned out some of the deeper, more complex aspects of the Trump-Russia scandal.

*****

In the 1980s, Donald Trump bought some 200 televisions for one of his hotels from an electronics store run by Semyon “Sam” Kislin and Tamir Sapir, immigrants from the then-Soviet Republics of Ukraine and Georgia, respectively.  Their store was a known hot-spot for senior government officials, spies, and politicians all from the Soviet Union.

Sapir may have (once) been part of or even come to the U.S. secretly working for the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs (at whose academy he had apparently studied). Rumors swirled around the sources of his extremely unlikely and massive wealth.  One of his primary business partners pled guilty to longtime scams with the Gambino Crime family.

As for Sapir’s partner, as I noted in more detail previously, Kislin was a longtime ally of Rudolph Giuliani: a prolific repeat donor to the future-Trump-ally’s mayoral campaigns, with Giuliani as mayor even appointing Kislin to his economic council where he served until Giuliani’s final year as mayor. Kislin would also later serve on another of the city’s economic advisory groups.  By at least the mid-1990s, U.S. authorities believed Kislin had helped launder millions for the Russian mafia, had helped bring in a suspected hired assassin to America, and specifically had been linked by the FBI to Vyacheslav Ivankov’s Russian mob crew based in Brighton Beach as a “member or associate.”

Ivankov—one of the Russian mafia’s top men in America—lived in Trump Tower, had the Trump Organization’s private contact numbers in his address book, and also loved frequently spending time—along with other Russian mobsters at Trump’s Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, NJ.

Ivankov reported to Russian mafia “boss of bosses” Semion Mogilevich, perhaps the most powerful mobster in the world today, a financial mastermind known for long-term schemes, a top concern of the FBI for decades, and a longtime-friend and ally of current Russia President Vladimir Putin, who shields him to this day from U.S. (and other) authorities.

Mogilevich set up a front company in America in 1995 that would perpetrate a massive stock fraud worth $150 million on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Its ostensible “CEO” was Jacob Bogatin, who made repeated donations in this role to the National Republican Congressional Committee. Jacob’s brother, David Bogatin, had served in the Soviet Army in Vietnam during the Vietnam War, targeting U.S. aircraft.  By the mid-1980s, Bogatin had purchased five Trump Tower apartments that Trump had personally sold to him. By 1990s, he was also a key soldier for Mogilevich.

A man that a U.S. Supreme Court petition for a writ of certiorari alleges was another Mogilevich lieutenant, Mikhael Sheferovsky, had a son, Felix Sater, who, even without his father’s possible relationship with Mogilevich (which Felix denies), ended up having his own ties to the Russian mafia.

Sater was involved in a massive stock fraud and money laundering scheme worth tens of millions. Sater ran his illegal operation in the mid-1990s from an office in none-other-than-Trump-owned 40 Wall Street. It’s well-known that Sater’s plan involved the Russian mafia, but it is not publicly known if Mogilevich was involved. If Mogilevich were involved, it would hardly be surprising because of his involvement in similar stock fraud and money laundering in the U.S. and Canada during the same period.

Many details of Sater’s case remain sealed because he later mysteriously cooperated with the U.S. government on national security issues in a deal made on the government’s side by Andrew Weissmann, then a federal prosecutor and now a key member of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team.

Glenn Simpson (a Fusion GPS opposition research lead investigator on numerous Russian cases including Trump’s connections to Russia and the infamous Prevezon/Magnitsky case, discussed later) also testified to U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee staff that Sater has strong ties to the Mogilevich crew. Specifics on which basis Simpson is alleging this are not clear.

Sater also grew up in Brighton Beach—a neighborhood notorious for being a Russian mafia enclave—and had a friend since childhood from that neighborhood whose uncle ran a catering establishment in New York then popular with Russian mafia figures.  That friend was Michael Cohen, the same Michael Cohen close to Trump and at the center of the Stormy Daniels saga.

*****

Mogilevich was hardly only focused on North America.  In 1995, he attended a major summit for Eastern European mafia bosses in Tel Aviv hosted by Boris Birshtein, a Russian émigré living in Canada who ran a number of ostensible businesses under the Seabeco name.  The main agenda was laying out plans for their Ukrainian operations.

Not long after, Mogilevich would be making major moves in Ukraine’s energy sector.

Those moves were all related to corrupt relationships and arrangements with Ukraine’s pro-Russian (then-)President Leonid Kuchma, who was close with Putin and other major Ukrainian politicians. At one point, $5 million was delivered by Birshtein and his Seabeco associates to Kuchma’s campaign manager, Oleksandr Volkov, known for his ties to Russian organized crime. Volkov also just happened to be Seabeco’s representative in Ukraine.

Meeting at Birshtein’s Seabeco and working for it throughout the 1990s were two men who would come to dominate large parts of Kazakhstan’s natural resource sector and forge very close ties with that country’s corrupt political leadership as two members of a corrupt Kazakh “Trio” of oligarchs, one being Alexander Mashkevich.

At the same time, Russian-born Canadian Alexander Shnaider also began working for Seabeco in 1991 while in law school; he would eventually marry his boss’s daughter, Simona Birshtein, and he rose quickly in Seabeco’s steel sector.  Shnaider and a partner would later found a company that began aggressively buying up the Ukrainian government’s shares in Ukraine’s fourth-largest steel mill, Zaporizhstal.

Also in Ukraine was Ukrainian businessman Viktor Topolov. By the late 1990s, Topolov’s construction company was allegedly employing multiple Russian mobsters, including as a “vice president” Leonid Roytman, whom the FBI has found to be a Mogilevich-associated (confessed) hitman and who said that the company regularly functioned to set up mafia meetings.

It seems Topolov was also involved in a scandal involving alleged money laundering and embezzling with Ukrainian state gas company Naftogaz, the giant Russian state gas company Gazprom, and a Ukrainian football team named CSKA Kiev.  The football team was managed by Topolov until he handed it off to Andrii Artemenko in 1999. Artemenko was himself involved in, and later took much of the fall for, the laundering/embezzling scandal.

*****

In the 2000s, these relationships would explode into billions of dollars in scandal and shake the foundations of a nation.

By at least 2000, Ukraine’s President Kuchma seemed to tacitly approve of, or at least not try to block, whatever designs Mogilevich had for Ukraine and was also aware both of the mafia don’s longstanding relationship with Putin and that the two were already plotting something big for Ukraine.

Kuchma tried to fix the 2004 Ukrainian election to install his chosen successor Viktor Yanukovych, and the well-known 2004-2005 Orange Revolution thwarted this election fraud.  The disgraced Yanukovych needed a political rebirth, and it was none other than Paul Manafort, who was brought in to help him try to beat the Orange Revolution and then to rehabilitate him.  With his deputy Rick Gates, Manafort was effectively the political manager for Yanukovych and his political party, the Party of Regions.

Essentially, Putin would arrange to have Gazprom sell natural gas cheaply to Firtash, who ran the relevant intermediary company called RosukrEnergo (RUE), and Firtash would then generally sell that gas to Ukraine at much higher rates.  The profits would then be laundered by Mogilevich and others and used both to bribe Ukrainian politicians to do Russia’s bidding and to fund Yanukovych and his party.

Manafort and Gates even allegedly worked directly with Firtash to launder some of this money into fraudulent Manhattan real estate deals using shady shell companies.

One of the shell companies mentioned in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s indictments of Manafort (John Hannah LLC) is the same one Manafort used in 2006 for a cash purchase of a $3.675 million Trump Tower apartment, raising a distinct possibility the property was used for Ukraine-related money laundering.

Manafort and Gates also partnered with close Putin ally and Russian aluminum oligarch-billionaire Oleg Deripaska on various projects serving Russia’s and/or Putin’s interests and funneling Yanukovych’s private fortune and those of his inner circle away from prying eyes.

Over the years, Manafort would end up owing Deripaska no less than a staggering $60 million.

Also at this time, from 2004-2007, future-Trump-campaign-advisor and repeated FISA superstar Carter Page advised both Gazprom and another Russian state-owned energy company—RAO UES—all the way on the other end of this massive Ukrainian gas scam, making it highly unlikely he was not at least partly aware of what was going on.

Michael Cohen would also become heavily involved in Ukraine in the 2000s. Cohen started his business career as a personal injury lawyer, then pursued some other business interests that ended in dozens of lawsuits and involved mafia-linked associates.  Both he and his brother, Bryan Cohen, married Ukrainian women, Bryan marrying Oksana Oronov, daughter of Alex Oronov, a “longtime” business partner of Mogilevich-linked Topolov (linked to the earlier alleged money laundering that had involved Gazprom and the Kiev soccer team), who had now become a powerful Ukrainian politician.

Together, the Cohens, Alex Oronov, and Topolov all joined a Ukrainian ethanol business venture.  In 2006, the Cohen brothers personally tried to convince Americans to invest in building a factory for the business and failed to do so, though they did meet Topolov in the process. Others funded the investment to the tune of millions, and no ethanol was produced at the factory.  All this was at the same time that the Ukrainian gas scheme and money laundering of Mogilevich and Manafort were in full effect.

Going back to Sam Kislin, after his work with Giuliani, in the early 2000s, he brokered a deal for a condo in Trump World Tower for Vasily Salygin, who would soon become an official in Ukraine’s Party of Regions at the same time Manafort was running its political affairs and then some.

Around this time, Kislin’s old partner Sapir—who now owned a $5 million apartment in Trump Tower, with Trump calling Sapir and his family “great friends”—introduced Trump to Bayrock, ostensibly a real-estate firm led by Tevfik Arif, an ex-Soviet government official from Kazakhstan whose rise to fortune is at least somewhat questionable.

The earlier-introduced Sater now enters Trump’s orbit as the COO of Bayrock, the office of which was even located in Trump Tower. Sater now famously partnered with Trump (and sometimes his children Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump, Jr.) in a series of potential deals (including the infamous Trump Tower Moscow with his old friend Cohen) and actual deals, most of which ended in disaster, failure, lawsuits, and scandal, with hundreds of millions in losses.

The most famous of the actual deals was the Trump SoHo, and none other than Alexander Mashkevich was one of its chief financiers.  By this time, Mashkevich was also a dominant player in aluminum and orchestrated a huge aluminum deal with Deripaska in 2004 at a time when Deripaska’s relationship with Manafort was taking off, while the other two members of Mashkevich’s Kazakh “Trio” had been dealing with Gazprom.

Four specific deals, SoHo included, of Bayrock’s that had been signed-off on by Trump personally received $50 million in “financing” from an Icelandic firm—FL Group—known as a hub for Russian investors, investors apparently linked to Putin and money laundering. FL Group’s $50 million investment was illegally structured as a “loan” designed to cheat governments of taxes and helped precipitate some of FL Group’s woes that led to its meltdown, which helped spark the 2008 global financial crises.

Sater was the point man for these deals, which were alleged, in a settled-in-late-February long-running lawsuit, of being RICO money-laundering scams.

Meanwhile, back in Ukraine, by 2001, Shnaider and his business partner had acquired a 93 percent stake in Zaporizhstal for some $70 million. They managed the deal at a time when steel was the country’s most significant industry, accounting for about 25% of Ukraine’s GDP.  By 2006, Shnaider was turning down a $1.2 billion offer for the mill.

Then came 2007, when Shnaider partnered with Trump to begin building the Trump International Hotel and Tower, Toronto.  And in 2008, FL Group conspicuously loaned Shnaider €45.8 million ostensibly for a yacht at the same time Shnaider’s former Seabeco partner Mashkevich was also working with FL Group and Trump on the Bayrock projects.

After investors were pounded during the ensuing global financial crises that exploded that same year, Shnaider sought to sell his company’s near-total stake in Zaporizhstal to help finance his Trump project, which he did in 2010 for some $850 million through five shell companies.  His buyer was an unknown Russian acting on behalf of the Russian government and who, in turn, was funded by the Russian state-run bank VEB (Vnesheconombank), and the chairman of its board at that time was Vladimir Putin himself.  Subsequent chairman Sergei Gorkov, a graduate of the F.S.B.’s academy, would meet Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in December 2016, just after Trump’s victory against Clinton and while the bank was under U.S. sanctions because of the war in Ukraine).

Zaporizhstal fit well into Putin’s and Mogilevich’s scheme of trying to extend Russian influence over Ukraine’s industries and natural resources.  Yanukovych financier Akhmetov had apparently narrowly missed out on acquiring Zaporizhstal from Shnaider back in 2010 but was able to gain majority ownership in July 2011, when he was a sitting member of Ukraine’s parliament with the Party of Regions.

Like the other deals discussed above, the Toronto deal fell into the same pattern of coming apart amid scandal and lawsuits from dozens of investors saying they were misled and who are still suing both Trump and Shnaider.

Still another massive scandal-ridden deal from this period involves the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower in Panama City, Panama, which began in 2005, with the Tower opening in 2011.  To get to that point, in 2007, Bear Stearns “underwrote a $220 million bond issue” that would help finance the project’s construction, less than a year before Bear Stearns’s meltdown (along with FL Group’s) initiated the global financial crises of 2008.

(Pause: This means that scandalous Trump projects were major catalysts in the two main corporate collapses that were themselves the catalysts for the global financial crises!)

The Panama project involved Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, drug cartels, the Russian mafia, and a Ukrainian businessman named Igor Anopolskiy, who has strong financial ties to Oxana Marchenko, apparently the same Marchenko who is the wife of Viktor Medvedchuk…

Medvedchuk was one of Ukraine’s first post-Soviet oligarchs (and in none other than the natural gas business), and by 1999 he was an important ally of then-Ukrainian President Kuchma, supporting him in partnership with Volkov, who at the time was funneling money from Birshtein to Kuchma as previously discussed.  Medvedchuk later became Kuchma’s chief of staff from 2002-2005 and also became very close with Putin’s number-two, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.  But he is even closer with Putin himself, who is godfather to Medvedchuk’s and Marchenko’s daughter (Medvedev’s wife is the godmother).

Putin has pushed for and seen Medvedchuk take leading roles in Ukraine’s politics.  In such positions, Medvedchuk helped Yanukovych, has worked to steer Ukraine away from the West and closer to Russia, and has played a significant role as a negotiating representative “for” Ukraine in major disputes with Russia on everything from gas deals to the current war.  He was also one of the first officials sanctioned by the U.S. government in 2014 after Russia’s annexation of Crimea for his role in that affair. That same year Medvedchuk met Manafort whom Medvedchuk has praised as “the best, both among foreign and domestic political consultants,” which makes the fact that Medvedchuk was reported to be in contact with the Trump campaign during 2016 concerning “U.S.-Russia cooperation” unsurprising yet still very troubling.

Even now, a prostitute in a Thai Jail has been exposed by suppressed Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny as being connected with Oleg Deripaska. She was with him, and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko, who is a big-time foreign policy guy in the Kremlin, on a yacht at the height of the 2016 election, shortly before Manafort had offered to brief Deripaska on Trump’s campaign (presumably) on behalf of Putin.  The prostitute, known as “Nastya Rybka,” recorded video of Deripaska and Prikhodko talking about Russian relations with the U.S., and noted more such interactions in writing.

Rybka is threatening to share damning evidence she claims to have—including audio recordings she claims proves collusion between Manafort, Deripaska, and Prikhodko to interfere in the U.S. election. Rybka has asked the U.S. for asylum and protection from Russian authorities in exchange for the information she says she can offer.

If only Deripaska had a fixer like Michael Cohen, who apparently allegedly regularly paid women who had extramarital sexual affairs with Trump (and at least one other significant Republican Party figure, Elliott Broidy) to be quiet and go away.

Outside a courtroom in mid-April of this year in which the business inside centered on criminal inquiries into his own business dealings, Cohen took time to share cigars with Rotem Rosen and other friends.

Rosen married Tamir Sapir’s daughter, Zina Sapir, in 2007 at a ceremony hosted by Donald Trump himself at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, and the next year, Trump and Kushner attended the newlywed couple’s bris for their newborn.

Rosen was the longtime right-hand man of Lev Leviev, a famous Israeli diamond oligarch from the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan.  Leviev is close and, it seems, a friend to Vladimir Putin, but also is close with the Sapirs, Deripaska, and (another) Russian aluminum oligarch named Roman Abramovich, who is himself close to Putin and was apparently the first to recommend Putin to then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin as a successor.  Abramovich owns the UK club football team Chelsea, and until recently lived in the UK. Following Russia’s shocking recent Skripal chemical nerve agent attack on British soil, the UK declined to renew Abramovich’s visa, and he made aliyahto Israel, instantly becoming that nation’s wealthiest citizen).

When former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, who had been talking on tape about Putin’s “good relationship” with Mogilevich, among other things, was assassinated with radioactive material in the UK in 2006 on the orders of the Kremlin (not that different from the Skripal poisoning), he was helping both British and Spanish intelligence look into money laundering and organized crime ties surrounding Abramovich.

Ivanka has been very close with Dasha Zhukova, Abramovich’s wife during this period (they separated in mid-2017, and Abramovich has since curiously been spotted with Polina Deripaska, Oleg’s “estranged” wife) for over a decade (introduced, interestingly, by Wendi Deng, then Rupert Murdoch’s wife and more recently a rumored lover/girlfriend of, yes, Vladimir Putin).  Abramovich became acquainted with both Kushner and Ivanka as a result.

His and Putin’s friend Leviev, whose company’s U.S. operations were headquartered at Trump’s 40 Wall St. property (where Sater ran his 1990s’ massive scam), was a business partner of Denis Katsyv, scion of a Putin ally, through Katsyv’s company Prevezon. Their dealings were at the heartof the whole Magnitsky money laundering and Russian sanctions saga that, in turn, led to the infamous June 2016, Trump Tower meeting hosted by Manafort, Kushner, and Donald Jr. with a variety of Russian operatives with deep Kremlin connections.

Leviev later conducted a major business deal with Kushner in 2015 and financing from Deutsche Bank related to that deal is under scrutiny by federal authorities. Deutsche also helped finance Donald Trump for years when few other banks would, and financed the Prevezon deal between Katsyv and Leviev. The Prevezon deal later became the subject of a settled civil case from the local U.S. Attorney’s office and is still the subject of a criminal probe there (a piece I wrote on Prevezon/Magnitsky was even censored in Russia). “Magnitsky” has since become synonymous with a human-rights crusade against Putin, and his Kremlin allies carried out by one Bill Browder, who has been a repeated target of Putin and Russian authorities as a result.

Another money laundering case of note involved the arrest of Mogilevich-linked Russian mobsters in Trump Tower when local boss Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov and his minions Vadim Trincher and Anatoly Golubchik were allegedly overseeing an illegal high-stakes international gambling ring. The ring targeted wealthy clientele and was, in part, operated out of the building (and was the subject of the recent Jessica Chastain movie Molly’s Game).  The gambling ring was popular with Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs in both Russia and Ukraine, and besides the gambling, its ringleaders also engaged in some $100 million in money laundering.

In 2009, Trincher bought an apartment in Trump Tower just below an apartment owned by Donald Trump, in which Trincher nearly held a fundraiser for future-Trump-ally Newt Gingrich two years later. The fundraiser never occurred after a mold problem, and a water leak was detected. Other mobsters in the outfit also owned Trump properties.  The minions did not escape justice in 2013 raids orchestrated by Preet Bharara (later fired by Trump), but Tokhtakhounov did and was soon after a red-carpet VIP guest at Trump’s 2013 Miss Universe Pageant. The two men arrived within minutes of each other, and it is certainly possible they interacted there in Moscow, a city where, to this day, Tokhtakhounov is regularly spotted at trendy public places.

*****

Meanwhile, Manafort’s and Gates’ work led to the triumphant rise of Yanukovych’s Party Of Regions and of Yanukovych’s ascent to Ukraine’s presidency in 2010.  Ultimately, the gas scam that empowered those wins precipitated the 2014 (Euro)Maidan revolution, the ouster of Yanukovych, Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and today’s civil war in Ukraine.  At this time, Manafort and Gates were lobbying the U.S. government to improve the corrupt image of Yanukovych’s government, and it was for lying about this work that Alexander van der Zwaan, son-in-law of major Putin-linked Russian oligarch billionaire German Khan, was sentenced in April, the first defendant in Mueller’s Russia probe sentenced to time in prison.

After Trump’s presidential win and eleven days before Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, Cohen met with a Russian oligarch close to Putin and the Kremlin named Viktor Vekselberg, who has been sanctioned by the U.S. government in response to Putin’s hostile actions. The two men discussed Russian-American relations in Trump Tower in New York; probably not coincidentally, a company of Vekselberg’s ended up sending Cohen substantial sums of money amounting to more than half a million dollars.

A diplomatic episode from the beginning of Trump’s presidency ties all this together.  Early in 2017, Cohen teamed up with his old friend Sater and Topolov’s old associate Artemenko from the alleged Gazprom-related laundering scam in an unofficial diplomatic meeting in Manhattan regarding Ukraine. This meeting was organized by Alex Oronov, whom Artemenko described in March 2017 as a “partner, mentor, teacher and friend.” His statement was made shortly after Oronov had mysteriously died.

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss a “peace” plan for Ukraine that had support from senior Putin aides, one that would cede to Russia official control over Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed with a 50 or 100-year “lease.”  At the meeting were also discussed ways to undermine Ukraine’s current anti-Putin president, Petro Poroshenko.  Cohen personally delivered the proposal to National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who had attended a Russian gala dinner in 2015 while seated at Putin’s table, which was next to Vekselberg’s table. Flynn would later resign from Trump’s team because of his Russian entanglements that would then lead to his indictment by the Special Counsel.

Such excellent Ukraine work assisting Russian interests would have made Manafort proud, and Manafort may even have played a role in it.  Manafort few to Europe in July, 2013, on a private plane owned by a company co-founded by Artemenko’s father, and Manafort made at least 19 trips to Kiev in the 20 months after Yanukovych was overthrown in 2014 to work for the Opposition Bloc, Artemekno’s party and the successor to the Party of Regions, even possibly partnering with Medvedchuk.

Soon after the last trip, he and Gates joined the Trump campaign, just in time for the campaign to defang the Republican Party Platform’s harsh language on Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

Cohen’s work on the 2017 “peace plan” would, had it been adopted, have been the long-worked-for culmination of over a decade of work by Manafort and Gates. This “peace plan” would have basically put an official stamp of approval on the latest in the long series of Putin, Yanukovych, Medvedchuk, and their whole crew’s efforts to enforce Russian domination of Ukraine through corruption, politics, lobbying, laundering, annexation, and war. Russia’s any means necessary approach was often orchestrated in no small part by Manafort.

With Manafort sidelined by the clouds hanging over his head, Cohen, along with his old friend Sater, were virtual representatives of Manafort, both in agenda and in spirit, ready to carry the pro-Russian torch Manafort had so diligently carried steadfastly for so long.

What is clear at a minimum is that an awful lot of people with deep ties to the Russian government, the Russian mafia, especially to Mogilevich, and involvement in (sometimes alleged) money laundering surround both Cohen and Manafort in profound, sustained ways. Those ties also appear to pertain directly to their relations to Trump the businessman, Trump the candidate, and Trump, the president.  At worst, this could go way beyond collusion.

In particular, large-scale involvement by a network of Russian operatives ties dealings in Ukraine to dealings in America, suggesting some sort of coordinated effort by a network spanning continents and oceans.  This network and the way it engaged Trump and his (future) people for years—all out there for those willing to give them the time and scrutiny they deserve—have been woefully undercovered by major American news outlets, with too little coverage and too little depth, often just scratching surface layers and eschewing the core while foregoing any deeper, larger-picture analysis, perhaps mentioning in a major article or two, but failing to connect the dots or revisit when another look is warranted.

If this all looks suspicious to you, we can be sure it all looks suspicious to Mueller, and that he is being more thorough than the news media or most Republicans in Congress.

Manafort and Cohen are at the center of this saga, now more than ever, with law enforcement zooming in on their activities ever more closely with each passing day, getting closer to the truth, far closer than the myopia of the journalistic and editorial class has allowed the news media to reach.

This overlap in pro-Russia work and connections between Manafort and Cohen would be as good a place to start as any if the news media is to unearth the deeper layers of this story and help voters be armed with a far larger sense of the truth than that which has been presented thus far as they consider their votes in the coming midterms and beyond.

Adapted in part from author’s earlier work published on July 31^st, 2016, November 4^th, 2016,March 28^th, 2017, and July 27^th, 2017.

© 2019 Brian E. Frydenborg all rights reserved, no republication without permission, attributed quotations welcome

See related article: Cohen’s Shady Family Business Dealings’ Unexplored Links to Key Trump-Russia Figures Demand Scrutiny

Also see how Manafort and Cohen fit into the larger Trump-Russia saga and an explanation of the below chart in article: Think You Know How Deep Trump-Russia Goes? Think Again: This Chart/Info Will Blow Your Mind

Also see my eBook, A Song of Gas and Politics: How Ukraine Is at the Center of Trump-Russia, or, Ukrainegate: A “New” Phase in the Trump-Russia Saga Made from Recycled Materials, available for Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook (preview here), and be sure to check out Brian’s new podcast!

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Brian E. Frydenborg is an American freelance writer and consultant from the New York City area who has been based in Amman, Jordan, since early 2014. He holds an M.S. in Peace Operations and specializes in a wide range of interrelated topics, including international and U.S. policy/politics, security/conflict/(counter)terrorism, humanitarianism, development, social justice, and history. You can follow and contact him on Twitter: @bfry1981

Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse January 27, 2017

By Brian E. Frydenborg (Twitter: @bfry1981) January 27th, 2017; original interview conducted December 24th-26th, 2017; here is the English version of the interview published by ISNA on January 24th, and here is the Farsi (Persian) version

Carolyn Kaster/AP

Iranian Student News Agency (interviewer: Atefeh Moradi): The US election has passed, but we can truly see the polarized atmosphere in American society; how do you anticipate the political and social situation after 20 Jan.?

Brian Frydenborg: To be honest, it will be pretty awful. 53.9% of voters chose a candidate other than Trump, including 48.2% for Secretary Clinton, to Trump’s 46.1% (f this seems strange, just look up Electoral College on the Internet, and you will see that American elections are based on voting majorities divided into specific regions, not an absolute national majority). Yet Trump and his party will control the White House and both houses of Congress (with a large majority in the House and a small majority in the Senate), as well as the federal judiciary once Trump starts making judicial appointments and getting them confirmed, including filling that all-important vacant Supreme Court seat. For at least the next two years and likely even a longer period, this means almost 54% of Americans who voted will have no real power to check President Trump and his Republican Party from enacting an agenda they very forcefully do not support.

The one real exception to this is the filibuster, a Senate rule that, on most issues, allows the minority to prevent passage of something that cannot get at least 60 of 100 senators to support it; however, each new Congress can make its own rules, and Republicans will have the power to get rid of the filibuster if they choose to do so, which would become increasingly likely if Democrats use it block Trump’s and the Republicans’ agenda. If this happens, the Democrats lose their one way to check Trump independent of any help from Republicans, and, thus, will be powerless if Republicans stay united. Yes, in some ways, the Republican Party has not been this divided since the 1960s, but if one looks closer, this is not the case: while conservative public intellectuals and publications, many former Republicans officials (including both living former Republican presidents), and numbers of important major Republican political donors and fundraisers either privately or publicly oppose Trump, this is a tiny elite within the scope of the party as a whole; only a handful of senators and a small portion of Republican representatives in Congress consistently and publicly opposed Trump; nearly the entire Republican membership of Congress either supported Trump or dared not opposed him, and with the megaphone of the presidency on top of his Twitter-following of nearly 18 million people, Trump will be seeking to loudly intimidate any opposition, whether within his own party or not, and those within his own party will be highly vulnerable to this pressure as Trump can easily use it to rouse his followers. The political stalemate of the last six years will end as one party, led by Trump more than anyone else, will control the highest levels of the entire federal government.

What this means is that the nearly-54% will certainly see many of their hopes dashed and their fears realized, in particular women and minorities like African-Americans, Latinos, Muslims, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans who have been subject to abuse of power by the private sector and the government at the local, state, and federal level. A Trump Administration seems poised to either stop actively protecting these groups from abuses with any vigor at the least, or to actively undermine some of the protections and gains they have enjoyed in civil rights that have been enacted in recent years. Either way, racial, ethnic, and religious tensions that have been simmering and occasionally exploding into riots and violent attacks over the past few years in America are likely to get dramatically worse under Trump and serious civil unrest is a real possibility; this will especially be the case if Trump keeps acting the way he has been, which is to say, in ways that do nothing to assure groups fearful of a Trump presidency that they will be respected and have their needs and concerns addressed seriously.

ISNA:Some analysts believe Trump campaign’s rhetoric is not the cornerstone of his policies, what would be your stance toward this?

BF: I would call this out as wishful thinking. While Trump’s stated positions have shifted so many times it’s been easy to lose count, his rhetoric and his style have stayed fairly consistent, and the overall content of his rhetoric makes it clear that many of his harsher policies are going to be pursued with vigor; any doubt about this should have been erased by his cabinet picks announced thus far. Even if he ends up enacting a milder form of some of what he has discussed, such policies will still be game-changers and move the country sharply to the right policy-wise. But as a practical matter, his supporters—and, within the Republican Party’s group of elected officials, a strong core of the Republican House members—will insist that he carries out his promises, and Trump, ever so needful of admiration and validation, won’t want to disappoint his biggest fans. So his constituents and counterparts in Congress will make it hard for him to backtrack, even if he wants to, which on most issues he probably does not. 

ISNA: In regard with Trump’s cabinet nominees, can you anticipate the upcoming Washington policies?

BF: The best sign that Trump might move into a “governing mode” and power down his “campaign mode” would have been putting moderate people who could unite the country into key positions of power, most notably selecting either Mitt Romney or David Petraeus as Secretary of State. By picking big-oil CEO Rex Tillerson (a Putin ally) as Secretary of State, but also along with virtually all of his other choices, Trump made it clear he has no intention of generally pursuing a more moderate course. Instead, he has assembled the most extreme and most right-wing cabinet and White House in American presidential history. A simple look at his choices and their records make this beyond dispute, so there should be no confusion as to what to expect from them. In several agencies—the Department of Energy, the Department of Education, the Department of Labor, and the Environmental Protection Agency—Trump even appointed people who don’t believe in the agencies core missions or are downright hostile to them. Others, like Dr. Ben Carson for the Department of Housing and Urban Development and Nikki Haley for Ambassador to the United Nations, are supremely unqualified; still others like Trump’s National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and Ambassador to Israel David Friedman are outright extremists. And those who will be running the economy hail from the billionaire class. So those who are saying “Let’s wait and see…” are deluding themselves if they mean in any way to imply that a moderate course is a possibility and that moderates and liberals should not jump to conclusions: Trump’s behavior, actions, and selections are sending a clear message that would be foolish not to acknowledge.

ISNA: The US nuclear suitcase is in Trump’s hands now, do you think there should be any doubt about it?

BF: Let’s put it this way: should we think Trump would use nuclear weapons for fun or just on a whim? No. But the man’s character and temperament are so vastly different from every single president before him, and unsuited to the responsibility of the decision to use or not use nuclear weapons, that if a crisis with a major power like China erupted, I would be worried to have Trump as a Commander in Chief. If one recalls the Cuban Missile Crisis, WWIII and nuclear war were avoided because the cooler heads of both Kennedy and Khrushchev prevailed; the only way the phrase “cooler head” and the word “Trump” can fit into the same sentence is with satire. So if a truly grave situation did emerge, yes, we should be worried that Trump would be more likely to both threaten and use nuclear weapons than any previous American president in a similar situation. As it is, Trump is already calling for America to expand its nuclear arsenal, and the last thing that is good for the world now is a new nuclear arms race.  

This, in particular, concerns Iran, and Iran is in a tough position. Should Iran resume uranium enrichment because Trump follows through on his pledge to end the nuclear agreement from the U.S. side between the great powers and Iran, this would likely cause two things to occur: 1.) an attempt by Saudi Arabia to develop a nuclear program of its own, and perhaps Turkey, maybe even others, and 2.) an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear facilities that would likely be supported or joined by a Trump Administration, sparking a wider war in the Middle East, likely between the U.S. and Sunni-led powers on one side and Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon in one form or another on the other. Yemen and Bahrain could easily become battlegrounds, and there is reason to consider as a serious possibility Russia joining or at least supporting the Shiite side, as Russia now already has something of an alliance with Iran, Hezbollah, and the Syrian Government through Syria’s Civil War.

ISNA: Trump repeatedly said that he is not for JCPOA [the Iran nuclear deal], although EU senior officials say it is beyond Trump’s authority to make any changes to this agreement; what would be your explanation on this issue?

BF: Trump can definitely end U.S. participation in the agreement, and can get Congress reapply the sanctions that were removed as part of it (these are separate from the current sanctions regarding military and terrorism issues). Would it be fair if Trump broke the agreement with Iran? No. Would it be understandable, even justified, for Iran to resume uranium enrichment under those circumstances? Of course. Yet sometimes, what you have the right and ability to do isn’t always the right choice, and the question Iran’s leaders will have to really ask themselves is this: is it really in Iranian interests to do so? Because if it does, the possibility of an Israeli strike—however unjustified or justified, leaving that question out it—supported or even joined by the U.S. becomes highly likely, and that is a situation that will be no good for Iran and Shiites all around the Middle East, especially those who are living under oppressive Sunni governments, or for the Middle East in general, not good at all. It will result in large losses of life and perhaps catastrophic economic and physical destruction.

Sometimes, leadership is about swallowing pride and being able to absorb verbal and diplomatic abuse (in this case, coming from a Trump Administration) than it is about confrontation and conflict, even if one feels one’s cause is just. Peace is its own reward and there are a number of outcomes that can be good for Iran that do not involve uranium enrichment. For one thing, after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and watching the Arab Spring churn largely into chaos, destruction, and death, there is virtually no appetite in the U.S. for a war that would involve overthrowing Iran’s government and occupying Iran with American troops; thus, should Iran seek nuclear weapons capability as a way to prevent a U.S. invasion and the overthrow of Iran’s own government, it is trying to prevent something that in all likelihood will not be happening, yet the pursuit of such a goal would be ruinous for Iran, as plenty of military options for the Israel and the U.S. exist, with their superior air forces, that do not involve an invasion or overthrowing the Iranian government.

For another thing, if Trump cancels the agreement and Iran does not resume enrichment, the moral high ground on this issue (apart from other considerations) will be incredibly strong for Iran, and the pressure on Trump and the U.S. from the rest of the world powers will be considerable, so great that the pressure the U.S. faces could be severe and beyond verbal, and if Trump initiates major trade wars with countries like China and Mexico, sanctions against the U.S. for violating the agreement would be even greater possibility that they would otherwise, though not necessarily likely. If Iran can resist the temptation and behave more responsibly than American leadership, the support from Europe, Russia, and China would be that much greater. And, ultimately, those nations are doing far more business with Iran than the U.S. In the end, the temptation to resume enrichment would be great, and nobody likes to undergo that level of pressure, but the longer-term interests of Iran, and the lives of the Iranian people, will be much better served by not pursuing such a course. If Trump behaves poorly and Iran conducts itself with restraint, the stature of Iran in worldwide diplomatic circles will only increase, with a deeper level of respect than it currently enjoys. It Iran tried to match Trump taunt for taunt, insult for insult, threat for threat—as some of his former Republican rivals tried to do—Iran will only be seen as more like Trump than as conducting itself in a more dignified manner, and Trump’s Republican rivals show there is no out-Trumping Trump: if there is one thing the Republican primaries taught us, it is that Trump always wins when his opponents sink to his level. Finally, Iran can know that many American people will appreciate this restraint, and should politics shift and Democrats make a comeback, new people who noted Iran’s praise-worthy restraint would be empowered by such restraint to improve U.S.-Iranian relations and support Iran should it pursue policies that defuse tensions and further peace.

ISNA: And finally, do you believe amid tensions which still are in the two countries’ relationship, especially regarding US sanctions and Iran’s nuclear program, and that so far have not vanished as was predicted after JCPOA, that it would be possible that Iran and US could be better friends rather than enemies?

BF: Well, the relevant nuclear-related sanctions have been removed by the Obama Administration; other sanctions related to other matters are separate issues. But to whether Iran and the U.S. make better friends than enemies, of course we make better friends. It just becomes much harder with Trump and the Republican Party running America’s foreign policy, and especially if the sanctions that have been removed by Obama are reimposed by Trump. Clinton would have been tough, but fair, with Iran: she would have honored the JCPOA, and have used that a basis to work for breakthroughs with Iran on Syria, Iraq, Israel, and other regional issues; such work might have led to the lifting of other non-nuclear sanctions. I have always believed that Iran and the U.S. have plenty of issues with which they can find enthusiastic agreement. And I think it’s overdue for a grand ayatollah to come to Washington and for a president to go to Tehran.

And yet, the biggest obstacle to having the JCPOA become a springboard for further cooperation thus far has been Syria. I’ve personally been disappointed in Iran’s actions when it comes to Syria. As old as the concept and word “terrorism” has been around, it has been used by oppressive leaders as an excuse to crush opposition and impose iron-fisted rule. This can be the case if there is no actual terrorism or, in the case of Syria, if there is very real terrorism, even the worst in the world. Iran has good reason to fear Sunni extremist terrorism from the likes of ISIS and al-Qaeda, but one can stand against terrorism while also condemning the slaughter of Syria’s people on a massive scale by the Assad government. I understand and respect that Assad is an Alawite and that Alawites are religious cousins of Iran’s Shiites, but history will judge Iran for its support of Assad and Russia’s assault on large segments of Syria’s civilian population, not just terrorists. Even with ISIS in charge of Mosul, with the Iraqi Army having the U.S. as an ally and behaving in a relatively restrained way towards civilians, look at how much worse the civilian killings and refugee situation is for Aleppo with the Syrian forces’ assault backed by Russia (it is interesting that Iran has advisors, forces, and/or militias involved in both operations, and can easily tell the differences in the conduct and brutality of the operations for themselves even if it does not acknowledge these differences publicly). In particular, I was saddened that Iran did not forcefully condemn Assad’s relatively larger-scale use of chemical weapons against his own people back in the fall of 2013, because I know how horribly Iranians and suffered when Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons in an even more massive way against Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, with the support and cover-up of the Reagan Administration, one of America’s most shameful acts.

Thus, I was hoping that Iran could be the conscience of the Assad regime since it is clear that Assad and Putin have almost none when it comes to Syria’s people. Imagine if Iran was seen not only to be a protector of Shiites, but also of Sunnis in Syria? I still believe that Iran can act within Syria as a force to reduce the brutality and killing of the civil war, something very clearly in line with more mainstream Islamic teachings since the time of the Prophet Muhammed himself, who during war generally urged humane treatment over brutality (after all, the very first verse of the Quran refers to Allah by the title of “the Merciful,”) and to act to push against Assad’s government’s and Russia’s military’s acts of indiscriminate killing.  

If Iran were to ensure that Assad, if(?)/when(?) victorious, shows mercy and takes great care to protect civilians, Iran can play the most constructive role of any power in Syria given the present realities, eclipsing Russia, Turkey, the Gulf, and the West (including the U.S.) in helping to make a humanitarian difference and saves lives. It is beneath the dignity of Iran to be an accomplice in the abuses of Assad against his own people, and Iran can be more than just a no-questions-asked ally like Russia, which is even taking part in the mass killings with its air force and heavy weapons. While Iran’s own government has its issues with human rights, it has never done anything to its own people that rises to Assad’s level of brutality, even in the suppressions that followed the end of the 1979 Iranian Revolution; during the run-up the Revolution, the Shah, too, did not even come close to Assad’s current levels of mass murder. 

Part of the spirit of the Iranian Revolution was originally one of standing up to oppression; for Iran to be true to itself and its ideals, it must work to help alleviate the suffering of Syria’s people, not just Alawite, but Sunnis, too, Kurds, and all of Syria’s people, especially to protect civilians at the mercy of Assad’s government and Russia’s air force who have been shown no mercy or next to none. With its troops on the ground and its close ally Hezbollah heavily involved in fighting in Syria on Assad’s behalf, and with Assad’s own official forces so heavily depleted, Iran is in the best position to do something about human rights and saving lives in Syria. If it does so clearly, visibly, and verifiably under international observers, it will win hearts and minds all over the West and the Sunni world, in addition to the Shiite world. 

If it helps Assad kill genocidal or near-genocidal-numbers of Syrians and turns a blind eye to this reality, it will be behaving just like Russia is now and like Saddam Hussein behaved in Iraq, and far crueler than the Shah. I believe Iran can be better than this, and if that happens, maybe not under Trump, but eventually the American government will show substantive appreciation for such actions of protection and mercy, along with the rest of the world community. But right now, with the world horrified not just by ISIS (and rightfully so) but also by the Assad government’s actions in Syria and especially Aleppo (and rightfully so), Iran is associated with this killing in Syria and it makes it harder for the West to proceed on negotiating with Iran when it comes to other issues, negotiations that may lead to the removal of non-nuclear sanctions. In fact, Iran turning a blind eye to mass killing in Syria makes it that much harder for other regional partners to trust it in working to find common ground on and resolutions to other important Middle Eastern issues.

Any who doubt that Iran and the U.S. can find common ground should look only to the crisis with former-Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki from 2014, when the Obama Administration, Iran, Iraq’s Shiite political establishment, and Shiite religious leaders in both Iran and Iraq came together to insist the divisive Maliki step aside to give new, less divisive leadership a chance, giving eventual rise to the far more accommodating team of Dr. Haider al-Abadi (more on that in my article here). Iraqi, Iranian, and American interests are all better-off as a result, and especially the Iraqi people, thus proving American-Iranian cooperation can bring about positive change to the region. 

Ironically, the Trump Administration will be far less concerned about human rights than other recent American administrations and is seeking to come together with Russia, which makes Iran’s respect for human rights all the more important when it comes to Syria. I can say one thing: to be seen coming together with Putin and Trump in working against human rights and ganging up against Sunnis will not raise Iran’s standing globally, nor will it make things better for the people of the Middle East, whether they are Shiite, Sunni, or of other faiths; the last thing that is in Iran’s and the region’s interests is a worsening of the Sunni-Shiite conflict already playing out across the region. With the rise of Trump, Iran has a unique chance to be a champion of human rights, peace, and mercy in a region where now even fewer powers are acting towards those ends. I hope Iran’s leaders and people together see that this is a great opportunity for them, even in spite of the many challenges, some unfair, Iran may face in choosing such a course. But the right course is often not the easiest, as the lives of the Prophet Muhammad and the major Shiite Imams Ali and Hussain, so revered by Iranians, amply demonstrate.

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 Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse May 26, 2016 

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) May 26th, 2016

Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

EILAT and TEL AVIV — In what has become a constant occurrence throughout the 2016 Republican nomination contest, Trump’s own behavior has so lowered the bar as to what is considered “acceptable” that when he behaves in a way that is only mildly offensive as opposed to egregiously offensive, that when he speaks using prepared notes in a normal tone as opposed to yelling and rambling incoherently, people that are held to be respectable mainstream analysts are able to claim Trump is “presidential” and “serious” and is “improving” as a candidate.

Apart from Trump’s AIPAC speech, perhaps no better example of this has happened thus far during his campaign than his recent foreign policy speech.

Trump’s Elementary Mentality

For starters, Trump used the word “great” eighteen times in his address.  While it would be inane to expect the American people to elect someone of the linguistic abilities of Shakespeare, I myself remember how by middle-school, my instructors took great pains to teach us that using the same word over and over again was not to be desired, and that variety was an essential aspect of what is to be considered “good” communication.  Then again, as it has been pointed out, Trump tends to communicate at best at a middle-school level, and often at an elementary-school level; this is not some expression, but the result of sophisticated linguistic analyses.

Pretty early in his speech, Trump made clear that the cornerstone of his foreign policy would be to “put…‘America First.’”  I think it would be hard to accuse even the worst of our presidents of not acting in what they felt were the best interests of the United States, or to find one that acted on behalf of other nations primarily, and not on behalf of America; thus, while this is certainly a crowd-pleaser among some segments of the population, on a substantive level this “cornerstone” can only fairly be regarded as pointless, for while the segments of the population that appreciate such language feel that President Obama and others who don’t think like them are traitors who actively try to sabotage the United States in the interest of helping the Muslim Brotherhood or other apparently nefarious actors, such talk is simply inane and not even worth addressing… unless you are a mainstream Republican candidate for the presidency.

Another thing worth noting is how many times Trump repeats himself throughout.  That means even though Trump spoke at some length, the “content” of the speech was stretched pretty thinly throughout.

Dr. Trump Diagnoses U.S. Foreign Policy Problems

Trump then went on to assert that there are five main weaknesses in today’s American foreign policy, only one of which was accurate, and even that one is not exactly something that can be controlled on America’s end directly.

1.) “First,” he began, “our resources are totally over extended,” and maintained that Obama’s actions that have weakened the economy have thus weakened the military and America’s power in the world. 

What’s ironic about this criticism is that Obama, more than any president since the end of the Cold War, has retrenched, reducing and pulling back American commitments overseas, most notably in Iraq and now in Afghanistan, and cutting what was a historically and unnecessarily high defense budget in ways not seen since the end of the Cold War and more steeply than any time since the end of the Korean War.  If anything, Obama has clearly helped the U.S. to be less overextended. 

POGO.org

As for the economy, since the peak lows during the Great Recession—the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression—Obama has overseen 74 consecutive months of net job creation (a record for any president), the Dow Jones and the S&P 500 stock indexes have more than doubled in value, the export-import trade deficit has fallen by 24%, America has risen to become the world’s number-one producer of both oil and natural gas, and the unemployment rate has been cut in half.  So Obama has clearly “outperform[ed] Reagan on jobs, growth, and investing.”  Now, this does not tell the full story, and there are aspects of the economy which are certainly still troubling, but by any measure these numbers are impressive, even when allowing for very real problems, and one can hardly claim that Obama is “weakening our economy” overall, as Trump claims. 

Trump’s first major point can be dismissed, then.

2.) “Secondly, our allies are not paying their fair share,” and he expects them, especially fellow NATO members, to pay up, and pay up far more than they have been. 

Trump actually has a point here, besides the U.S. only four other NATO members are meeting their NATO defense-spending obligations.  But these decisions are not up to the Obama Administration, and while Obama could try to undiplomatically strong-arm close allies to do even more than the Obama Administration is already urging them to do, at a time when China and Russia are rising, when combating global terrorism requires better, not worse relationships, it is hardly a given that bullying our allies into paying more would be the best method.  And yet, Trump still has a point—EU nations and others that enjoy a high standard of living (including better education and healthcare than America) while America puts more effort into defending these same countries from potential foes like Russia, China, and North Korea than these countries expend themselves is definitely an imbalance that should be adjusted—but this has been the case long before Obama and Obama is not the one to blame for it.

3.) Then, “Thirdly, our friends are beginning to think they can’t depend on us. We’ve had a president who dislikes our friends and bows to our enemies, something that we’ve never seen before in the history of our country.”

Like his first claim, this statement of Trump’s is also very problematic.  As noted above, the Obama Administration does more than its fair share to contribute to European security, and Obama has led a regime of economic sanctions against Russia that have quite likely restrained the scope and intensity of its aggressiveness.  Europe, India, Russia, and China also very much wanted progress in improving the West’s relationship with Iran, and Obama led the way in achieving a historic nuclear agreement between the world’s most powerful nations and Iran’s government on their nuclear program.  But Trump’s criticism focuses on this Iran deal, which he and many Republicans (and Netanyahu and many Israelis) myopically and erroneously label a “disastrous deal.” 

Part of the argument that is made against this Iran deal is the claim that this deal makes Israel less safe, an absurd argument that is related to an absurd general criticism that many Republicans and many Israelis make in which, in Trump’s words, “President Obama has not been a friend to Israel.”  In fact, under Obama, Israel has seen a notable increase American in military aid and has been given more American military aid overall and on average per year than under any previous American president.  This aid includes the highly effective Iron Dome missile/rocket defense system, so effective in neutralizing Hamas’ and other militant groups’ rocket attacks against Israel. Besides this, Obama has not been shy in using the diplomatic might of America to defend Israel, the U.S. both being the sole Security Council veto of a resolution critical of Israeli settlement building in early 2011 and using pressure behind to scenes to push against Palestinian diplomatic efforts.  As is obvious to many, doing right by Israel does not mean supporting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party’s agenda.  That Obama challenged Israel under Netanyahu to do what’s in its own interests is not “throwing Israel under the bus,” it’s being a true, honest friend.  So while Obama does not hand over to Israel (increasing) billions every year in military aid without letting Israel know that its occupation and expansion of settlements is inflammatory and self-destructive, this does not make him an enemy of Israel. 

As for our other allies, Obama has been increasing America’s military presence in Eastern Europe to reassure allies wary of Russian aggression as well as increasing it in East Asia to reassure our Asian allies wary of aggressive Chinese moves.  So it is hard to find substantive examples of where we have let our allies down, though we may not always agree 100% with each other, as is the case with every American president.

And the whole fuss that people made over Obama “bowing” to foreign leaders was selective outrage at best and misleading at worst.  Another silly non-issue.

Thus, Trump’s narrative here is also false.

4.) After that, we have “Fourth, our rivals no longer respect us.”

“No longer” in this case implies that America’s image in the past was better.  As objectively measured in reliable global public opinion surveys, this can be dismissed at least in comparing America under Obama to America under George W. Bush, where a clear general trend of global opinion has been an improvement in America’s standing under Obama.  The largest downward trend in recent decades was a sharp decline in global opinion from the years of Bill Clinton’s presidency to when George W. Bush was president.  In short, any recent major decline in the respect people have had for America has a strong association with the Republican presidency of George W. Bush, not Democrats Barack Obama or Bill Clinton.  So Trump’s characterization of placing a supposed decline in the respect the world has for America as being associated mainly with Obama simply flies in the face of the facts. 

While it is true that, in contrast to many other nations, China’s opinion of America has dipped slightly and Russia’s has tanked, this is due to the increasing divergence of interests in the South China Sea on one hand, and in Eastern Europe and Syria on the other.  In addition, Putin has based much of his power on using state-owned and social media to whip up propaganda, including anti-American sentiment.  In addition, Russia was happy to invade U.S. ally Georgia even when George W. Bush was president, and China’s recent assertiveness is a reflection of its recent growth in power more than anything else, fueled by its impressive economic growth in recent years.  And in both Russia and China, it could be argued that its people like America less because Obama is standing up to their governments’ aggression.

To be fair, the Obama administration’s single biggest blunder to its credibility—backing away in 2013 from the “red line” it set for Syria’s Assad—did not help with the respect America’s rivals have for America; but to define Obama’s presidency on this single incident, and to blame him for the chaos erupting around the world, from the Arab Spring to the refugee crises in Europe and the Middle East, is myopic and extremely American-centered.  If anything, anti-Americanism is fueled by decades-long American policies, including aggressive military action, support for Israel, and support for oppressive regimes during the Cold War, not specifically because of President Obama.

Under Obama, even after historic cuts, America’s military spending (#1 in the world) still dwarfs China’s (#2) and Russia’s (#4) combined spending, and that is a reality of power that both Russia and China respect whether they admit it or not.  In the end, tying our rivals’ assertiveness to Obama’s policies and personality at the expense of other factors is speculative at best, then.

Thus, we have another dubious assertion on the part of Trump.

5.) And “Finally, America no longer has a clear understanding of our foreign policy goals. Since the end of the Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet Union, we’ve lacked a coherent foreign policy.”  

Perhaps that is because the world is much more complicated now as far as international relations.  Trump early in his speech vowed to create a “new foreign policy direction, one that replaces randomness with purpose.”  For Trump, “after the Cold War…our foreign policy began to make less and less sense.”  This involves the typical assumption that conservatives makes all too often about the American foreign policy and the current world in which that policy needs to be crafted to fit.  For American conservatives, the Cold War is remembered somewhat fondly: the Soviet Union was unquestionable our biggest problem, threat, and adversary, with no other nation even coming close; our foreign policy subordinated all else to the competition between our two nations and their competing ideologies of free-market democracy vs. state-run economic communism/socialism.  Our aims and objectives throughout the Cold War remained consistent and obvious: counter the Soviet Union by any means necessary, preferably but not limiting ourselves to the spread of free-market capitalism and democracy, at least in theory.  Conservatives fail to remember with much clarity that this often meant, in practice, promoting undemocratic and abusively oppressive regimes that opened their markets to us but opened as well as prisons and torture rooms for dissidents within their own borders.  It is in these very trade-offs of convenience that roots of both the 9/11 attacks and many of the problems in the world today lie.

So for Trump and Republicans, they are right on one thing: foreign policy was far more simply conceived and strategized in the Cold War, and was executed without the same amount of hand-wringing and (social) media attention that is the norm in our present world.  If people living in Vietnam could live-tweet and post camera-phone pictures and videos of American carpet-bombing raids and killings like those at My Lai, the Vietnam War would have been a very different experience with potentially very different outcomes.  In other words, simplicity did not necessarily lead to the best long-term results.  Of course, Trump presents a hubristic vision of the Cold War in which the U.S. “won big,” with Reagan the Great getting much of the credit (of course, in this view, the Berlin Wall coming down and the the Soviet system was a consequence of Reagan’s rhetoric, and internal Soviet dynamics and policies, decisions on the part of Gorbachev to reform the USSR and essentially stand his forces down and to respect the will of the people—a hallmark of much of his later period of leadership—are myopically not considered or mentioned as major factors).

The solution to today’s foreign policy problems?  To return to the consistency and simplicity of our foreign policy approach of Reagan and the Cold War.  He engaged in a critique of what he called the “Obama-Clinton” approach to the world, notably repeating a number of repeatedly debunked assertions about Clinton’s response to the Benghazi attacks.

The problem is, the world is a much more complex place than the bipolar world of the Cold War; the current unipolar system, perhaps transitioning to a multipolar one, begs for a different approach, one not rooted in simplicity but in complexity.  A one-size-fits all “consistent” approach would very clearly be a poor fit for today’s more complex world.  This means that consistency is not to necessarily be pursued, as a nuanced and complex world requires different approaches for each new crisis.  Another problem is that while policy during the Cold War was relatively consistent compared with today’s foreign policy, it, too, was subject to nuance and departures and is hardly as simple as some make it out to be.

Trump also made clear that “We’re getting out of the nation-building business and instead focusing on creating stability in the world.”  This statement itself is a slap in the face of logic, as it is weakening, failing, and failed states that are among the greatest contributors to global and regional instability, including the fueling of terrorist movements like ISIS. It’s also a slap in the face to the most successful U.S. foreign policy ever: nation building in Europe with the Marshall Plan and with the American occupation of Japan after WWII are the main reasons why peace has reigned in Europe and East Asia ever since; without nation building, it is very likely that war, extremism, and chaos would have reigned instead.

Still, Trump seemed to articulate that the solutions to today’s crises are rooted in the strategy America had in the Cold War, a conflict that was quite different from the challenges faced by the world today and an ill-fit for as a toolbox for crafting an approach for today’s very different world.

Thus, Trump is wrong to call for a simple, unified approach to foreign policy; if anything, today’s more complex world requires inconsistency as each crisis and region requires solutions that defy them being lumped into a single box.

Dr. Trump’s Prescription to Make America’s Foreign Policy Great Again

Trump then laid out the pillars of his own “foreign policy”:

1.) “First,” he said, “we need a long-term plan to halt the spread and reach of radical Islam. Trump doesn’t really have a plan, as the lack of specifics in this speech demonstrate.  However, Obama has an approach that is set up quite well for longer-terms success, as I have pointed out before.  As part of this, he says “we must as a nation be more unpredictable.”  While there is merit in keeping our enemies guessing, too much unpredictability will unnerve our allies as well.  Either way, Trump has far from demonstrated that he has any competent, detailed ideas for dealing with ISIS, while Obama’s strategy, which Trump criticizes profusely without even understanding it, is very sound.

2.) Then, “Secondly, we have to rebuild our military and our economy.” This has been covered, already, and this statement is simply nonsense.  See above.

A.) After that, either as an aside or as a separate point, Trump says “We must even treat…[our veterans] really, really well and that will happen under the Trump administration.” There’s no denying the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA) had and still has serious problems, and there’s no denying that the Obama Administration should have addressed these problems with far more energy than it did.  But the simple fact of the matter is that the lion’s share of the VA’s problems go back many years, and Obama inherited a situation that was a ticking time bomb, most notably from the fact that the Bush Administration fought two significant wars over nearly a decade and did not prepare the VA for what was going to obviously be a serious increase in the number of veterans needing treatment; as soon as the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions began, expansion of funding, staffing, and support for VA services should have been among the first steps undertaken and should have been further expanded as the wars grew longer and more costly.

3.) “Finally,” Trump continues, “we must develop a foreign policy based on American interests.” Again, going back to our earlier commentary, this almost doesn’t even need to be addressed, so silly is this statement. 

Still: Trump engaged in a disorganized and meandering explanation of what this means.  He cites the Clinton years of the 1990s as a time of policy in which we were not acting in our interests based on a few isolated but not insignificant attacks Trump cited as somehow indicative of American policy being totally off -course, even though under Clinton we enjoyed an unprecedented jobs boom and employment growth, helped to bring stability to Europe several times by ending two wars there, and had a better relationship with Russia than any during any other American president’s administration, with the arguable exception of FDR.  Trump then made points he already made about the Middle East.  He then proceeded to spout a series of vague generalities on improving relationships with Russia and China and about the use of military force.  

For Trump, success relies on having a “disciplined, deliberate and consistent foreign policy.”  This coming from a candidate whose entire behavior on the campaign trail has been anything but.  Even within the speech, he seems unaware of the apparent contradictions (e.g., calling for stability while casting aside the role of nation building, calling for closer alliances while also threatening to weaken them).  He then repeated yet again some of his earlier points about the Middle East and the U.S. economy, and took additional jabs at NAFTA, tying all this into putting “America First” again, and vowed to bring in new and different voices into the foreign policy machine in order to do so.  Additionally, he also had this very contradictory statement to make:

“Finally, I will work with our allies to reinvigorate Western values and institutions. Instead of trying to spread universal values that not everybody shares or wants, we should understand that strengthening and promoting Western civilization and its accomplishments will do more to inspire positive reforms around the world than military interventions.” 

In a broad sense, basic Western values—democracy, human rights, equality, transparency—have been spreading, and even where they are not present are generally sought by people in the face of their intransigent governments.  Battles over religion and gender are particularly difficult, but do not negate the fact that many “Western” values since WWII and especially after the Cold War are approaching a universal quality, especially as embodied by the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Trump correctly maintains that these values should not be spread at gunpoint, but then calls for “promoting Western civilization” even as he criticizes the idea that we should “spread universal values that not everybody shares or wants.”  So in the same paragraph, Trump is confusing as to whether or not he thinks the West should promote its values, even as he is clear about not using force to do so, while at the same time asserting he would be firmer than Obama about use-of-force red lines, or “a line in the sand,” as Trump put it.  In fact, this paragraph sums up his speech nicely: full of different ideas and talking points that sound good alone, but that Trump failed to connect coherently in this address and articulated in ways that were often either confusing at best or contradictory at worst.

Trump’s Speech: A Perfect Representation of GOP “Foreign Policy”

Several Republican foreign policy bigwigs, falling pretty easily for Trump’s plummeting expectations game, including the Republican Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Bob Corker and George W. Bush’s Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, praised the speech.  Former Republican Speaker of the House (and possible Trump vice presidential running mate) Newt Gingrich also praised Trump’s speech, calling it “very serious” and “presidential.”

Seth Wenig/AP

But this Republican Party is a party that has been devoid for some time of substantive and serious ideas about foreign policy, which is a reality that was on display beyond any reasonable doubt (and not for the first time) as numerous Republican presidential candidates showed how out of their depth they were back in a December debate focused on foreign policy and security.  A few months before that, we had the Benghazi hearing featuring Clinton, and well before that, another case in point is George W. Bush’s presidency.  Trump’s foreign policy speech—and candidacy—is only the latest sign that the Republican Party and most of its voters are not serious or substantive.

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Here are many more articles by Brian E. Frydenborg.  If you think your site or another would be a good place for this content please do not hesitate to reach out to him! Feel free to share and repost on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter(you can follow him there at @bfry1981)

 Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse January 18, 2016   

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) January 18th, 2016

Evan Vucci – Pool/Getty Images

AMMAN — President Barack  Obama began his final State of the Union speech by speaking undeniable facts about the strength of the economy, later followed by undeniable facts about the security threats from terrorism: how bad they were, and how bad they were not, with a caution against fear and bigotry, in addition to discussing other issues.  These are facts that most Republican candidates want to ignore or deny.  In fact, Obama sounded like a reasonable man asking for reasonable things.  Not, generally, pie in the sky idealism, not calls for the improbable but just the doable.  He busted myth after myth, from the economy to climate change to immigration to foreign policy.  He mentioned smart, sensible, non-extremist goals and strategies on domestic and foreign policy. The rational man calling for rational things was a sad picture, though, too: he was addressing a Congressional body that has been anything but rational since the advent of the Tea Party.  Thus, there is a tragic quality to the scene of such a rational man addressing a multitude consisting of mainly the irrational.

There were many bittersweet things about watching Obama’s final State of the Union speech.  Actually, that’s an understatement because there were many bittersweet feelings as I was watching this man, my president, for whom I had voted twice, give his final address to Congress as outlined in Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution.  This meant that my reactions went from being proud and pleased to being disappointed and frustrated.  But even for his faults, very humanely put on display last night, I could not help but like, admire, and respect this great man as I saw and heard him speak.

No matter how frustrated I am with President Obama, his greatest traits always shine through.  Let’s go through them in detail, as displayed in this final State of the Union speech:

THE GOOD

Charles Dharapak/AP

1.) The sheer force of his vast intellect and his willingness to use it

Acclaim Images

Even if you absolutely hate Obama and are a rabid Trump supporter, it is impossible to deny that this man has a brilliant mind.  You might disagree with how he uses it, you might think his understanding of the world is naïve and childish and flat-out-wrong, but the man is unabashedly a thinker and is clearly a man who thinks through things deeply, who is very articulate and well read, and who clearly was not out of place intellectually at Harvard Law School, where he stood out among one of the highest concentrations of brilliant and ambitious minds in the world. 

This is a man who got to see much of the world at an early age and became wiser for his experiences abroad, who clearly displays both a boundless intellectual curiosity and strong tendency to spend time deliberating over problems rather than carelessly rolling dice and jumping into situations impulsively with the feeling of some sort of grand divine wind at his back, markedly unlike his predecessor.  After overdosing on a wanna-be “cowboy” (whatever that means) who thinks that John Wayne is an acceptable source for political philosophy, I was perhaps always and foremost grateful for this aspect of President Obama after eight years of George W. Bush.  I knew that Obama was a man who would spend time thinking over issues and was smart and worldly enough to make his own decisions based on his own understanding, not just rely on personal relationships and trust to make decisions based mainly on who were better advocates of their own agendas because of a Bush-esque lack of a command of the issues.  Like Lincoln, Obama had many smart people around him, his own team of rivals, and more often than not he played them and their disagreements against each other to get the best advice and then make his own decision with their input.  Bush, on the other hand, was a victim of his own team’s rivalries, and lacked the knowledge and judgment to realize when his closest, most trusted people were flat out wrong until it was far too late. 

If anything, Obama moved the pendulum too far into the deliberative mode at the expense of action some of the time, but, frankly, this is exactly what the American voters as a whole decided they wanted after George W. Bush: they would rather have their leader overthink than underthink, rather not act after the “decisive” impulsive blunders of Bush lead to national disasters unprecedented in modern history than act too rashly.  We’d had enough of “the decider” and his “decision points;” in many ways, the image of our president being Rodin’s The Thinker was a comforting one, and an image we badly needed to send to the world at the time.  His general policy—“Don’t do stupid shit”—may not be perfect but it was just what we wanted (and in many ways needed) after what many consider to be a “lost” decade of recklessness and missed opportunities.  To be fair to Obama, while I would argue that there are some big moments when he should have acted more and thought less, I am willing to admit that I respect the fact that he respected the fact that out power is not limitless and that our capacity for error and for the possibility of unintended consequences were rational reasons not to do more. 

His thoughtful, deliberative State of the Union certainly reminded us that we had a thoughtful, deliberative president.

2.) A superb understanding of the problems of America and the world

AP Photo/Jacky Naegelen, pool

I’ve studied politics, international relations, foreign affairs, conflict, and policy for over fifteen years now.  Most Americans have not.  That places a gulf between most of them and me, the same way an electrical engineer, surgeon, or mandarin speaker who each studied their crafts for over fifteen years would put a vast gulf between themselves and me on those subjects.  It therefore gives me great comfort to see, in Obama, someone who thinks like me: he looks at a problem, studies it, and then uses that info to figure out what needs to be done.  There is not a tremendous amount of ideology in this approach, save aversions to cynicism, selling people out, and acting on emotion.  He knows how to look at the world and he understands it in the general sense of the way I do.  He understands that complex problems do not usually have simple solutions and that reducing things to “good” and “evil” is not usually a productive way to problem solve.  He is also culturally sensitive and has a knack for speaking to people on their terms, not his or ours (that, my friends, is how you reach people).  With Obama, I never had to worry about some sort of irrational, emotional, born-again, religious-driven approach to public policy and political problems.  Regardless of how effective he was as a leader, knowing that Obama could see problems, America, and the world clearly and appreciate that strategy and tactics, speech and deeds, are different things, gave me great comfort.

That in his speech he put a proper perspective on things like terrorism and immigration, where so much misinformation, emotion, and irrationality are omnipresent, was fitting and characteristic of Obama indeed.

3.) Cool, calm, and collected

Buzzfeed video

Another thing I love about Obama is that that man has self-control and knows that getting worked up, and working people up, is often part of the problem in Washington.  He can be relaxed and actually crack some good jokes while being cool and professional.  I appreciated that he made decisions based on a cold analysis, not raw emotions.  The man generally keeps his composure in a way far too many politicians now, especially Tea Partiers, routinely fail to do.  Sure, sometimes people wanted him to be more emotional, but are we that childish that we need our leader to explicitly and loudly express whatever emotions we are feeling at the moment?  Sometimes, I think Republicans think being president is like being a high school football coach (no wonder the areas where high school football is so popular tend to vote Republican).  Obama knows that a cool delivery is all the more effective: Republicans freaked out when Obama didn’t start screaming and bombing in response to Putin’s moves in Ukraine, but Obama fairly quietly implemented sanctions that have helped to cripple Russia’s economy; that’s some Darth Vader stuff, with Obama practically Force-choking Putin economically.  That’s pretty badass in a leader. 

Obama always carried himself with grace and dignity, not with goofiness and shooting-from-the-hip eye-roll-inducing gaffes.  After Bush, Obama felt a bit like James Bond, and that was refreshing.  Yes, sometimes he would tear up when talking about murdered children, sometime he would channel the great African-American rhetorical tradition to communicate in a different style than his normal approach, but Obama was usually one cool customer in an era where the rhetoric has increasingly become hyperbolic and extreme.  Often, those making the most noise and spewing the most venom were quick to blame Obama for the partisanship, but just listening to Obama and taking in his delivery, it was clear they had no one to blame but themselves for the tone and partisanship of the era. 

Throughout most of the last seven years, at the very least the President of the United States did his best to personally set an example of a tone that was respectful and measured, grounded and cordial relative to what was devolving around him.  That he kept his cool so well in these trying times was a credit to him and his presidency, showing that it was possible to operate a measured, mature approach.  And often (see the Benghazi hearing with Clinton) but not always, he laid down an example that his party followed much more often that the Republicans did.

4.) Obama’s likability

Admit it: Obama is just likable.  He’s obviously super smart but also has a common touch, able to talk sports or music and crack a good joke while he is out and about. He smiles a lot (and what a killer smile) and can speak and appeal to people of all kinds of diverse backgrounds.  The man can also sing, whether it’s Al Green or “Amazing Grace.”  He is relaxed, and easy to talk to, and thrives in town-hall style meetings. In fact, the second town-hall-style debate against Romney was the moment for many when Obama successfully fended off Romney’s candidacy.  It’s not bad to have a cool president that people at home and around the world actually like and can identify with when he travels around the world.  Heck, even some Republicans admit that Obama is a likable guy.  This quality of his was very much on display as he delivered his final State of the Union speech, which he even opened with a joke about the 2016 presidential race.

5.) Obama’s idealism

Shepard Fairey

Soon, I will be brutally honest about Obama’s idealism’s limitations and its downside, but, to be fair, I must also acknowledge its positives.  Many Americans find themselves cynical and jaded (myself among them); some are so desperate to find change that they flock to dangerously naïve, inexperienced, and unprepared candidates, or to those who have virtually no shot at winning a general election.  To have our head of state not give into this cynicism and to be constantly promoting a lofty idealism, and at least show the American public and the world that even if we have given up on each other and ourselves that our leader has not, is not insignificant.  Even if they seem distant, the visions of America, its people, and its politics that Obama keeps dangling in front of us that at least remind us what is, theoretically at least, possible, even if not this year or even soon.  And it is important for us to hear these things.  Obama keeps confidently projecting that our best days are ahead of us, and, in spite of all the problems we face, he may be right.  One thing Obama that deserves credit for understanding is that if Americans don’t believe we have better days ahead, that makes it that much more difficult bring about a more positive reality.  Even if Obama has failed to convince many of this, you sure can’t blame him for trying. 

Obama also knows how essential it is that the Democrats and Republicans work together to pass legislation to solve America’s problems, even if Republicans in Congress are not very interested in working with him or Democrats at all.  That Obama tried, and tried hard, to reach out to Republicans—for example: helping to incorporate many conservative, Republican-originated ideas into the Affordable Car Act (ACA)—is something else which for which he is to be commended to a degree, at least in principle.  Even in his final State of the Union, Obama pleaded not only with politicians but with the American people to work together for the common good with passion and eloquence, laying a vision of the future that should be a common aspiration for all Americans.

Having just gone over what I will miss most about Obama, using his speech to illustrate these points, now, I will go over what I find most frustrating about him, using the same speech.

THE BAD

AP

1.) Obama’s idealism

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

Yes, we have some overlaps here: one of Obama’s greatest strengths is perhaps also his greatest weakness.  Obama came into office ready to hold hands with Republicans, take their ideas into account and include them in his programs, ready to sit down at the table with them and discuss, discuss, and discuss… He expected reasoned and prevailed argument to prevail.  His expectations were lofty indeed, and reality never came close to them.  As I noted, to a degree this is admirable.  But pretty early on—in fact, even before he assumed office—it was clear that a dark undercurrent of America’s polity, harnessing racism, ignorance, fear, demagoguery, regionalism, and obstructionism at some of its worst manifestations since the Civil Rights Era—was coming to take corporeal form; it was clear when only three Republican senators and zero Republican representatives voted for the stimulus package, but the form of this dark undercurrent was most visibly demonstrated in the gestation of the Tea Party in the season of the great “debate” over health care reform.  In many places in the country, mobs shouted down congressman attempting to defend or discuss the Administration’s attempts at healthcare reform during town hall meetings with their constituents.  The Democrats’ plan advocated by Obama incorporated several significant conservative and Republican-originated ideas, and gave up on some long-held liberal dreams like a public-option or a single-payer system, but this made no difference to congressional Republicans in the end and got him not one single Republican vote for the Affordable Care Act.  Basically, Obama began negotiations with major compromises, intended as an olive branch to win over Republican goodwill, but seeking that goodwill proved to be a fool’s errand as, in the end, the Republicans were only interested in obstruction or sabotage.  This meant that Obama began from a weakened bargaining position, having already offered compromises publicly to a hardened and intransigent Republican Party that had no interest cooperating with Obama whatsoever. 

Yes, it made sense for him to try to work with Republicans, but not long after it was clear they would not work with him, he should have gone into combat mode.  Instead, he kept trying to earn their support long after it was clear it was not coming.  What was most unforgivable is that Obama continued this style of “leadership” well after the lessons of the stimulus and ACA, for years, even into his second term, and this resulted in Obama being repeatedly outplayed on budget deals, to the frustration of his own party; through this approach, Obama also unwittingly helped to legitimize threatening both government shutdowns and not voting to raise the debt ceiling as legitimate hostage-taking-style tactics for Republican extremists because he rewarded such threats, while his own efforts at bipartisanship have gone largely unrewarded.  It was hard for me not to laugh out loud when Obama suggested in his speech that even now Republicans and Democrats could work together to pass meaningful legislation…

In his speech he also seemed to think that somehow the American people will improve the tone and tenor of our politics, which seem terribly naïve, given that we ourselves are becoming increasingly more partisan and that we are the ones who have been electing increasingly partisan people to office who are reflecting the pressures that we are placing upon them.

Sadly, the same idealism that made him such an attractive candidate and helped propel him into the White House was one of his largest constraints while he was in office.  Even as he appealed to our idealism in his final State of the Union, for many, including his supporters, the limits of his idealism and the problems it caused were only too painfully obvious.

2.) Obama’s disdain of politics, or, Obama the professor vs. Obama the president

Obama campaign

There are times when I wonder if Obama knows the difference between lectures and leadership, being a professor and being a president.  This State of the Union speech, sadly, was one of those times.

I will admit, I kind of felt stupid when I was watching the speech.  When Obama started talking about how much our system needed to change, when he mentioned redistricting (which I have identified as one of the major problems facing our democratic republic), I thought for the briefest of seconds that he was going to say advocate constitutional amendments to address redistricting and money in politics (Hillary Clinton has been advocating a constitutional amendment to help address campaign finance for some time).  Barring some sort of major disaster/attack, this is the last time Obama will command the attention of this large a number of Americans, so I thought he might, I don’t know, be bold.  That he would call for a constitutional amendment, that he would announce a plan to mobilize activists to lobby state legislatures and congressmen and that he would tour the country to drum up support and force the issue just in time for the election.  But that’s kind of a lie; I knew deep down that this is what I wanted, that this is what I wished, but that this was not on Obama’s nature or character.  This was classic Obama, giving a lecture to university students: “Ok class, today I’m going to lay out what the problems are, and discuss what needs to be done to solve those problems.”  And, much like a professor, Obama does both these things excellently.  But then the lecture is up, like all situations with all professors and all classes, nothing happens after class.  Like a professor, he steps away from the podium as if it is not his role to take a commanding lead and tell us step-by-step what his plan is and how he will take us all forward, how he will overcome obstacles, how he will get things done.  Like a professor, he look at the presidency in a pure, academic form, where the Constitution does not call for the president to campaign for his party and its agenda.  Thus ends theory, but in practice the party of the president very much relies the president to be its campaigner in chief.  But Obama, with his clear disdain of politics, shunned this role, tried to remain aloof and apart from the party politics.  In fact, he did this to such a degree that members of his own party angrily complainedthat he was not helping them enough in their reelection campaigns, a traditional if informal part of the modern presidency.  In general, Obama stayed out of the trenches and preferred to delegate lobbying Congress to his vice president, Joe Biden.

Even on his greatest domestic policy accomplishment—The Affordable Care Act—this is more than amply demonstrated.  Obama the professor campaigned on the broad outcomes we needed in healthcare reform.  Obama the professor then let Congress and the American people debate for months about what a plan would and would not look like, let congressional democrats take the lead in crafting a plan.  Obama the professor even held an academic-conference-like summit with Congressional Republicans and Democrats (it accomplished nothing: note the lack of similar summits after this one).  At no point did he simply say “Here is the plan my team and I have come up with” and pressured his own party like hell to pass it when Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate.  Obama the professor preferred to stay aloof and above the politics as much as possible, Obama the professor viewed a clear line between Congress and the Presidency when it came to legislation, preferring to let Congress, not his team, write the bill.  Obama never made any public attempt to advocate for single-payer or a public option, and the Affordable Care Act was significantly weaker and less impressive than it could have been, starting from a position already offering compromise and hanging in the air for months while the President stayed on the sidelines and during which public opinion, exposed to unified Republican distortions and misinformation without President Obama leading Democrats with a vigorous counternarrative, soured on the bill.  The end result reflects all these tactical and strategic mistakes by the Obama Administration, and even for all its accomplishments, the ACA fell far short of what it could have been. Thus, in the end, ACA/Obamacare was far less than the outcomes Obama had campaigned for, but having delegated the task of crafting the solution to lesser men, the result is hardly surprising. 

This was how Obama acted when it came to his signature piece of domestic legislation, so I must have been crazy if I thought Obama was going to help lead and guide an attempt at a constitutional amendment overturning the infamous Citizens United Supreme Court decision.

Even now, I want to scream at Obama, “You have time!  Pick one big thing and just throw yourself into it, be relentless, tour the country, lobby individual Congressman, president like your time presidenting is almost over, because it is almost over!”  But it would be useless.  And this is probably the most vexing thing for me when it comes to Obama, something I will never understand.  What happened to the “fierce urgency of now???”  It sure could have been fiercer.  And with a gifted politician like Obama in the vanguard… well, the tantalizing thoughts of lost possibilities, especially in the crucial first few years, especially when there was a chance to dent the impact of the Tea Party, are heartbreaking to consider…

This last Obama State of the Union speech was Obama at his best, but also his worst.  It was Obama being Obama.

*****

THE LEGACY

How, then, in the end, will Obama be remembered?  Perhaps, not altogether fairly, he will be remembered primarily as America’s first non-white and first black president (even though he is half white!).  This is an extremely symbolic thing and yet the making it happen was quite a thing of substance.  Yet this has nothing to do with the man’s accomplishments once in office: digging America out of the colossal economic ditch it was thrown into by the Bush Administration, first with the continuation and implementation of TARP and then Obama’s implementation of the stimulus, putting America on a slow but steady path to recovery; making America the largest producer of oil and natural gas in the world and greatly reducing America’s dependence on foreign energy while also dramatically increasing America’s use of renewable energy; singing into law the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), the greatest piece of domestic legislation and step forward for the American healthcare system since the Civil and Voting Rights Acts and the creation of Medicare and Medicaid under Lyndon Jonson in the 1960s; appointing two competent, fine women judges to the Supreme Court; bringing Osama bin Laden to justice; ending the U.S. occupation of Iraq responsibly; and achieving major diplomatic breakthroughs with both Iran and Cuba, achieving a nuclear agreement with the latter that should prevent a war between Iran and the West for many years to come and perhaps far beyond that.

The White House

Yes, Obama could have achieved so much more, could have fought harder and led more boldly, and it is a tragedy that he was unable to use the office of president more effectively.  But it was the better angel of his nature—his desire to bring Republicans and Democrats together, to work in a bipartisan manner, to transcend party politics—that often led to his greatest frustrations, that led to his domestic power and accomplishments being very little for the last five years of his presidency after his initial two had accomplished so much.  But his failures came from a place a good intentions in a way that is somewhat admirable, and, in the end, the balance sheet of history will show that his failures will not drown out his accomplishments and that he will be viewed positively by historians, at the very least a pretty good president presiding over extraordinarily difficult times, even if he will never be regarded as great.  Especially coming after the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush, Americans of all stripes should be grateful for his presidency; of course, the reality is that many of them will never realize this, let alone admit it, but history will vindicate him, if not the quality of American politics that took hold during his tenure, though that deterioration occurred in spite of his best efforts, not because of them.

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

I’ll miss him, even as I hope the next president is better.

Getty Images

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If people thought 2015 was bad, 2016 shows no sign of letting on up on risk.  The Middle East, China, Europe, Central Africa, even the United States will all raise serious questions about risk in 2016.

Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse January 7, 2016  

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) January 7th, 2016 (Altered version posted on Global Risk Insights January 26th)

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AMMAN — The year 2016 will pose a number of major risks for the international community, and many of these risks were already major issues in 2015.  Not only typically high-risk areas like the Middle East and Africa are highlighted, but also China, Europe, and America.  Here are five of the largest ones that will be headlining the news throughout the year.

1.) Middle East Morass

Pat Bagley/Salt Lake Tribune

The greater-Middle East will continue to present a number of challenges to the world in 2016.  While the situation with Iran moving towards de-escalation over nuclear tensions and a lifting of sanctions that could happen as early as January is indeed welcome, there is little else occurring in the region that is reassuring.  The general Sunni-Shiite divide will continue to present problems.  Though ISIS has been gradually pushed back throughout the year and lost some territory in Iraq (including, most recently, Ramadi) and Syria, there is no guarantee that ISIS will not be able to retake what it just lost as the dynamics in its spheres of operations are incredibly complicated.  There is reason to fear that Russia’s recent foray into Syria will continue to bolster Assad’s brutal regime and make things worse for non-ISIS rebels as well as Syrian civilians, all while having at best a minimal effect on ISIS itself; Putin has not shown any indication as of yet that he will be changing what Russia’s military forces are doing there. 

Not much will come out of Turkey’s shooting-down of a Russian military jet that will have larger effects beyond either country, except that both Putin and Erdoğan will be able to use this to bolster their support at home.  With Turkey having long been an example of secular democracy of a sort in the Middle East, the world can only disappointingly expect the recently further empowered Erdoğan to continue his country’s march towards increasingly Islamic and authoritarian single-party rule (he just recently cited Hitler’s Germany as an “effective” political system) as well as conflict escalation with Turkey’s own and the region’s Kurds.  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also seems set to continue his country’s slower march to eroding liberal democratic values in favor of more theocratic, Jewish-ethnocentric laws, practices, and regulations while simultaneously provoking Palestinians into higher-levels of violence with increased settlement building and occupation coupled with no serious attempt to engage with Palestinians on a two-state solution.  This, in turn, will eventually provoke more serious military responses from Israel, which will only further empower extremists like Hamas or worse at the expense of the apparently crumbling Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, in turn only further empowering Israeli extremists.  As if also reading from a similar card, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi seems set on pursuing a path of oppression against Islamists which will only see further violence and escalation in an already escalating mini-insurgency of sorts.  Former Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki was cut in the same vein as these leaders, but thankfully the Obama Administration, Iraqi Shiites, and even Iran all worked together to nudge him aside in favor of the far less sectarian Dr. Haider al-Abadi in 2014.  The retaking of Ramadi—without civilian-casualty-intensive tactics—by Iraq is a significant victory for Abadi’s government, but it remains to be seen if this success is one that can be maintained and to what degree if any Abadi’s situation stabilizes enough for the Iraqi government to make any further gains, let alone prevent fresh losses, though as of now the trends are positive, and Ramadi could be a sign that Obama’s strategy for dealing with ISIS is beginning to pay off; only time will tell and the most difficult fights are yet to come either way. 

Jordan and Lebanon have done a surprisingly good job of holding togetherunder the enormous pressures refugees have been exerting on their state systems, but there is no guarantee 2016 will not produce a tipping point or points for either or both of these smaller states.  Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and its coalition seem capable only of mismanagement in their Yemen war, where they have been careless in inflicting civilian casualties, while Libya, too, remains problematic and is now having to deal with a growing ISIS presence in its territory.  And refugees keep pouring not only into places like Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, but also, now, into Europe.  Which brings the reader to the next big risk issue for 2016…

2.) Big tests for Europe’s Union

Sean Gallup/Getty Images

While talk of the European Union’s demise is incredibly premature, 2016 opens with the EU facing several challenging trends, and its response to them could well define it for years, perhaps decades.  The welfare-state system as it now exists has shown itself to be unsustainable and there are more than a few ailing economies that present problems for the whole Union, Greece, of course, being the worst but not the only economic thorn in the EU’s side. 

Just these economic problems alone would be an enormous challenge, but, unfortunately for the EU, it is also facing several other crises.  The influx of refugees into Europe, including many Syrians, comes at the worst possible time.  Before this new wave of refugees, Europe was already seeing a rightward tilt politically speaking; a smattering of terrorist incidents in 2015, which peaked with the spectacular attacks in Paris this November, have only naturally added a large dousing of fuel to the right’s fire of anti-immigrant demagoguery.  Unsurprisingly, the tinder of anti-immigrant sentiment and fears of terrorism have created quite the pyre for rightists to illuminate themselves attractively to European voters, and all over Europe right-wing parties are gaining significant power or are even coming to lead governments.  This is making it exceedingly difficult for the European Union to come up with any sort of a coherent policy on refugee migrants, and when leaders and governments try to accept more refugees, the political cost is a zero-sum one that penalizes them and rewards the right-wing parties with more public support (and this from the continent that has been the banner carrier for liberal values for some time). 

If all this was not enough, voters in key EU economic trouble spots like Greece, Spain, and Portugal seem to be rejecting the EU’s economic prescriptions and a degree of political chaos is ensuing.  If the EU cannot collectively create and enforce policies on major issues like refugees and the economy, and if its efforts to do so are soundly rejected by voters in key EU nations, 2016 will likely raise serious questions about what the EU actually is and what it wants to be in the future.  However, political chaos is hardly limited to the eastern side of the Atlantic Ocean…

3.) America’s semi-chaotic election year

REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

Between Europe and America, Democratic systems are hardly playing their A-game these days.  The rise of Donald Trump and the more unhinged wing of the Republican Party supporting the likes of him and obstructionist (and demonstrable charlatan) Ted Cruz (a first-time senator largely responsible for the 2013 government shutdown who has caused much political chaos and has no serious legislative accomplishments under his belt), as well as Dr. Ben Carson (a medical doctor with no relevant political experience or expertise), have made this political race the most unpredictable in recent memory.  Many accuse Trump of being racist and bigoted, but a more astute observer would look at similar politicians in Europe and see that he is playing a very smart game, leveraging Americans’ inflated fears about both terrorism and immigration to channel populist angst and ride that wave for all it is worth.  Sadly, this is as American as apple pie; even President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a champion of liberal values and the architect of victory over both the depression and the Axis powers in WWII, interned well over 100,000 residents and citizens of Japanese descent; Trump even cited this action of FDR’s as a precedent. 

Such outside the system wild-cards like Trump, Cruz, and Carson looking more and more likely to become the Republican Party’s nominee for the president of the world’s oldest and most powerful democracy is hardly a reassuring thing for the rest of the world.  Many Americans seem to have always naturally had a disdain for the political class throughout American history, but this election cycle may see the most dramatic materialization of this trend in American history.  Though likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton seems quite likely to defeat such a challenge, nothing is certain in American politics these days, and the unraveling of one of America’s two political parties cannot be shrugged off; even if Clinton were to win, America’s two-party system does not function when both parties are roughly the same size and one is not interested in governing (just ask Barack Obama).  What this means for the global economy and for international relations is one huge question mark of political risk.

4.) Asian economic woes

Reuters/VOA

The slowing of the Chinese economic juggernaut to its lowest officially announced growth since early 2009 was a big surprise in 2015; perhaps less surprising was Japan coming very close to entering a recession in the third quarter of this year (only escaping this label after revised numbers were released), struggling with an ageing population and low birthrate.  How the two economic giants of East Asia (and two largest economies in the world after the U.S.) tackle their economic challenges—or fail to do so—will be big narratives for the year 2016.  While nothing catastrophic is expected to happen in terms of Japan, if there is little good news coming out of that nation in 2016, that will not help the rest of the world deal with its economic funk.  China, though, is of larger concern: if things were to get dramatically worse, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which has already had a difficult time dealing with public unrest from democracy-oriented mass protests in Hong Kong to worker dissatisfaction to Muslim Uighur unrest in Xinjiang will have a tough time keeping order with a Chinese public that has grown to be bolder and more frequent in voicing dissatisfaction with the government over the past few years.  There have already been tremendous ripple effects from China’s economic downturn, not the least of which is contributing to the falling price of oil since China’s enormous demand for that energy source has weakened along with its economy, but if China’s stability were to even remotely become an issue, investors and markets around the world would react far more negatively than they already have.  CCP officials have done a fine job of transitioning China from the anarchy of the Cultural Revolution in the 1970s to the wild success of its economy over the past few decades, so there is some reason to hope for a competent response; at the same time, that this is happening at all suggests CCP leaders are not so sure about how to manage this crisis, and it remains to be seen if 2016 will see the situation improve or become even worse.  And, of course, there are the concerns over the how various territorial disputes with other Asian nations and with Taiwan could factor into a politically less stable environment….

2016 has already started off very badly for China; just today, China halted stock trading for the day (for the second time this week!) as Chinese stocks fell more than 7% in just 29 minutes.

5.) Recipe for conflict in Africa’s Great Lakes region

REUTERS/Jean Pierre Aime Harerimana

If Rwanda’s internal ethnic problems served as a catalyst for the series of conflicts known as Africa’s World War (the deadliest conflict in the world since WWII and one that is still ongoing), current problems that are spiraling rapidly out of control in Burundi threaten to plunge the region into conflict again.  In Rwanda in 1994, that country’s Tutsi minority was almost wiped out in a genocide carried out by the majority Hutus.  The government that came to power in the subsequent revolution led by Paul Kagame was one of Tutsis, and Kagame is still in power now.  He has shown a willingness to aggressively project Rwandan military power outside of his own borders, and the UN even accused his forces of possibly committing a countergenocide against Hutus.  Kagame successfully changed his system be able to keep himself in power after pledging he would step down, something Burundi’s Hutu President Pierre Nkurunziza did by running for, and winning in July, a third term in violation of that country’s constitution.  When protests erupted in Burundi in response, the government began a crackdown that just this December began to look a lot like Tutsis were being targeted.  Burundi’s military is led by both Hutus and Tutsi officers, but recently Tutsi officers have been forming rebel groups and the president has been pushing Tutsi officers out of major positions of power or has sidelined them from more important missions.  Tensions are already rising between Burundi and Rwanda, and if Burundi erupts into civil war, Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda may find themselves sucked in in one way or another, and the simmering but quieting Congo conflict, involving Hutus and Tutsis in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, could also flare back up as well.  Ethnic conflict and hatred could well embroil this region again if events continue on their current trajectories.

*****

There are certainly other trends to watch in 2016, but these are very likely to dominate headlines for quite some time in the new year.  Only time will tell if these trends will improve or get worse, but for now, there are appropriately-high degrees of concern and worry about these trends.

Related article: 2015 Year in Risk Review: Risky Business

If you think your site or another would be a good place for this content please do not hesitate to reach out to me! Please feel free to share and repost on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (you can follow me there at@bfry1981)

Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse November 25, 2015   

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) November 25th, 2015

Getty Images

A much shorter version of this piece focusing on Putin’s mentality/political calculus was published by Global Risk Insights. This was also published by by the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) here and was “Post of the Month” for December/January.

What the Hell Happened?

AMMAN — After weeks of increasing tension between Russia and Turkey, yesterday, Turkey shot down a Russian fighter-bomber jet that Turkey alleges violated its airspace.  The Russian jet had been bombing Turkmen positions/villages—part of a series of Russian bombings in recent days that have targeted Turkmen—on the border area of Turkey and Syria.  Turkey is supporting these Turkmen rebels against Assad that Russia is bombing, and had previously asked Russia not to bomb them.  Turkey also claims it warned the plane ten times before it fired, but Russia denies this.  The alleged violation of Turkey’s airspace comes after several earlier violations and a clear pattern of Russia flagrantly violating NATO and other American allies’ airspace over the past several years, and after clear warnings from Turkey that this behavior would not be tolerated.  The Turkmen who had been bombed by the Russian place killed the pilot, who had ejected from the plan and landed in the Syrian area controlled by the Turkmen.  The plane’s navigator was rescued by Russian and Syrian special forces, but one Russian contract marine was killed in the process and a Russian helicopter was downed as well.

Don’t Expect WWIII Out of This

While this is hardly good news, we should also hardly expect a Russo-Turkish war, a Russian-NATO war, or WWIII in the coming days.  As with the situation in Ukraine, both NATO and Russia should avoid panic.  For one thing, Turkey and Russia have very close economic ties, both in terms of tourism in Turkey and in terms of energy exports from Russia; these ties are very profitable for each nation and for both Putin’s and Erdoğan’s regimes and would not be scrapped lightly over such an incident.  Secondly, and this is something less talked about, Russia and Putin fear NATO greatly; this has been a driving force behind first Soviet and then Russian policy for many decades, as NATO dwarfs Russia both in terms of military and economic power.  It is helpful to think of all of Putin’s posturing, including his airspace violations, and akin to the guy driving the gigantic hummer with huge tires and fire designs spray-painted onto its sides: this is all undertaken to overcompensate for an insecurity.  Putin has been smart to calculate that the U.S. and NATO will not risk a war with Russia over Georgia, Ukraine, or Syria; he is certainly smart enough to not start a war with Turkey and, by consequence, NATO now even after such an incident as this. Putin is not stupid, and he is hardly not in control; the repeated violations of NATO and others’ airspace is unquestioningly a series of deliberate provocations directed by Putin.  Sure, one or two may be an honest mistake by a pilot, but there have been far too many violations by Russia over time that these violations, in general, are no accident.  For the sake of argument, let’s say this one was an accident; Putin still knows he made his own bed with these previous violations, and he knows he has no grounds for starting a serious military confrontation over this as a result.  And deep down, Putin probably respects Erdoğan’s move as a fellow hardball politician: Putin called Turkey’s warning a bluff, but Erdoğan demonstrated he was not bluffing.  This is the language Putin understands.

Putin may be miscalculating here in general, but he is certainly smart enough to know a war with Turkey, and therefore NATO and the West, is not at all in Russia’s interests right now.

Why, Mr. Putin?

AFP

Coming off of all this, many questions arise as to the risk-gain, cost-benefit analysis going on inside Mr. Putin’s head.  One must hope that Mr. Putin’s actions in Syria are not going to continue to be as either myopic or as cynical as the best possible explanations indicate they thus far been. 

On the myopic side, you have Putin thinking that risking the ire of almost all the Sunni governments, Sunni people, and Sunni jihadists by helping Shiite Alawite Assad massacre mainly Sunni rebels and civilians with the help of Shiite Hezbollah and Shiite Iran just for Russia’s having a naval base on Syria’s coast and a few new bases inside Syria as well as a client in Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who accounts for roughly 10% of global Russian arms sales is worth it (oh, and there’s knee-jerk opposing American and Western aims in Syria partly out of spite, from which I would also wonder what Putin thinks he will gain).  Over the longer term, Putin is playing a game to win over the more despotic regimes in the Middle East, letting them know that America may abandon you if you give up all pretense at democratic reform and massacre your own people, but Russia will not (see Putin and Assad as BFFs).  One of the big prizes Russia is eyeing here is Egypt and Hosni Mubarak’s second–(perhaps harsher) coming, Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.  The gamble here is that Egypt’s restive population will tolerate an Egypt aligning itself with Shiite-led Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah and that Egypt’s own explosive and volatile domestic security situation with its own people and an ISIS franchise running amok in the Sinai (one which apparently was able to blow up a Russian airliner) will not be major liabilities.  Egypt has a large population but is mainly devoid of resources that Russia would find useful.  Sure, Russia can increase arms sales to Egypt, but that does not seem to be so great of a prize.  If Putin thinks that the real prize—Saudi Arabia—will be aligning itself with Russia anytime soon, that may have been a possibility without Russia’s forceful backing of Assad and linking up with Iran and Hezbollah, but now that possibility seems as remote as ever even as the U.S. and the Saudis put some distance between them and their relationship cools; a cool relationship with the U.S. still yields a lot more for Saudi Arabia than a new alliance with Russia ever could.  In general, Russia hardly has a strong position in the Middle East; Putin’s desperation to help Assad, his one main ally in the region (it would be a stretch to say that Iran and Russia are general allies even as they are allies in the Syrian Civil War), even at the expense of empowering ISIS, is a reflection of this weakness. And as Putin cozies up to dictators like Assad and Sisi, he risks severely undermining any chance of real long-term gains where he and Russians seek them the most: in Europe.  Democracy-loving Europe will not sit and has not sat idly by while Russia has provoked war and secessionist rebellion in European and democratic Ukraine while fighting against rebels in authoritarian Syria in a way that intensifies the war there. 

Thus, the term myopic is particularly appropriate for Putin’s strategy because his methods of pursuing whatever gains he seeks pose risks that threaten to harm Russia’s interests more than those gains would help them: Russia is particularly vulnerable to Sunni extremist terrorism for a number of clear reasons and its moves in Syria, as I have written before, are only going to expose Russia to further attacks.  If Russia is so concerned with 10% of its arms sales and access to a few military bases in Syria, I am certain the West would work out a deal to ensure these interests are preserved by a new Syrian government if Russia would agree to push for Assad’s ouster, as this would be a reasonable price to pay to see a realistic possibility of an end to this incredibly destructive and lethal war.

On the cynical side, there is the ability for confrontation with the West and Turkey in Syria to help Putin sell his narrative to his own people and the extremist gullible conspiracy-theorists who are intense RT.com and Sputnikconsumers; no doubt the shooting down of a Russian jet by Turkey and the related casualties will galvanize popular support among the Russian people who famously rally behind Putin whenever he is challenged from the outside; thus, provoking a crisis with Turkey and NATO certainly serves to increase Putin’s power at home.  And yet, he is so popular there already, one must either question this as a solid basis for his actions or question the level of paranoia inside the Russia ruler’s mind.  Therefore, it is harder to accept this explanation on its own but we cannot rule it completely out.  Is it some kind of combination of the myopia and the cynicism?  That is a difficult question to answer.  My own gut tells me that to ascribe this mainly to Putin playing a domestic political game seems is quite an intense assumption to make. 

We know that Ukraine and Moldova are prizes Putin has been eyeing, in one form or another, for quite some time, although trying to guess how he will play the European theater and Middle Eastern theater in terms of each other is mainly speculative at this point.  If there is some big move Putin is planning in Europe, it will be interesting to see what it is, but my money is on the idea that Western sanctions (coupled with falling oil prices) have constrained Putin’s behavior there and that this will continue to be the case, even in light of this incident.  Putin hay have been having fun time routinely violating NATO and other American allies’ airspace over the past few years without any serious consequences, but Turkey sure put an end to that, and while I am no fan of Turkey’s President Tayyip Recep Erdoğan for numerous and significant reasons, given Putin’s track record of airspace violations, I am willing to believe that Turkey would not risk shooting down a Russian plane unless it actually did violate Turkish airspace and that the Russian had been warned.

What will be interesting to see is if Putin is now willing to continue to risk the lives of brave Russian pilots to play political chicken with his rivals, and even more interesting will be trying to figure out what he hopes to gain should he pursue such a course. 

And yet, Putin is not the only actor here: Turkey and the U.S. have been flirting with a call for no-fly zones in parts of Syria, including the Turkish-Syrian border; if Russia pushes Turkey and NATO too far, this will only increase the odds of NATO no-fly zones that would severely limit Russia’s freedom of action in Syria and the region.

Time to End the Kabuki Theater Charade and Join the Big Boys on the Main Stage

Perhaps most frustrating of all in this situation is that if Russia actually took a broader, less myopic view of its interests, and actually behaved in a way that matched its deeds with its stated purpose, there is a tremendous amount of room for mutually beneficial cooperation.

See, Russia framed its intervention in Syria as primarily one aimed at striking against ISIS terrorists; then, despite its heroic efforts to dissembleand deceive through the propaganda of its foreign ministry and state-funded media operations RT.com and Sputnik that present contrary “information,” Russia used over 90% of its military strikes to hit non-ISIS, often Western-backed rebels fighting Assad’s regime, strikes most often occurring where ISIS had no presence and not even anywhere near to where ISIS had any presence.  The strikes have even helped ISIS gain more territory at the expense of these other rebel groups.  Strikes like these are the ones that led to the incident yesterday, as Russia was bombing Turkmen who are not fighting for and are nowhere near ISIS.

The New York Times

I get it.  Russia likes Assad, and since ISIS is mainly between Kurdish rebels on one side and non-ISIS other rebels no the other, and that second group of rebels is the group near most of the Syrian regime’s zones of control, it makes some sense for Russia to attack those groups that are more threatening to Assad.  Yet Russia keeps propagandizing these attacks as attacks against ISIS in its public statements.  Sure, Russians inside Russia and avid RT/Sputnik readers might unquestioningly buy up these claims, but the fact is this: Russia is inside Syria to pursue its own war against mainly non-ISIS targets, whatever public relations fantasies it wants to sell.  Few people around the world are buying what Russia wants to sell, so any idea that Russian actions in Syria would buy Russia some goodwill from Europe has been dispelled since Russia is not doing what it claims to be doing.

Institute for the Study of War

It Putin was smarter, he’d shift gears.  The thing is, not too long ago it seems an ISIS affiliate blew up a Russian airliner killing 224 people, almost all of them Russians.  ISIS has fertile ground in and around Russia to recruit terrorists and carry out attacks against Russians.  It is manifestly in Russia’s interests to join the current anti-ISIS coalition and to focus on ISIS now, not the other rebels, as even with its small percentage of attacks being against ISIS, Russia has still become a object of ISIS’s wrath.  If Russia were to at least mostly suspend its campaign against non-ISIS rebels and cooperate with the U.S., France, Turkey, and others against ISIS, it would win a tremendous amount of goodwill from the West, which would welcome a helping hand.  Instead, blatantly lying about targeting ISIS, bombing rebels that are allies with Western powers and Turkey, and violating Turkey’s airspace will do nothing to improve relations with the wider world, reduce crippling economic sanctions, or combat the jihadist threat now facing Russians all over the world.  If we could truly join together in common purpose in Syria—ending the war and seeing Assad step aside, and all with the support of Russia—it is difficult to imagine that the West would not work to preserve Russia’s currently existing interests in Syria in exchange for their support and the end of their intransigence.

But if Putin wants to turn everything into a he said/she said contestbetween the Western media and RT/Sputnik (a tactic that has not worked in Ukraine and is not working in Syria), if Putin wants to keep his attention focused away from ISIS even though ISIS has now killed many Russian civilians, Putin only leaves himself and his nation more isolated, more weak, more vulnerable.  The old playbook of being against the West for the sake of being against the West is not going to work.  Putin has already gained a lot in Ukraine by annexing Crimea; he has shown that if his interests are not considered in a final settlement in Syria that he is prepared to use military means to secure them; if Putin would just deescalate in Ukraine and start focusing on ISIS in Syria, there is a very real chance that both sanctions relief could be on the table and that a final peace deal that removes Assad would see Russian strategic and arms trade interests preserved.  Yet if he continues down his current path, he risks destroying important relationships with Turkey and Europe, increased sanctions, a future Syria that will do everything it can to expel Russian influence and a Russian presence, more dead Russian military personnel through incidents like the one yesterday, and more dead Russian civilians from terrorist attacks in a war that will not end anytime soon and keeps empowering ISIS, in part thanks to Russia’s actions in Syria.

The choice is clear for Mr. Putin: stop the charade and begin real cooperation with the NATO and other powers against ISIS, or go down a much more difficult path of pain, confrontation, and isolation.  Russia could have taken former approach some time ago, and avoided yesterday’s regrettable incident.  Even now Russia just made clear it will keep bombing the Turkmen, but it does not have to be this way.  To Putin we must say, there is another way, and not everything needs to be zero-sum.  Whether he listens, well, that is up to him.

If you think your site or another would be a good place for this content please do not hesitate to reach out to me! Please feel free to share and repost on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (you can follow me there at@bfry1981)

Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse October 26, 2015 

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) October 26th, 2015

AP Photo/Nasser Shiyoukhi

AMMAN — As the sadly predictable violence suffered by both Israeli and Palestinian civilians seems to spiral out of control into something approaching an uprising or sorts (maybe a Third Intifada, maybe not, only time will tell) it is important to know who to blame so there can be accountability and way forward.

Blame must necessarily be placed more heavily where there resides more power. Keeping this in mind, first and foremost, we must blame Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his conservative coalition governments, in power for over six-and-a-half years, since March 2009.

Netanyahu has for years never been enthusiastic about the peace process; he even bragged about actively undermining the Oslo Accords while Prime Minister from 1996-1999, helping to set the stage for the Second Intifada; he was against the 2005 Gaza “disengagement” plan of then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, quitting his cabinet post in Sharon’s government in protest; and all through Obama’s presidency, he has resisted serious peace talks, participating only reluctantly and has been unwilling to discuss major final-status issues, in particular the final borders with a Palestinian state. All the while, he has been a champion of illegal Israeli settlement expansion on what is legally Palestinian territory, the final status of which is supposed to be determined in negotiations, and he has refused intense requests from the Obama administration to fully halt settlement expansion during peace talks, undermining whatever good faith could have existed. He even allowed his government to repeatedly announce plans for settlement expansion at the most inopportune moments, leading one of his senior ministers in his own government to accuse his government of deliberately undermining negotiations. Netanyahu used the horrific murder and kidnapping of three Israeli teens in the summer of 2014 as an excuse to pursue an agenda of political repression against Hamas, even though Hamas as an organization was not responsible for the lone-wolf atrocity.

At this time, Hamas had also been observing a cease-fire since November 2012 for a year-and-a-half, and all throughout that period Netanyahu did nothing to alleviate the harsh blockade of Gaza in the long-term despite Hamas’ dutiful observation of the cease-fire. The crackdown against Hamas was the largest security operation in the West Bank since the Second Intifada ended ten years earlier and was seen by Hamas as a provocation after it had been on its best behavior in years, refraining from engaging in terrorism and violence against Israelis. Netanyahu continued the crackdown, and Hamas responded with rocket fire.

The main point to make here is this: Israel has almost all the power in this situation. It has the real sovereignty over the whole West Bank and de facto sovereignty in Gaza, where Israel totally controls the airspace, coastal waters, land crossings, population movement, controls most of its taxation, and still occupies almost 17% of Gaza’s land. Netanyahu makes bold demands of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, his governing party of Fatah, and Hamas, but deliberately disempowers them to the degree that they are not generally capable of meeting his demands. Palestinian officials, whether of Hamas or of Fatah, have little control over anything and that control is totally at Israel’s discretion. Fatah renounced violence and basically kept to this for years now. Hamas has not. If Netanyahu had a productive strategy, it would be rewarding areas controlled by Abbas’s Fatah for nonviolence by ending the occupation—in place since 1967—in some of these areas. This would in turn pressure Hamas to become less violent as the Palestinians living under Fatah control would see the benefits of non-violence and cooperation while those living under Hamas control would become jealous.

What does Bibi do instead? He makes no major concessions or serious reductions of the occupation at all to Fatah and continues with massive settlement expansion in areas under Fatah control despite years of security cooperation that has been praised for years by Israeli security officials; when Hamas is non-violent for over a year and half, Netanyahu also does nothing to reward this behavior. As the major power broker, Netanyahu at the helm of the Israeli government sets the stage, and has the ability to reward and encourage non-violence; when he does not do this, he is essentially encouraging violence and is empowering Hamas and undermining Fatah and Abbas. Hamas can point to Fatah and the leadership of Abbas, and say “See what cooperation with the Israelis gets you? More occupation, more settlements!”

This was Netanyahu’s approach from the moment he took office through today, including the many anguishing months of fruitless talks led by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and in the run-up to last summer’s Gaza conflict and in his lack of initiative in the year since leading up to this current round of violence. In his actions Netanyahu has shown that he not only does not care to seek real peace in the form of a two-state solution with the Palestinians, he has also shown no inclination to reduce or end the oppressive occupation. He is also no stranger to divisive rhetoric, most recently on display in his trying to shamefully and falsely claim a Palestinian inspired Hitler to carry out the Holocaust, inspiring condemnation from many Israelis and historians.

But on another level, we can—and should—blame everyone.

The Israeli people had chances and came close to removing Netanyahu from office twice in recent years; they did not. They have continually empowered him, no doubt out of an understandable sense of fear, but in doing so they are helping to perpetuate this conflict. And how is there room in the Israeli public space for incitement and right-wing mobs that attack Arabs (sometimes Jews are mistaken for Arabs and attacked by other Jews) and even Jewish leftist dissenters, and for significant numbers of settlers (supported by the IDF!) to attack Palestinians and their property?

The Palestinians understandably are now turning away from Abbas, who has been unable (through little fault of his own) to produce any results to show for his cooperation with Netanyahu. This may be understandable, but it, too, is unwise. To turn towards violence and Hamas and intifada is not a recipe for success, it is a recipe for more bloodshed, and, as always, the vast majority of those dying will be the Palestinians themselves. We are seeing young children forming groups to throw rocks at Israeli security personnel, groups of young women too; where are their parents? How are they allowed to participate in riots and violence on such a regular basis? When will the incitement of violence and glorification of Palestinians who attack Israeli civilians stop?

Bibi has had the power to help nudge both societies away from such behavior, but has done just the opposite. He is the director for a staged play awash in violence and conflict, but most of the actors in Israeli and Palestinian society are all too willing to play their part. Israelis and Palestinians who advocate peace and coexistence are increasingly marginalized by their respective societies and are devoid of meaningful political power. This latest time the curtain has risen for a show of predictably increasing violence, there is plenty of blame to go around, indeed.

If you think your site or another would be a good place for this content please do not hesitate to reach out to me! Please feel free to share and repost on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (you can follow me there at@bfry1981)

Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse August 3, 2015 

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) August 3rd, 2015

Reuters

This piece has also been published by the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC).

Those who argue that the Obama Administration’s overall Middle East strategy is a total failure have no sense of strategy themselves and dangerously substitute tactical-here-and-nows and pointless posturing for real strategy (especially Republicans). That’s not to say some of the Obama Administration’s Middle East policies aren’t lacking, but overall the Administration has more progress and sound approaches to point to than failures and mismanagement. Below, all of the Obama Administration’s major Middle East policies are broken down and given a letter grade. Here, then, is a look at all the major efforts of the Obama Administration in the Middle East, and as it covers a lot of territory this has been broken up into three parts, this being Part II and covering the Syrian Civil War.

Other articles in this series:

Grading Obama’s Middle East Strategy (Sensibly): Part I

4.) Dealing with Syria’s Civil War

AMMAN — Amidst a sea of Middle Eastern conflicts, the civil war raging in Syria is currently the largest and deadliest. Here, as in other situations, we have a crisis in which we must be careful not to blame Obama too much but must also note the missed opportunities where his substantive leadership could have made a huge difference, though not without some risk involved. So, right from the start, it must be acknowledged both that America could have done a lot more in regards to Syria, potentially helping to dramatically lessen the violence and perhaps even ending the war on the one hand, but, on the other, that America bears little responsibility for causing or contributing to the overall Syrian tragedy.

First, let’s examine the history of this war and the Obama Administration’s response to it, starting from the very beginning.

Of Arms and Assad I Sing

REUTERS/Mahmoud Hassano

Once upon a time in 2011, there was an uprising in Syria of many of the country’s own people who wanted Syria’s President (dictator) Bashar al-Assad to step down so they could change the system and have more freedom. They were inspired by their Arab brethren in the happier days of the Arab Spring in 2011. This was, generally, a struggle for freedom, representation, human rights, and democracy in a country ruled by an authoritarian, repressive, undemocratic Syrian regime with an Alawite (a word describing a subsect of Shia Islam that is only roughly 12% of Syria’s population) ruling family and many other Alawites at the top, ruling over mostly Sunni Muslims, though the regime and its supporters are by no means exclusively Alawite. While in 2011, people power brought down long-ruling autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen, and American-led NATO intervention rescued a revolution in Libya from massacre and disaster and helped overthrow Libya’s dictator, Muammar el-Qaddafi, Syria had no such luck with its people power or Western intervention. Qaddafi, alone and isolated and ruling over a far smaller population, was a relatively easy target. Compared to Qaddafi’s regime, Assad’s military was much stronger and, unlike Qaddafi’s, had strong patrons in Russia and Iran who would complicate and increase the costs of any Western intervention and made the prospects of any success for the Syrian people on their own quite dim.

Some powers talked of intervening in Syria, but with the U.S. signaling no appetite for direct military involvement, no other Western governments put their militaries in action against the Assad regime, nor did any regional governments. Still, Obama did call for Assad to step down in August 2011, and moved to increase sanctions and economic pressure on the regime at the same time. There was also a robust debate within the Obama administration about arming the Syrian rebels. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, then-CIA chief and later Gates’ successor Leon Panetta, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (also former president Bill Clinton) all agreed on arming significant numbers of moderate Syrian rebels, but they were unable to persuade President Obama in the end. If moderate rebels had been robustly supported early in the conflict, when an increasing stream of Syrian Army officers(including generals) and soldiers were defecting to the rebel cause, perhaps the regime could have been brought to its knees and would have been willing to enter serious negotiations; perhaps Assad would have been willing to leave if given immunity. The U.S. and West could have made a huge difference in the conflict with direct intervention by degrading the Assad regime’s military capabilities and limiting the shipments of weapons into Syria with a combination of naval blockades, no-fly-zones, and the U.S. specifically partnering with its allies Iraq and (NATO member) Turkey to use drones, reconnaissance flights, and other high-tech monitoring equipment to lock down Syria’s land borders with both nations. NATO could have played a significant role in such an operation, too, not terribly dissimilar to its role in the operation in Libya.

Karam Al-Masri/AFP/Getty Images

But no serious action was taken along these lines and in this absence of action, into the fray came Islamist extremist jihadists—including ISIS—even more murderous than Assad’s thugs. Suddenly, the moderate homegrown Syrian revolutionary rebels, who were having a difficult enough time holding their own with little international support against Assad’s well-and-Russian-armed forces, found themselves having to compete with and also fight well-armed, well-funded foreign jihadist extremists. Many of the moderate rebels lost heart and quit; still others defected to the more successful and more robustly-backed Islamists. At the same time, other Shiites were coming to the aid of Assad’s Shiite Alawite-led regime: the Iranian government was sending some of its elite military units and leaders, while Lebanese Hezbollah’s well-trained militia forces were also coming and making a big difference in favor of Assad at this time, each supporting and fighting for Assad on Syrian soil.

Instead of being supported by the international community and slowly and surely gaining territory, credibility, and influence, the Syrian moderates were themselves losing territory, credibility, and influence to the better-supported Islamists and their more extreme tactics. Almost all the factions became more radicalized, more violent. A major attack in July 2012 in Damascus that killed top regime insiders, including the defense minister and Assad’s brother-in-law—still the most spectacular attack to date carried out against the regime—was claimed by both moderate and extremist rebels, with some noting evidence that pointed to Islamists, and still others saying it was an inside job of the regime itself.

Narciso Contreras, Associated Press

Whoever carried it out, after this bombing, the conflict became even more deadly and brutal in Syria, with both 2012 and 2013 each seeing extreme escalations in violence and lethality. Foreign Shiite militias joined the Iranian government’s and Lebanese Hezbollah’s well-trained militia forces (both Shiite as well) already aiding and fighting for Assad in Syria. As the situation kept deteriorating, at some points in 2012 the CIA began helping U.S. allies Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar vet and identify rebels moderate enough to recommend them for military support and Obama secretly authorized both covert non-lethal support from the U.S. for some Syrian rebels and a program to militarily train some of them, too, though these efforts were to be very limited in nature; even when they were “sharply increased” early and later in 2013, respectively, the programs had been so small to begin with that they still remained very limited.  Obama also politically recognized Syria’s main opposition group (the Syrian Opposition/National Coalition) at the end of 2012, though without recognizing it as the legitimate government of Syria. But when the rebels suffered serious losses, in the middle of 2013 the Obama Administration and select Congressional Committees finally decided to have America itself arm Syrian rebels with “lethal military aid,” allowing the CIA to arm vetted Syrian rebels directly (though not with any advanced or heavy weaponry), and those weapons finally began to be delivered at the very end of the summer of 2013.

As the conflict continued to worsen and concerns about Assad’s chemical weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program—one of the largest in the world—were raised, Obama even repeatedly and publicly warned Assad that if his regime was found to be readying or using “a whole bunch” of chemical weapons that this would constitute a “red line” that would mean a severe response from the U.S., even possibly including military action. Throughout this period, rumors and reports of the use of chemical weapons use began to trickle out of Syria, culminating in the summer of 2013 with reports of a massive chemical WMD sarin gas attack—the largest chemical attack in the world in a quarter-century since Saddam Hussein gassed Iraqi Kurds in 1988—near Damascus. Unlike previous reports, these highlighted an attack that was both of an unprecedented scale for this conflict—it killed about 1,400 people—and confirmed publicly by several major Western governments (including that of the United States), Human Rights Watch, and later by the United Nations. As to who was the culprit, as I pointed out at the time, the signs clearly pointed to elements of the Assad regime carrying out the attack.

To Strike or Not to Strike, That Was the Question

Horrified by the attack and seeing this “red line” crossed with impunity, first Kerry and then Obama made an impassioned case to the American people that a military response against Assad’s regime was both necessary and proper and began to move the machinery of the American government and its allies towards this end. Yet the American people, weary of war after the disasters of the (W.) Bush Administration, began to see Obama’s moves to engage in limited strikes in Syria as all too similar to Bush’s moves to invade Iraq; they failed to see, as I myself made clear, that Syria 2013 was not Iraq 2003, and that Obama is not Bush, for despite the support of both the top Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, Speaker of the House John Boehner, and the top Democrat in the same body, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, few others of either party in Congress emerged to support Obama’s plan to strike Assad’s regime and far more came out against it. Even as opposition began growing at home, the House of Commons of the British Parliament shockingly rejected Prime Minister David Cameron’s motion to support pending American strikes and then Cameron himself stated he would respect the vote and not join the U.S.were it to initiate strikes against Assad’s regime. Soon after this setback, opposition to the Obama Administration’s plans for military strikes gained traction very quickly both at home and abroad.

With Obama himself never too eager to intervene militarily and with both his own party and America’s most stalwart foreign ally for military interventions uncharacteristically declining to join the fray, Obama publicly announced he would seek Congressional approval. In some ways, this could be considered a welcome move, coming after the Bush Administration often showed little more than contempt for opposition sentiment in Congress after the early months of near unquestioning-support from much of Congress just after the September 11th attacks faded to the more acrimonious, partisan atmosphere that characterized the end of Bush’s first term and all of his second (this poisonous political atmosphere only got worse after Obama was elected). Furthermore, if Obama was able to muster Congressional support, it would empower him that much more in the public and political senses. And yet, Obama’s putting so much power and influence in the hands of Congress on so crucial an action showed that he had learned almost nothing at all from his previous interactions with Congress, whether with insecure Democrats nervous about retaining their seats or with an implacable Tea Party-driven Republican majority in the House that was determined to avoid cooperation with the president at nearly all costs. To allow Congress to vote against his plan was to invite it to be weakened and to drive any international support to significantly lower levels, if not destroying it entirely. That President Obama did not realize that this outcome was far more likely from the beginning reveals a remarkable naïveté for a president in his second term dealing with factions that had more than established who they were and how they would behave. Never mind that Obama was perfectly within his Constitutional and legal rights to do so, and that there are ample precedents in American history dating back to the Administrations of Presidents Adams (for military action short of war) and Jefferson (for military action overseas without Congressional authorization), our second and third presidents, respectively, because being undermined in such a serious way politically would itself carry grave real-world consequences.

Obama’s s attempt to rally support failed miserably, as in the days that followed public opposition in the U.S. became widespread, vocal, and bipartisan. Obama’s idealistic attempt to engage the elected representatives of the people weakened his position considerably, for, despite some support from the most relevant Committees in Congress, the overall trends in both the House and the Senate showed that the Obama Administration had little to no chance of either the full House of the full Senate passing a resolution either approving or authorizing military action in Syria against Assad. Basically, instead of leading decisively, Obama decided to say “wait, let’s have a discussion” at this critical juncture after there had already been weeks of mulling over what to do, preferring to pass at least some of the responsibility and maybe even some of the authority from the Executive Branch to the Legislative Branch. Even the rebels and the government in Syria both strangely united in questioning this move of Obama’s. Again, such an action is one that works better in the abstract than in practice, and it was at such a juncture, with the very presidency stalling and losing altitude on such a critical military issue, that Russia and Vladimir Putin waded into the fray, seizing on a single comment by Secretary of State John Kerry—that Assad could avoid strikes if he gave up his chemical WMD—to propose a plan facilitate just that. This was, to use my own label, after Russia’s long stint as the obstructionist Tea Party of international politics and also after Putin’s farcical, blithely hypocritical New York Times op-ed calling for a diplomatic, non-violent solution even though, less than a year later, he sent Russian troops pouring into Ukraine, when violence as a means suited his ends there, and did the same five years earlier in Georgia. Still, while virtually anything that would significantly reduce Assad’s WMD stockpile has to be objectively seen as a positive, on one level the ensuing deal left Obama and the U.S presidency significantly emasculated. On another level, it was clear that the threat of U.S. strikes was the only thing that prodded Russia into doing anything that was either significant or productive in relation to this conflict. And yet, as I wrote at the time, on another, grander level, Putin’s move was entirely in his self-interest, as the deal itself was something of an insurance policy he took out on Assad’s regime, a significant ally of Russia’s that was both a major buyer of Russian arms and the host of Russia’s only military base outside of the former Soviet Union.

In any event, after Obama declined to strike the Assad regime and Russia’s proposal—which had become the UN’s—was accepted by Syria, seeing Syria’s 1,300 tons of declared chemical weapons painstakingly removed from Syria (there is now, disturbingly, new evidence that Assad may have kept some undeclared top-grade chemical WMD hidden from inspectors to be used in more desperate times), what I predicted—that this would do nothing to stem the drivers of the conflict and that the war in Syria would only continue and continue to get worse like some sort of vortex—came to pass, with 2014 being the deadliest year of the conflict thus far and no end in sight. Now, Syria truly is a vortex, becoming inflated and conflated with so many other conflicts that it has metastasized into one big megaconflict. Syria’s neighbors, as I predicted in the fall of 2013, are also suffering from an increasingly destabilizing burden as a result of the conflict—none more so than Iraq as ISIS broke off from al-Qaeda and proceeded to shock the world with its march from Syria into Iraq in 2014—and the more than four million registered refugees it has produced.

UNHCR

Still, as mentioned, even before the chemical weapons attacks, the Obama Administration had signaled and had taken steps—albeit very miniscule ones—to support rebels fighting to overthrow Assad’s regime. Yet, in addition to Obama’s natural caution and the lack of political and public support for robust involvement in Syria, a classified 2012-2013 CIA study found very little success with past CIA covert armings of rebel groups in various conflicts over nearly seventy years unless Americans were on the ground working with rebels where they were fighting (something the Obama Administration was clear it wanted to avoid at the time); this means that even up through the publishing of this article at the beginning of August 2015, the Administration’s anti-Assad efforts when it comes to supporting rebels actively fighting against Assad have been half-hearted, tepid, and ineffective at best. As the CIA training program for vetted moderate rebels encountered difficulties, stalled, produced limited results, and is now having a significant part of its funding cut, the Obama Administration began to shift responsibility to the U.S. Military by giving it a new program to train Syrian rebels; but whereas the CIA program was concocted to produce forces to fight Assad’s regime, the U.S. Military’s program will focus on producing fighters to go after ISIS. Obama asked Congress to approve $500 million in funding for the new program in the summer of 2014, and by the end of the year, Congress had approved an over $720 million package for the program, demonstrating both the shift in the U.S. view from Assad to ISIS as the major threat and the seriousness with which ISIS was being viewed (Assad may even be playing into this shift by deliberately aiding ISIS in an effort to empower the terrorist group as a way to further deflect Western attention away from itself to ISIS and stoke further fears of what would happen should the Assad regime fall, making leaders more reluctant to push for his ouster). The military training program began this spring, but as of early July had only managed to train less than sixty rebels, a paltry figure by any standards. To make matters worse, even before the end of July, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria and ISIS rival, Jabhat al-Nusra/the Nusra Front, had embarrassingly captured one of the U.S-trained-rebels’ senior commanders and his deputy and then later attacked the U.S.-trained rebel group.  Another embarrassing development is that the Assad regime has been resorting to the regular use of makeshift chemical weapons—the regime’s infamous barrel bombs with chlorine gas added to their payload—against civilians. While these more improvised chlorine chemical weapons do not reach the level of lethality of the WMD attack from the summer of 2013 (an attack that multiple investigations confirmed involved highly-deadly sarin gas), the blatant and repeated violation of the international norm against the use of chemical weapons without any serious consequences is a development that begs their future use by both Assad’s regime and others who share its lack of concern for international norms and human life.

Additionally, just over the past week, after Turkey’s long opposition to Assad by way of supporting Islamist extremists—including, at least tacitly (and sometimes more directly), ISIS and the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front—backfired recently with the worst terrorist attack in Turkey against civilians in years and carried out by a Turkish citizen with reported tied to ISIS, there is, apparently, a new level of cooperation between Turkey and the United States, including plans to establish a “safe zone” corridor in Syria along the country’s border with Turkey using American air power and both Turkish and rebel ground forces. The plan reportedly calls for ISIS to be cleared from a zone inside Syria extending sixty miles from Turkey’s border and which would also serve as a safe haven for civilians, though U.S. officials later denied such a plan has been agreed upon. I called for at least a similar robust corridor back in the fall of 2013 as a starting point from which moderate rebels, supported by the West, could further expand control and as one of the only realistic ways for an intervention to have an impact on driving down the drivers of conflict and moving in any way towards an end to the Syrian Civil war and the mass killing associated with it (as neither Assad’s chemical weapons nor ISIS are the reasons behind the Syrian Civil War and its perpetuation). However, it remains to be seen if this talk will turn into action and enough of such action to make a real difference. Especially with Obama close to leaving office and an election season well underway, there are reasons to doubt this safe corridor will actually come into being anytime soon if at all, at least in a significant way. Then again, Obama has shown a boldness and a willingness to take the risks required for big payoffs in recent months, most especially with Cuba and Iran, so such talk should also not be immediately written off. Furthermore, there is at least a chance that the recent agreement with Iran will spur further cooperation between Iran and the United States, with Syria perhaps being the most pressing and obvious case for such cooperation apart from the problem of ISIS. Only time will tell, especially given the conflicting messages coming out of media and official sources. But if some sort of a safe-zone is established by two (or more) NATO countries like the U.S. and Turkey, it could be a game changer for Assad, and not to his benefit. If such action expands, the successful NATO air-war in Kosovo could be seen as something of a loose blueprint. A Syria free of Assad and with ISIS tamed could be a starting point for peace and a new future for the Syrian people. What is happening now is a starting point for nothing but death and destruction.

While the U.S. may be significantly and substantively stepping up the fight against ISIS in Syria, having now been directly striking ISIS targets inside Syria with a respectable-sized coalition of air power for some time (and reportedly maybe indirectly communicating with Assad’s regime about those strikes), and while talk of creating a humanitarian corridor is certainly welcome, even allowing for those developments, there is very little of substance the U.S. has done to stem the long-term drivers of the Syrian Civil War and thus, very little it has done little to bring about an end to this conflict and a stop to the mass killing involved with it. As peace talks pushed by the U.S. between the regime and the opposition, each with goals wholly incompatible to the other, have accomplished nothing and seem all but certain to go nowhere for the foreseeable future, the focus on ISIS and on chemical weapons has obscured the fact that the Assad regime and the war in general slaughters civilians on a mass scale and that little has been done to stop this by anyone.

Bold “What Ifs” vs. “Do No Harm”

Having traced the Syrian Civil War from its inception through now and the U.S. role (or lack thereof) in it during this same period, how the U.S. could even be judged or graded on its involvement must also be discussed.

Since the United States: 1.) was not, an occupying power in Syria—like France was was from the end of WWI through 1946—and bears no serious responsibility for the initial homegrown protests in Syria that prompted a brutal, murderous government response that, in turn, provoked an uprising which led to the Syrian Civil War, 2.) was not even not the among first Western nations formally recognizing the opposition, 3.) has been very lightly involved compared with other major international meddlers in this conflict (e.g. Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, the Gulf states…), and 4.) since the overall post-2003 Iraq mess, for which the U.S. does bear a majority of overall responsibility, was actually at its best levels of security all throughout the first two years of the protests/fighting in Syria, we cannot even begin to argue that the U.S. destabilizing Iraq is one of the major reasons why the Syrian Civil War got so out of control. If anything, the situation in Syria eventually did much more to destabilize Iraq than the other way around. That is no to say that our actions in Libya (which will be discussed in Part III) did not possibly serve to foster a hope within dissident Syrians that the U.S./NATO/the West would intervene on their behalf, but using that possibility to assign major blame to the U.S. for Syria’s conflict falls far short of a logical conclusion.

Reuters/Muzaffar Salman

However, as demonstrated, the U.S. had major opportunities to help make major differences and assist the Syrian people and their homegrown revolutionaries in overthrowing Assad. This the U.S. (and the world) declined to do, except in only very minor ways and quite belatedly, making the war in Syria a heavyweight fight between Ba’athist authoritarianism and jihadist theocracy, with the local Syrian moderates being left to waste away in the face of multiple competing factions and multiple threats. As in otherrelatively recent situations of mass killing (e.g., Rwanda, Bosnia, the Congo, the ongoing genocide in Darfur), it is disappointing that, absent U.S. leadership, no other nation stepped up to lead and significantly help the people (in this case local, moderate rebels), and that so many people have, are, and will continue to die as a result, so the blame for inaction on Syria is hardly on the U.S. alone. But especially after Obama’s waffling and inaction on his chemical weapons “red line” (a true low point of Obama’s presidency, which even his then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta acknowledges was a huge mistake) and after Russia’s Syrian WMD deal, Assad has felt secure and undaunted when it comes to the West, while the extremist jihadists are ascendant at the expense of the moderate rebels as much as at the expense of the regime, if not more so. And it seems, sadly, that, without U.S. leadership, there is no end to this brutal war in sight.

But with less than eighteen months left in Obama’s presidency, and with ISIS now being the priority target before Assad (though Obama reiterated earlier in July that it still his and the U.S. Government’s official position that Assad needs to step down), it is very unlikely that Assad will be gone before Obama leaves office in January 2017 or anytime soon after that, given the lack of real action the U.S. and other world powers have taken to bring this about. Obama’s current Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter, bluntly admitted this recently during a Senate hearing. Still, the new U.S. training program for moderate rebels and new talk of a “safe zone” should not be prematurely dismissed, although nor, conversely, should any chicks be counted before the eggs are hatched.

But one final point must also be made: given America’s recent decade-and-then-some of misadventures, Obama does deserve some credit for notinserting America in a huge, destructive, or counterproductive way into the morass of the Syrian Civil War.

Grade: Overall C, more recently C+

Baraa Al-Halabi

For these reasons, the Obama Administration cannot be given lower than a C on Syria because, as discussed, the U.S. has not been a major player in Syria historically or recently and therefore cannot be said to be one those parties most at fault for the creation or perpetuation of the Syrian Civil War or its frightening metastasization and mass casualties totaling nearly a quarter of a million killed. Furthermore, contrary to recent years, the U.S. now has avoided inserting itself blunderingly and destructively into a major quicksand-like ground role in the war. It also avoided its Cold War modus operandi of blindly aiding extremist groups killing many civilians and committing many atrocities.  So, to its credit, the Administration avoiding a repeat of Iraq in 2003 as well as many of America’s misadventures from the Cold War. Yet so much more could have been done to mitigate or possibly end the war over the last four years, so many tens of thousands (or more) of lives could have been saved, and though the U.S. is far from alone in being blamed for inaction, it still could have done so much more than the very, very little it ended up doing, its embarrassing “red line” moment perhaps the most obvious example of this, when the correct and better arguments for intervention quickly fell to the side without the wind of political will to keep them aloft. To be fair to the Obama Administration, these winds of political will were absent from all significant concerned parties, with the U.S. hardly being the party with either the most responsibility to act or the most interests at stake. While recent reports suggest a very belated better-far-too-late-than-never increase in efforts to help moderate rebels, the results and the seriousness of these efforts remain to be seen, and as moderate rebels generally stand now, they have been all but pushed aside and are languishing in near-irrelevance as the conflict has devolved mainly into a conflict between Assad’s autocratic, oppressive regime and Islamist extremists intent on building a caliphate. So, even as the Administration cannot be given lower than a C, it also cannot be given higher than a C. Thus, an “average” grade of C it is, with + being added for the more recent months on the hope that recent moves, deliberations, and talk prove more fruitful and productive than the meager and disappointing efforts of the Obama Administration thus far.

Narciso Contreras/Associated Press

That’s it for Part II, coming up next the (overall) Arab Spring, ISIS, reducing America’s dependency on Mideast oil, and Iran (saving the more positive for last). If you think your site or another would be a good place for this content please do not hesitate to reach out to me! Please feel free to share and repost on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (you can follow me there at@bfry1981)

Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse July 22, 2015 

By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981) July 22nd, 2015

Published by Stupidparty Math v. Myth thanks to Patrick Andendall

Reuters

Updated July 26th to include a link in concluding paragraph to analyst and Slate.com writer Fred Kaplan’s excellent piece highlighting the irrationality of Senate Republicans on the Iran deal and to a New York Times article highlighting the fact that Republicans were against the deal even before it was finalized or the details of it were released and available for review.

AMMAN — Treason is not a word that should ever be used lightly.  Expressing a dissenting opinion during wartime, for example, should not be thought of as treasonous, even though some still seem to think that using that word is appropriate.  Challenging your government, its officers, and your fellow citizens when you believe they are incorrect is also something that a sane definition of treason should not include.  In the words of the great journalist Edward R. Murrow, “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty.”

And yet, how you express these opinions, and who you are and in what capacity you are speaking, can matter in certain circumstances.

With the Obama Administration’s twenty months of negotiations with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s negotiators on a nuclear deal (full text here) to prevent or slow Iran’s ability to acquire nuclear weapons production and deployment capabilities ending in (despite some delays) a momentous, historic success, we reached those certain circumstances during the negotiations with a letter signed by forty-seven out of fifty-four Republican senators, nearly half of the one-hundred-strong United States Senate, our senior legislative body.  This extraordinary action can also be viewed as one-sixth the power and authority of our government, being roughly one-half of one-third of one of our three co-equal branches of national government (the other two being the presidency’s Executive Branch and the federal courts of the Judicial Branch).  The short letter of the senators, authored by Sen. Tom Cotton and titled “An Open Letter to the Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” basically claimed that the president and his officials alone could not conclude a meaningful agreement without their approval and could only reach “a mere executive agreement,” that most of them would likely still be senators when Obama leaves office in January 2017, and then concluded that the “next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and the future Congress could modify the terms of the agreement at any time” (with “any time” not actually being true because any president could veto any changes and that veto would be insurmountable without a two-thirds vote against the president in both the House and Senate).  The letter was directly addressed to Iran’s leaders and was clearly designed to sabotage and undermine the Obama Administration’s efforts towards reaching an agreement with Iran on its nuclear program (meaning that both Republican hardliners and Iran’s Islamic hardliners found common cause in opposing the agreement; Republicans, in fact, often find themselves empowering America’s enemies through their actions).  The letter was produced and released on official United States Senate stationary with the official Senate letterhead and was signed by forty-seven sitting senators.  They were not merely conveying their opinions as individuals, but were conveying them as senators and in their official capacity.

The relevant historians find this to be unprecedented, including the official Senate Historian himself who said that “We haven’t found a precedent…That doesn’t mean there isn’t a precedent. After 200 years, it’s hard to find anything that unprecedented.”  In the end, he says, “We really didn’t find anything.”  Secretary of State John Kerry, the Obama Administration’s point man on negotiations with Iran complained of the letter’s unprecedented nature.  The complaints did not stop there…

Now, there are some basic lessons from American history and some principles behind our Constitution that these forty-seven Republican senators, and those who support them, seem to miss.  Actually, we can say this about a whole lot of things when it comes to Republicans and conservatives, who often seem to prefer the disaster that was the Articles of Confederation (see the thoughts on its “Deficiencies” of Founding Father, author of the Constitution, and [fourth] President James Madison) over our Constitution and constantly read the latter as if it was the former (they should read Federalist No. 63, in which Madison discusses the need for both government power and the people’s liberty to be checked).  That could be a whole other article, but the point about the Republican senators’ letter goes back to issues from the very period of the Articles of Confederation that led to its being scrapped in favor of the Constitution (see The Federalist Papers Nos. 15-22).  The period of 1781–1789, during which the Articles of Confederation governed the United States, saw tremendous chaos in the realm of the new nation’s foreign affairs.  Though in theory foreign policy was supposed to more-or-less be conducted by the national Congress of the Confederation, in practice the weak and ineffectual national government proved unable to prevent individual states and individual people from meddling in foreign policy, confusing other parties as to who really speaking for the United States and with real authority.  To say this led to misunderstandings and crises would be an understatement.  After the Constitution went into effect in 1789, over time “Americans began to see alternative negotiating as treason.”

Still, with a new government in place and officials navigating in unchartered waters, it would take some time for clear limits to be established and understood.  While the primacy of the Executive Branch in foreign affairs was clear in the Constitution as originally worded, what crossed the line and how this line would be enforced was not as clear.  This gray area was left for Congress, Executive practice, and the Federal Judiciary to decide.  And that is what began happening.  When hostilities on the open seas emerged with Revolutionary France during the undeclared “Quasi-War” (1798-1800), a private citizen named George Logan took it upon himself, without approval from the government, to travel to France in 1798 to negotiate on behalf of the United States.  In response, Congress passed a law known as the Logan Act in 1799 that basically criminalized unauthorized diplomacy.  This law still remains on the books today and has been modified slightly in the modern era, yet there has never been a full prosecution of anyone over this law; over the entire history of the Act, only one Kentucky farmer was charged with violating it in 1803, but his case was never even brought to trial.

In terms of the Senate Republicans’ Iran letter, there seems to be a consensus among serious non-partisans and policy analysts that the letter itself is almost farcically silly and “embarrassing”; it presumes to lecture on U.S. Constitutional mechanisms, then proceeds to mischaracterize one of the key mechanisms in question, claiming that Congress “ratifies” treaties when actually it simply give its advice and /or necessary (but not sufficient) consent to the president, who makes the ultimate decision on ratification if and after the Senate votes to consent (in Iran’s snarky responses to the letter, the fact that the Senators mischaracterized their own Constitution was, embarrassingly, not lost on the Iranians).

However, there is some debate among scholars and analysts as to whether or not the letter is a clear violation of the Logan Act.  Some say it is a clear violation, others feel it is more gray, some say it is pointless to even determine this because prosecution under the Act is both impractical and unlikely.  If you’re thinking that Logan was outside the government and that that means senators can’t be in violation of the Act, before we go any further, it is time to open up the U.S. Constitution that both restricts and empowers the Federal Government.  For forty-seven Republican senators, and anyone who agree with their action of sending a certain letter to Iran’s Supreme leader at this moment in time on the subjects it covered, they may need to blow the dust off of their copy.

Article I is the section of the Constitution that lays out the powers and responsibilities of the U.S. Congress, and it very clearly does not authorize Senators or any other member of Congress to engage in foreign relations or negotiations of their own accord.  However, in Article II, which deals with the powers of the President, the U.S. Senate is given “Advice and Consent” roles in Section 2 in relation to the President’s and the executive branch’s express powers to be the executors of foreign policy: “[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur.”

Congress legislates, but the president executes the actions of government.  The Constitution was clearly designed to have one principal agent, the president (and any people to whom he chose to delegate authority), act in the arena of foreign relations with the Senate’s “Advice and Consent.”  Having multiple centers of gravity in the same type of power with respect to foreign relations would have been to invite chaos and disaster and inconsistency (as during the Articles of Confederation era), and this the Constitution clearly avoids having.  The president’s Constitutional powers empower the presidency to make “presidential or sole executive agreements” without a Congressional role, agreements that fall short of the stature of “Treaties” that can be subjected to future change or rejection but are hardly insignificant.  That is not to say the Senate has no role, as clearly the President is supposed to act with senators’ “Advice and Consent,” and best practice and the best results come from when the president and the Senate work together in the process of treaty-making, with the president often delegating senators to negotiate or involving them in negotiations.  However, with the treaty Power falling under Article II, and the president having “Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate,” and not the other way around, it is clear that the president leads and that senators cannot act independently of the Executive Branch in this realm, save to offer their “Advice” or to withhold their “Consent.”  Advising and Consenting in no way even implies unilateral insertion into an official process or unilaterally officially communicating to active parties in an official negotiation; there is no Constitutional room for senators undermining the Executive Branch’s negotiating positions and negotiations through official non-legislative action directed specifically at negotiations or the parties involved in them; such actions would be clear violations of both the language and spirit of Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution.  And even though they are sitting government officials, the senators were clearly not authorized to conduct this sort of (un)diplomatic action, so it was thus likely a violation of the Logan Act.

Yet even if there was not a violation of the Logan Act, or any law with a specific penalty, there is perhaps, then, an even stronger case to be made that the senators violated the Constitution and encroached on the prerogatives of the Executive Branch and the presidency.  In American jurisprudence, there is a concept known as the “sole organ” doctrine that is confusing and misunderstood and often taken out of context.  But, as constitutional scholar Louis Fisher shows in his lengthy and comprehensive discussion of the Executive Branch’s prerogatives regarding foreign policy, where there is little confusion among the framers of the Constitution and the Judicial Branch’s interpretation is in the consensus that the Executive Branch is the sole executor of foreign policy, and that this includes all communications to and through foreign powers.

And yet, what we have happening here today is exactly what the Constitution was designed to prevent: members of the Senate inserting themselves publicly and without presidential authorization into ongoing negotiations between the Executive Branch of government, acting within its Constitutional authority in its capacity for action, and the government of Iran.  To insert themselves directly into the negotiations with messages that expressly contradict both the intent and the spirit of the elected president’s administration is a clear violation of both the separation and the division of powers as laid out in the constitution.  And the fact that it was done to deliberately undermine the goals of a presidential administration engaged in active negotiations with a foreign power makes it treasonous any way you slice it or dice it.  That it does not fit the prosecutable Constitutional definition of treason as laid out in Article III Section 3 does not mean it does not fit the dictionary definition and spirit of the general concept of treason (it clearly does).  Senators may no more publicly use their office to undermine the president’s authority to engage in negotiations as an executive head of state than the president may issue an executive order that empowers himself or those acting on his authority to violate laws that Congress passes.  The Senate does not consist of one-hundred individual ambassadors-at-large-to-the-world able to act on their own impulses any more than the presidency consists of one legislator-at-large able to legislate at will.  To use Alexander Hamilton’s words in Federalist No. 75, “the Executive…[is] the most fit agent” for “the management of foreign negotiations,” a sentiment echoed by John Jay in Federalist No. 64.  That is partly why executive power and legislative power, unlike in Britain and other parliamentary systems, are divided and separated by our Constitution.  For a president to legislate or a senator to execute, is, if you’ll pardon the expression, un-American.

Thus, the Republican senators’ letter is clearly a violation of the Constitution, even if it may be less clear as to whether their letter is a prosecutable offense under the Logan Act.  Yet even worse than the their specific treasonous-in-spirit-act is the fact that their position is so wrong and dangerous for everyone involved: Americans, Iranians, all the peoples of the Middle East (including Israelis), and even the whole world.  

I have discussed the deal’s details before.  But even as Iran’s ability to produce a weapon would increase towards the end of the fifteen-year-agreement, the length of time required to make a weapon in the event of a breakdown in the agreement—termed “breakout time”—even at that juncture would still take longer than it would currently take Iran, before the implementation of this new agreement.  Now, Iran’s breakout time is two-to-three months; once the agreement is in place, it would take Iran a year to produce a bomb.  That’s a big difference in my book.

As I have written, and as President Obama himself has noted, those opposing this deal do not have logic on their side at all.  When negotiating a deal, both sides must make concessions; neither side will be totally happy with the results, and the fact that this deal is not a perfect deal from the perspective of the interests of America is simply the reality of negotiating a deal, and does not mean that the deal is a bad one, is not good, or should be rejected.  The idea that Iran would have likely given up more ground—whether, as Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump claims, Iran would have cowed before the supposedly-awesome might of Trump’s negotiating skills, or whether, as reporter Major Garret obscenely suggested, that Obama should have jeopardized an entire nuclear deal affecting millions by tying it to the fate a few American citizens being detained by Iranian authorities (and I wouldn’t be surprised if they are released in the near future, much like Kennedy quietly and subsequently removed Jupiter nuclear missiles from Turkey as part of a secret caveat helping to end the Cuban Missile Crisis)—is just not grounded in reality, considering especially that Iran already gave a lot of ground.  So don’t let anyone tell you that a significantly better deal for the U.S. at this time could have been reached.  If sanctions were ratcheted up and a significant amount of time went by before resuming negotiations, perhaps Iran would be feeling more pressure, but it would also be much closer to a bomb or might already have one by the time negotiations resumed.  So, that would have been a bad risk to take.  No deal now, and no deal in the future, would have allowed Iran’s already strong nuclear program to continue unhindered, then, and nuclear weapons capability would have been certain in the near future.  No deal, with a nuclear Iran and Middle East with a deteriorating and expanding Sunni-Shiite regional conflict, is not in anyone’s interests, except ISIS and other terrorist groups.  And as Obama himself correctly made clear, “Put simply, no deal means a greater chance of more war in the Middle East.”  The only other realistic alternative to this risky status quo and this agreement, then, is a risky military path, from a single strike up to and including all-out war.  These military options seem to be the ones favored by Saudi Arabia’s new king and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu (one of the largest critics of the deal), who would love to have America fight a war against Iran on their behalf.  Yet even just a limited strike could risk a radicalization of the Iranian regime and to galvanize the people behind Iran’s ayatollahs, who aren’t exactly currently loved by many Iranians for leading their country to diplomatic isolation and economic sanctions.  A lot of people would die in those strikes and their responses, likely including many Israelis.  And an all-out war, with Iran’s mountainous terrain and large population, would make the Iraq war, by comparison, look like child’s play.  And I frankly don’t think Americans are willing to wage a war that could take much longer than our recent war in Iraq and result in far more casualties for Americans, especially when this deal presents a viable alternative to war.  Even with a war, it is very difficult to know that we would be able to eradicate Iran’s nuclear capability, and if Iran was in possession of any nuclear weapons during a war it was fighting on its own territory, if its situation were desperate, that would only increase the chances, not lessen, of the use of nuclear weapons in combat for the first time since Nagasaki in 1945.  If America stopped its efforts short of a full regime change and the eradication of Iran’s nuclear program—very tall tasks, indeed—then the result would be a humiliating disaster for America that would leave every party in a worse-off situation than before fighting began.  So, no, when this deal is stacked up against realistic alternatives—not Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice fantasy negotiations, but negotiations that would have taken place in the real world—there really is not a better alternative or one with less risk.  And this is the only one of the realistic options that does not involve massive bloodshed that severely limits Iran’s nuclear program and keeps it from developing a bomb for at least a decade and then some.

Perhaps most importantly, we have a chance to begin anew our relationship with Iran.  Recognizing this potential, over 100 former American ambassadors praised the deal.  The United Nations Security Council has already unanimously endorsed the deal, and has also voted to lift sanctions on Iran (the latter provoking complains from the U.S. Congress). This deal enjoys broad global support for good reasons.  I’m not going to mince words at all here: this is, clearly, Obama’s greatest achievement in foreign policy (including the killing of bin-Laden, whose relevance had decreased significantly in the years before his death) and possibly even of his entire presidency.  TARP and the stimulus packages were either a joint-effort with the departing Bush Administration and/or with Congress; this, on the other hand, was all Obama and his team.  This may very well be the biggest foreign policy development in over forty years, since Nixon went to China in 1972 and began a path that led to engagement between the two countries that has benefitted both nations in many ways and helped to prevent war between us.  No singe act of a U.S. presidential administration has happened from that 1972 trip until this Iran deal that has so much potential to be a game changer and to change the course of world history so greatly.  This is truly a monumental achievement of great substance that makes many millions of people safer than any of the realistic alternatives; Obama, Kerry, Rouhani, and their negotiating teams should be hailed as heroes.

But all the Republicans do is bash this deal, with incredibly myopic points that do not address any of the points I raised about realistic alternatives being far worse.  In fact, their behavior in general on the Iran issue has been highly irrational and deeply unproductive, in additional to being seriously harmful.  They don’t seem to want any deal, let alone one negotiated by the Obama Administration, regardless of its specifics, as they made crystal clear their opposition before the deal was even finalized and before they had even had time to be able to read through it once it was finalized.  The Republican clown-car of potential candidates vying to be their party’s choice to be the leader of the world would, if their words are to be taken seriously, dramatically escalate the likelihood of all-out war and would see current levels of bloodshed all over the Middle East very likely rise should any of them occupy the White House.  From supporting treasonous and un-Constitutional acts to endangering Americans, Israelis, Iranians, Arabs, and the world with awful policies and deeds that illogically undermine the very sound policies of the Obama Administration, the Republican Party is not to be trusted, respected, or voted into power because they are just so wrong.

See related article by same author: There Is No Logical Argument Against the Iran Nuclear Deal

If you think your site or another would be a good place for this content please do not hesitate to reach out to me! Please feel free to share and repost on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (you can follow me there at@bfry1981)

Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse April 4, 2015  

by Brian E. Frydenborg, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (you can follow me there at @bfry1981). April 4, 2015 (updated April 5th)

This was also published by by the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) here and was “Post of the Month” for May/June.  It was also published by Stupidparty Math v. Myth here.

Related article: Republicans: Wrong on Iran Deal & Constitution, Wrong for USA & Israel

TEL AVIV — Outside of Israel and America’s Republican Party, very few people are against this emerging Iran nuclear deal, which represents the will of the governments of the UK, France, Germany, Russia, and China, as well as America (sorry, Congress and the opposition party generally don’t make foreign policy in America’s constitutional system) and Iran. And whether the hysterics of Texas Republican Senator (and delusional 2016 presidential wannabe) Ted Cruz or of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the counterarguments are hollow and myopic, and bear no weight when weighed against the alternatives. In fact, an agreement with Iran is the only realistic option that is even remotely positive; a lack of an agreement means only less transparency and either a stalemate in which Iran and the West will often continue to use the Middle East as a board in a deadly game of chess or some sort of conflict ranging from military strikes and terrorism to all-out war. An agreement does not guarantee that these far more dire scenarios will be avoided, but it is the only realistic way to avoid them. And while both opponents and supporters of an agreement have maintained that no agreement is better than a “bad” agreement, it is hard to look at this just-agreed-upon framework as a “bad” agreement, even if it not perfect. Don’t let the pursuit of the perfect be the enemy of the good, as the saying goes, since this framework is overall pretty good.

Still, none of this stops Republicans, Israel’s right-wing parties and politicians, and others from making specious, short-sighted, and misleading arguments against this agreement, arguments that, if heeded, will only perpetuate and increase conflict, violence, and death. First, let’s look at the detailed framework that was agreed upon Thursday (we won’t be going into the science of nuclear physics and uranium enrichment in this article, but you can read a great short guide to all that here). Below are some highlights:

• Iran will reduce the number of uranium-enriching centrifuges by two-thirds, and the remaining third will be older, first-generation technology
• Iran will reduce its existing supply of enriched uranium from 10,000 kilograms to just 300, a 97% reduction
• Iran’s biggest and main (also underground) nuclear research center will shift much of it attention away and facilities from activities that could result in a weapon and to advanced peaceful research, often medical
• Iran will submit to more nuclear inspections that any other country in the world today or in the history of nuclear technology. These inspections will be “robust and intrusive,” to quote President Obama, and he noted too that “If Iran cheats, the world will know it” and that “this deal is not based on trust. It’s based on unprecedented verification.”
• Economic sanctions on Iran will be lifted

The agreement will last fifteen years and seriously reduce Iran’s nuclear capabilities, though some restriction will be in place for only ten years. But as far as the U.S., only Congress has the ability to end American sanctions and President Obama has warned Republicans not to destroy the deal.

Now, let’s look at some of the common arguments against this framework.

“Iran can’t be trusted”

Really? Because America, Israel, Iraq, and Syria have all invaded countries here in a big way since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. But Iran has not initiated one single invasion since this regime took power. Yes, it has used terrorism and non-state militia actors to further its interests, but so has pretty much every Middle Eastern country (including American allies like Israel, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia) as well as the United States in recent decades. Iran has also cooperated with the U.S. against the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and, most recently, against ISIS. And Iran’s foreign policy record has been less the unpredictable, dangerous type and more like the Soviet Union’s, with Iran acting fairly predictably, rationally, and in its own interests. And this deal is most certainly in its own interests. Maybe Iran will break the deal, but the U.S. deals with countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Russia, so why not give Iran a chance?

“Iran sponsors terrorism with Hezbollah! Enough said!”

So do lots of other countries, but we still cooperate with them and get meaningful results. Yes, Iran sponsors Hezbollah, but today’s Hezbollah is not your father’s Hezbollah. Rather than a resistance terrorist movement against the Israeli invasions and occupation of Lebanon, invasions and occupation starting in 1981 and ending in 2000, Hezbollah is now one of the major coalition partners of the Lebanese government and concerns itself with more governing Lebanon for most of these recent years. Minor scuffles with Israel with a few rockets launched here and there have been all that has happened between Israel and Hezbollah since the 2006 flare-up. In general, Hezbollah has been quiet in its actions (if not words) when it comes to Israel, then, for most of the last decade. So a few isolated and sporadic rocket attacks do not characterize Israel’s interaction with Hezbollah since 2006 so much as an uneasy unofficial cease-fire. Besides, Hezbollah had been much more preoccupied the last few years with fighting on behalf of Bashar al-Assad’s Shiite Alawite regime. Hezbollah, Assad and his government, and Iran are all Shiites, and it is natural for them to stick together. Iran has always been the patron and protector of Shiites Muslims facing persecutions from Sunnis, and Iran’s support is pretty much the only major support in the world than Shiites have. We may not like this, but, frankly, Shiites populations have fared pretty poorly under Sunni rule all over the Muslim world, and they face a steady stream of oppressive attacks, which frequently occur in packed Shiite mosques in the middle of a prayers and involve suicide bombers. Shiite funerals, shrines, and religious processions have also been targeted by the likes of Sunni ISIS and Sunni al-Qaeda. Conversely, Iran’s proxy* (wish I hadn’t used that word, “allied” would be better-6/24/25) actors like Hezbollah and other Shiite militias, though far from angels, have generally avoided these much more extreme tactics against civilians and places of religious worship. If anything, Hezbollah and other Shiite groups that Iran helps like the Houthis are practicing much more normal military activities, albeit of the rebel and guerilla variety, rather than that which would more fairly be called terrorism these days.

The point here is that Sunni sponsorship of terrorism, particularly from the Gulf countries (including America’s biggest allies there, though not in an official capacity), is a far greater problem than Iran’s sponsorship of Hezbollah, and that Hezbollah, unlike al-Qaeda and ISIS, has been pretty restrained in the last decade. So Iran’s relationship with Hezbollah should not make or break this nuclear deal. And, in general, Hezbollah has shied away from the type of terrorist attacks that earned it its notoriety in decades past. Sinn Fein/IRA was once a terrorist group, until it was no longer one at on point, and while Hezbollah still has some distance to travel to be like the next Sinn Fein, it is without question moving in the right direction compared to its earlier incarnation.

“An agreement will keep the U.S. and others from being able to use force to stop Iran’s program”

Not at all. Saddam Hussein agreed to terms to have his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs disarmed to conclude the Gulf War (1990-1991), but when he violated them, that did not stop Bill Clinton from striking Saddam’s regime repeatedly, nor did it stop George W. Bush from taking the massive military action that he (incorrectly) felt was needed. No one cited an agreement that was clearly being violated, or which Saddam Hussein was clearly trying to publicly pretend to violate, as reason to hold back (though in 2003 there were certainly many other good reasons to hold back) at the time of these actions. In other words, it should be made clear that if Iran plays games and violates the agreement, there is nothing stopping the U.S. or other world powers from taking strong action to disarm Iran, and certainly the agreement itself would not stop anything. The agreement will only protect Iran, then, if Iran stays true to the terms.

“This agreement would threaten the very survival of the state of Israel.”

Why? The above is almost a direct quote from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, perhaps the master of short-term-at-the-expense-of-long-term thinking (in other words, a master politician). With no agreement, Iran is free to continue its robust nuclear program. With an agreement, this program will be severely limited, reduced, and subjected to intense and powerful inspections by the West. Without an agreement, only military force could possibly succeed and that would be incredibly difficult and not guaranteed, by any means, to succeed. In fact, just about the last thing the Middle East needs right now is a major war in Iran, and whole other books and articles could be written about the spillover effects from such an event. Any war here would almost certainly involve Israel and that would be bad, not good, for Israel’s security. And if Iran and the West come to friendly terms, there will be far more willingness on Iran’s part to rein in Israel’s nuisance, Hezbollah, which I have already explained has been reining itself in for quite some time anyway. With this agreement, it would be fifteen years before Iran would be able to develop a bomb if this agreement is observed, but this would very likely happen much, much sooner if there is no agreement. How is this bad, then, for Israel? One wonders why anyone takes Netanyahu and those who think like him seriously on this point at all.

*****

This is a fine diplomatic achievement of the Obama Administration, President Obama himself, and Sec. Kerry and their teams, but also of the other Western governments involved and of Iran’s government, as well. There is no guarantee that this will forever keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, but we have fifteen years of majorly slowing Iran down on this path and weakening its overall nuclear program, of having many sets of close eyes on the ground making sure that this is the situation, of preventing wars, and of increasing cooperation between Iran and the West.  Just as Peter Beinart writes, it may very well be the thaw in diplomatic relations that might be the biggest achievement here.

And the alternatives to this agreement are very likely going to involve war, possibly carried out by the U.S. and the West, but there seems to be little appetite for that among Western governments or peoples. It is far more likely to be carried out by an Israel that is more and more isolated because of its positions on and treatment of the Palestinians, and because of the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu in general. The recent fighting in Gaza against non-state terrorist militia Hamas cost dozens of Israeli lives; a fight with Iran, a powerful country with a powerful and well equipped military, would very likely cost thousands of Israeli lives and could see serious destruction all across Israel’s major cities. There is no guarantee that war would end Iran’s nuclear program, either. Even if there is not a war or military action, the current situation—with very little formal cooperation with Iran and with Iran and the West working against each other on so many issues in the region, from Israel to Yemen to Syria, and with Sunnis in the region increasing their zones of conflict with Shiites—is in no way better than a shot at really working together on these issues and defusing tensions. But Republicans and Netanyahu and the others who seek to sabotage this very necessary deal fail to mention any of this, and provide no alternatives but cold war or hot war.

Time to stop listening to these irrational, impractical naysayers and give peace a chance. Yes, the many details still need to be worked out, but we should throw all our support behind making this framework turn into a lasting deal. This deal has a high probability of happening, because why agree to the major framework and then let it fall apart? That would be like announcing a party you are hosting, only not to show up to your own party; it makes you look really bad. War is always an option no matter what, but peace is much more difficult to reach and maintain. While skepticism about all this is understandable, as Obama recently noted, “We are powerful enough to be able to test these propositions without putting ourselves at risk.” Ultimately, there is much reason to hope this will work and that Iran—a country with a large chunk of its population that is very young, liberal, reform-minded, and pro-Western—and the U.S. could accomplish much good by working together. And with Iran, with which the U.S. has been at odds for so long, it is time to try peace and a normal relationship before we think of war, which should never be a “preferred” option.

© 2019 Brian E. Frydenborg all rights reserved, permission required for republication, attributed quotations welcome

Brian E. Frydenborg is an American freelance writer, academic, and consultant from the New York City area. You can follow and contact him on Twitter: @bfry1981

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In today’s election, Israel must choose between peace and being an oppressor, between new leadership and the Netanyahu faction. Why an examination of Gaza’s sovereignty is essential to understanding why.

Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse March 17, 2015 

By Brian E. Frydenborg March 17th, 2015

This was also published by the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) here. If you think your site or another would be a good place for this content please do not hesitate to reach out to me! Please feel free to share and repost on LinkedIn,Facebook, and Twitter (you can follow me there at@bfry1981)

The following is largely excerpted and adapted from an earlier article I wrote this summer, The Israel-Hamas Gaza High-Stakes Poker Game of Death, also available as an eBook format at Barnes & Noble,Amazon, or as an ePub file.

As Nicolas Kristof eloquently noted recently and also as far back as 2008, there are two Israels: one of lasting democracy, justice, and liberal Western values, and one of perpetual occupation, settlements, and fear.

And today, Israel chooses which one it wants to be to the rest of the world, to Arabs, to Palestinians, and to themselves. Either they “grow up,” as Shmuel Rosner writes, or they will demonstrate that for now and likely the foreseeable future, Israel will not be a partner capable of or interested in peace. In particular, Israel’s current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been an obstructionist for years, deliberately undermining the peace process throughout his career, including when he was prime minister from 1996-1999 and from 2009 until now. Before, he would be coy about his intentions, but just in the last few days, he has admitted that some settlements were designed to cut off and prevent Palestinian access and growth, and he even said publicly he was against the two-state solution and against a Palestinian state, confirming in words what he has confirmed in action for years.

As for the Gaza Strip, If Netanyahu and his allies have their way and prevail in today’s elections, its current setup and relationship with Israel could be a glimpse into the future of the West Bank, the territory with majorities of Palestine’s land and people. Israel occupied Gaza in 1967 during the Six-Day War, and a level of hubris emerged within Israel that enabled it to believe it could occupy the West Bank and Gaza with its many Palestinian Arabs, and not just occupy, but occupy indefinitely and aggressively colonize and settle both lands with many thousands and thousands of Jews, all the while continuing to deny basic freedoms to the Palestinians, governed through the military boots of Israel’s army, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). And not only was the hubris so high that Israelis believed they could do all this, they believed they could do all this indefinitely with no actual long-term plan for what to do with the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza, people for whom Israel was now fully legally responsible since the moment it took the territories from Jordan and Egypt, respectively. Israel claims to have withdrawn from Gaza and that this fact means Israel no longer controls Gaza and therefore has no responsibility towards it. How true this is will tell us much about Netanyahu, his supporters, and the Israel that they and their policies represent, as well as telling us much about the character of the Israeli people.

Who Really Controls Gaza? (or, Does Israel Still “Occupy” Gaza?)

Here we look at who controls Gaza, because the degree of control matches the degree of responsibility for the welfare of the people of Gaza and for what happens in Gaza.

Israel and its supporters are fond of claiming that it totally withdrew from Gaza 2005, that there is no more occupation, that Israel has no obligations to Gaza as an occupier under international law, and that Hamas, the Islamist terrorist resistance and charity movement that won subsequent elections in Gaza, is fully responsible for Gaza. Some go as far as to claim Israel’s control never even amounted to legal occupation, even from 1967. However, Israel’s position is incredibly misleading. While people may debate the reasons for, and the justification of, and the exact degree of Israel’s control over Gaza, there can be no debate that Israel still exercises a significant amount of control, and that with that significant control comes significant responsibility.

Israel’s position is incredibly misleading. While people may debate the reasons for, and the justification of, and the exact degree of Israel’s control over Gaza, there can be no debate that Israel still exercises a significant amount of control, and that with that significant control comes significant responsibility.

Let us break down the specifics of that control:

Israel has complete control over Gaza’s airspace. Gaza’s airport was only built in 1998, but Israel closed it in 2000 with the outbreak of the Second Intifada and later bombed it in 2001. The only aircraft going into Gazan airspace are Israeli military aircraft.

Israel also has total control over Gaza’s coastal waters. It does not allow goods to move by sea into or out of Gaza (with only very rare exceptions), and imposes severe restrictions on Gaza’s fishing industry. And Israel also maintains a naval blockade. It destroyed Gaza’s nascent port facilities in 2001, and has prevented new facilities from being established ever since.

Israel also maintains full control over all land crossing between Israel and Gaza. It often keeps most, and sometimes all, of the crossings closed. Sometimes, several of the few crossings that are open are open only for humanitarian situations or urgent medical situations. Only a few thousand of Gaza’s 1.8 million people are allowed to cross, on average, each month. Israel has total control over which goods are allowed in and out and when, exercising an enormous influence over the economy, zoning, and urban planning of Gaza. Israel also has some control over the one crossing between Egypt and Gaza, as anyone who travels through it must be pre-approved by Israel via the population registry. Egypt’s crossing saw a lot more movement of goods and people under Morsi, but this movement shrank dramatically after his ouster, and after clashes with militants in the area in August 2013, it was closed by Egypt’s military government, but has just been reopened “sporadically” during the past few weeks of conflict to allow a trickle of Gazans injured in the fighting (140 as of August 1st) to seek medical treatment in Egypt.

Israel also still has complete control over the Palestinian population registry. Any changes to birth, marriage, divorce, or death records, in addition to official address changes, must be approved by Israel. The issuing of official ID, including passports, must also be approved by Israel. Since the beginning of the Second Intifada in 2000, Israel has not allowed Gazans who have been living for years in the West Bank to change their official addresses to reflect this.

Israel also controls most of Gaza’s taxation. It sets the international customs rates and Value Added Tax (VAT)—which is included in the price of any goods—for all goods sold in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel collects the VAT or customs fees from the merchants, and then it has the power to transfer these taxes to the Palestinian Authority. When Israel chooses, it can (and often has) withheld these taxes when it has disputes with the Palestinians. Hamas has gotten around some of this by levying its own taxes on goods smuggled into Gaza from Egypt through tunnels (not to be confused with the tunnels Hamas built for military reasons). Most of these tunnels were destroyed recently by Egypt, crushing Gaza’s economy, and in the past, Israel has also taken action against these smuggling tunnels.

On the ground inside Gaza, do not let anyone tell you that Israel completely withdrew; Israel actually controls several buffer zones inside of the Gaza Strip, totaling 17 percent of all Gaza’s territory and one-third of all of its farmland. These zones include an officially off-limits zone and a further zone which is a “grey-area.” Any Palestinians in either zone risk being shot, and shootings are not uncommon. Furthermore, Israel destroys crops and structures within this zone multiple times a week, on average. Israel also says it maintains the right to militarily enter all of Gaza at will, which is clear from its repeated invasions and military operations conducted after the 2005 disengagement.

Israel actually controls several buffer zones inside of the Gaza Strip, totaling 17 percent of all Gaza’s territory and one-third of all of its farmland.

Israel Controls most of Gaza’s civilian and utility infrastructure. Israel supplies most of Gaza’s power through eleven power lines running into Gaza from Israel. Though Gaza has a power station that was built in 1998, it was severely damaged in 2006 and has not been fully repaired since, and was just hit multiple times by Israeli forces in this last round of hostilities, completely shutting the plant down. Israel had also previously restricted the importation of resources needed to run the power station. Gaza’s dependence on Israeli-supplied electricity also means that most water and sewage utilities are also dependent on Israel, since they need electricity for their pumping actions. Internet, wireless and wired communications services are also all run through Israeli networks, and Israel obviously controls the importation of materials necessary to repair, maintain, and expand them.

Israel also controls all travel of Palestinians between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and to anywhere else. This is not just because Israel separates the two territories; Israel also controls all entrances into and exits from the West Bank, including its border with Jordan, and does not allow those with Gaza residencies to travel into the West Bank, even for academic reasons.

Given that all this amounts to “effective control,” when it comes to international law and treaties which Israeli is a signatory to, Israel still has legal responsibilities under international law, including under Article 42 of the Hague Regulations, as it is still an occupying power governed by the Law of Occupation, even if its ground forces have generally withdrawn from 83 percent of Gaza. Despite the partial withdrawal of ground forces, then, the Gaza Strip must still be considered for all practical and legal purposes an occupied territory and under Israeli military occupation from 1967 through today for all of the reasons mentioned above. Gaza has not had one day of full sovereignty, or anything even close to it, since the 2005 Israeli “disengagement.”

Gaza has not had one day of full sovereignty, or anything even close to it, since the 2005 Israeli “disengagement.”

All this means that yes, while Hamas exercises a major degree of control, so does Israel, and under international law, both have responsibilities for the Gazan people and for what happens in Gaza. It could even be argued that Israel bears most of the responsibility, but even if it does not, it still bears a major portion of it, and Hamas itself can only held responsible for the people of Gaza and what happens inside Gaza to the degree that it can exercise full control over Gaza. The sad reality for Gazans, then, is that they are the joint legal responsibility of two entities—Hamas and Israel—that do not directly communicate with each other, that hate each other, that want to destroy each other, and that rarely put the interests of the Gazan people over their own.

A Defining Moment of Truth

Israel is not being honest with itself (or anyone else, for that matter) when it comes to Gaza. These policies in Gaza represents some of the worst and most hypocritical that Israel (and Netanyahu, who opposed the 2005 “disengagement” from Gaza, in particular) can offer. Currently, Israel denies sovereignty to millions of Palestinians and oppresses them. It is one thing to accept this situation temporarily, and entirely another to desire it for the longer-term. Yet now, Israel seems poised to finally say no leadership that believes that this is that future, that has no strategic mindset and only offers tactical success and short-term convenience by accepting perpetual conflict. It should be clear to Israel and its people that this is wrong, but it is not. Sadly, most voters are not paying attention to these issues, or to the fact that Netanyahu is trying to sabotage a peaceful settlement on the Iranian nuclear questions, or that he is willing to publicly disrespect the current President of the United States of America publicly in the halls of Congress before a joint session of the House and Senate. They are, ironically, paying attention to an issue that is also driven by conservative Netanyahu-Likud policy: growing inequality. That very domestic of issues, more so than any conscious struggle over Israel’s soul or for long-term peace, seems to be the issue that may topple Netanyahu from power.

But one group of Israeli citizens is paying attention to the soul struggle: Arab Palestinian-Israelis, over 20% of Israel’s population. After years of disorganization and apathy, Israel’s Palestinian political community seems to finally be uniting into a single joint-alliance led by the charismatic Ayman Odeh and poised to make a significant impact on the outcome of this election. The Arab alliance has even pledged to support Netanyahu’s main rival, Isaac Herzog. If Netanyahu, on track to become Israel’s longest-serving Prime Minister, finally falls because of Arab Palestinian-Israel citizens organizing effectively, winning seats in Israel’s Knesset (parliament), and governing and participating fully in Israel’s democratic system, what better way present a better face to the world, Arabs, Palestinians, and themselves, to show that they are capable of peace and coexistence? What stronger evidence for the promise of Israel and of democracy?

If, however, Israel’s voters and parties fail to rise to the challenge, the world may very well judge Israel for its incapabilities and broken promises. Win or lose, it should and must judge Netanyahu for his.

Both sides deserve a lot of blame, but the contributions of Israel’s structural violence should not be eclipsed by Hamas’ physical violence, or, (almost) everything you need to know about Gaza in one article.

Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse July 28, 2014

By Brian E. Frydenborg- LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter (you can follow me there at @bfry1981) July 28, 2014. See related May 14, 2021 article on the 2021 fighting: Death, Stupidity; Rinse, Repeat: What Is New, What Is Old in Latest Israeli-Palestinian Tragedy  

Available in eBook format:

Available at Barnes & Noble or Amazon or in ePub format 

This article was majorly updated several times from July 29th-August 5th, with minor edits made the following week. It was originally published as one single article but due to technical issues on LinkedIn’s end I was forced to break it apart into three part parts. Here are the LinkedIn links for Part II and Part III.

“Yes, indeed, the gods do not give everything to the same man. You know how win a battle, Hannibal; you do not know how to use the victory!”—Maharbal to Hannibal after the battle of Cannae, 216 BCE, as quoted by Livy, From the Founding of the City 22.51

I.) Introduction: Setting the Discussion

If you read any kind of an opinion piece or analysis that does not blame both Israel’s government and Hamas (note I did not say equally, we will get to assigning proportions for the blame later) for this unfolding, obscene fiasco, you should make a mental note to not take that author’s analysis or commentary seriously. Cheerleaders and myopia have been making this conflict worse, not better, for years. If an article does not present this as ugly vs. less ugly, it is way off. There are few heroes, just a decent number of well-intentioned people without the power to be heroes and plenty of villains with power. Spectating in this conflict is like being at a soccer/football match where no one ever scores, there are lots of dramatic arguments and pushing and shoving, lots of diving and faking injuries, lots of yellow and red cards given, and you are stuck in an endless progression of overtimes with no penalty shootouts (think Uruguay vs. Italy, with more biting and fewer goals). Or, the conflict resembles a comic-book, movie, or TV show that features bad guys vs. bad guys and no good guy is in sight. It is deeply depressing and incredibly infuriating for anyone who cares even a little about the Palestinian or the Israeli people, least of all because large segments of both Israelis and Palestinians, like their many of respective leadership, are not helping themselves in the long-run and are even encouraging violence or behavior that would make things far worse, not better. And in the end, little to nothing will change, each side repeating the same deadly mistakes it made the last time this happened with the same foreseeable, tragic consequences, with the same predictable, avoidable, and in-vain-deaths as the only real “achievement” for either side. And in a matter of months or a few years, this sordid Greek tragedy will be put on ghastly display yet again for an encore performance, with the parties to the conflict more or less doing their best to ensure that the show will go on between now and then that and that we can safely expect a similar curtain call.

Part of the Story Can Be Worse than None of It

The problem with a lot of conflicts, and this one is no exception, is that people will tune in at any given moment, unaware of the events which led to one thing or another, and begin to pass judgment based on the most salient events, identifying causes as symptoms or symptoms as causes. I am not speaking of necessarily going back to the very beginning of a conflict; sometimes conflicts span generations, and the sins of one set of opposing fathers cannot fully absolve the sins of an opposing set of sons. Despite the common forgetting of it, a simple truth is that many people are to a high degree independent actors possessing agency; individual leaders matter, but so do their people. And more on this agency later, in my conclusion. But, to return to time, it is common and somewhat understandable for people to forget or muddle the prime roots of a conflict, which can go back to before they were born. What is also common but less understandable is to forget the context of recent months, weeks, years. And with this latest round of hackneyed, near-pointless hostilities between Israelis and Palestinian—namely, between the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas, but also between both Jewish and Arab terrorists/militants/vigilantes—it is clear that many people, including those in the media and positions of power, are reaching understandings of these events which miss a lot of the context from even just the past few weeks, understandings that misinform about and confuse an already quite convoluted situation. And a lot of this has to do with the news sources from which people are getting their information about this conflict.

Quality of, and Amount of Quality, Israel-Palestine Coverage Improving, but a Lot Is Still Not Good Enough, Lacks Context

When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one of a scarcity of silver linings is that the U.S. news media has gotten much better at covering this conflict since the beginning of the Second Intifada. I would say that, among the best newspapers and magazines (online and print), the quality of coverage has actually grown quite dramatically. Even television news, which is behind, has gotten much better. Whereas before it is fairly obvious that there was a pervasive bias in favor of Israel—Israeli deaths would be featured on front pages, Palestinian deaths buried behind them—now outlets like The New York Times, The Atlantic, Slate, and CNN all avoid painting the conflict as one-sided and regularly highlight the suffering of Palestinians as major showpieces and regularly show Israel’s policies to be what they are: deeply flawed, often brutal, often illegal, and amounting to the collective punishment of millions of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem (but policies that at least in part stem from a deep insecurity, a stifling paranoia, and a state-perpetuated sense of victimhood among Israelis, parts of which stem from a unique culture of persecution and near-extermination, parts of which stem from recent history, some parts of each more legitimate than others for explaining current behavior and mentalities). Today, individual Palestinians who have been deeply wronged or attacked by the occupation, Israeli security forces, the Israeli government, or Israeli settlers are given ample coverage, something that was not common before the Second Intifada. The New York Times was even recently accused of having a pro-Palestinian bias by TheNew York Observer, and such accusations are hardly limited to just the Times or only come from the Observer. Still, much of the television coverage, as with so many other issues covered on television, falls short not from an inherent agenda or a blatant bias so much as it falls short because of attempts to try to appear objective by creating false equivalency after false equivalency, trying to present most things as a 50-50 problem when it comes to assigning blame and giving equal airtime to arguments of unequal quality.

The brutality and sheer disproportionality of Prime Minister/General Ariel Sharon’s response to the Second Intifada, of Israel’s 2006 invasions of Lebanon and Gaza, and of 2008-2009’s Operation Cast Lead have made it easier for news professionals from a country inclined to support Israel to become more reluctant to feel that such support is justified and to increasingly question Israel’s actions. Of course it is easy (and appropriate) in the case of Hamas to revile those who would use rockets to indiscriminately and deliberately target civilians, who would send suicide bombers to civilian buses and discos to kill commuters and young adults, and to revile the tactic of suicide bombing itself (for years only on Hamas’s shelf and not in its active repertoire, but now apparently back on the table as of a this month, according, at least, to the IDF); that Israel does not unquestionably have the moral high ground over such an opponent is not so much a measure of any sort of anti-Semitism (which is in decline in some but not all places) as it is a measure of how awful its own policies—policies carried out over decades, not just years or months—actually are. In addition, if there are extremely few positive things to come out of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, one positive thing is that I think over the course of that long war, our experience working with so many Iraqi Arabs as allies (even if some just temporarily) and spending so many years hoping for Iraqis’ success in rebuilding their society (hopes that were dashed, creating even more sympathy in at least some Americans) made Americans care more about Arabs and their perspectives as individual human beings than they did before. And the coverage today reflects this. In addition, reporting in the age of Twitter and Facebook makes the both anchors and their reports “more visceral, more emotional;” now when a war happens, the casualties are shown in graphic detail in almost real-time, making for more powerful public reactions and raising the component of public relations as an aspect in modern warfare to new heights.

Those who allege some sort of deliberate Zionist-American skewing of the coverage would at least have been right to question the balance of the coverage roughly a decade ago; but today, Chomskyesque denunciations of such a massive, deliberate agenda today are more evidence of the myopia, blinding cynicism, selective intake, and oversimplified world view of those espousing them. Apart from entities like Fox News, of course. There are some quality, serious reporters who actually attempt objectivity working for Fox; but in general, Fox can be dismissed as “so fantastically terrible, so obviously low-rent,” that when we discuss the general quality of the American news media, we can simply remove Fox as an outlier to get more a more accurate idea of how mainstream journalism is trending. Or, we can grade the media with a curve with Fox in mind. All this is to say that I am pleased that there are a good number of quality journalists who write a good number of quality articles for a good number of quality news outlets, articles that are pretty objective when it comes to this conflict and that any American with at least internet access can easily find in major publications with a minimal amount of effort (this may partly help to explain why today’s young American Jews feel increasingly less attached to Israel, its politics, and its policies, and are against the occupation and Israel’s way of dealing with Palestinians).

Still, there are too many pieces that lack context and balance, and especially that explain how both the longer-term context and all the recent events leading up to this hot-phase of the conflict tie into what we are seeing on television and reading in the paper or online. So below is my attempt to cover that gap regarding Israel and Gaza. First we’ll examine the longer-term context in these next sections, then the shorter-term context much later.

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II.) Longer-Term Context

A Brief Survey of Israel’s Abusive Love-Affair with Gaza

A Young Israel not yet even twenty years old, prior to the June 1967 Six-Day War, felt a sense of dread and doom about the impending war with its neighbors. This fact only made its stunning victory all the more miraculous in the eyes of Israelis. It was celebrated with a near messianic fervor, and many Israelis, even those not particularly religiously inclined, saw the hand of Yahweh and of destiny playing a role in their victory. A level of hubrisemerged within Israel that enabled it to believe it could occupy the West Bank and Gaza with its many Palestinian Arabs, and not just occupy, but occupy indefinitely and aggressively colonize and settle both lands with many thousands and thousands of Jews, all the while continuing to deny basic freedoms to the Palestinians, governed through the military boots of Israel’s army, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). And not only was the hubris so high that Israelis believed they could do all this, they believed they could do all this indefinitely with no actual long-term plan for what to do with the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza, people for whom Israel was now fully legally responsible since the moment it took the territories from Jordan and Egypt, respectively.

This is not only stunning in hindsight, but in real-time as well. It is perfectly understandable that Israel felt it needed to hold onto these territories as some sort of security barriers between a hostile Jordan and a hostile Egypt. But peace was reached with Egypt in 1979, and with Jordan in 1994 (let us also remind the reader here that Israel never lost a war to either of these countries). Thus, the main legitimate rationale for holding onto Gaza disappeared in 1979, and for the West Bank in 1994. Yet Israel still continued to occupy, colonize, and settle Gaza for more than a quarter-century after making peace with Egypt, and today, twenty years after reaching peace with Jordan, Israeli is still engaging in its colonialist settling and occupation of the West Bank. And while at first this was not government policy, but fervent individuals settling the land on their own, eventually both of Israel’s main political parties, Labor and Likud (though Likud more so), wouldsupport, protect, add to, and expand the settlement enterprise, so that, twenty years after the 1993 start of the Oslo “peace” process, Israeli’s population in the territories it had occupied by force in 1967 had more than doubled to well over half a million settlers.

One can argue, in a chicken-vs.-egg debate, whether the political forces behind Palestinians’ violence or the political forces behind Israel’s settlement movement and the occupation were the primary instigators of the current cycle of violence, but today the obvious truth is that these forces reinforce and perpetuate each other. I would suggest that, since there was no mass, popular violence or violent resistance for the first twenty years of the Israeli occupation and that the Palestinians were frustrated and stymied in their attempts to non-violently achieve rights and freedom, and that mass violence and resistance began after twenty years of oppression, those twenty years of oppression had an awful lot to do with why there was eventually a tremendous amount of violence from Palestinians. As Israeli historian Benny Morris wrote in his landmark Righteous Victims, after the 1967 war,

Israeli thinking was to some degree governed by the notion that the Arabs of the territories, starved of land and resources (primarily water), and denied the possibility of industrial development, would gradually drift away. Though never clearly enunciated, this was the government’s aim—especially after 1977. And, indeed, over the decades, a steady trickle of West Bank and Gaza Arabs left their homes to find an easier life abroad… (339)

Extreme forms of censorship and political repression were common, as were military courts that usually only acted to further Israeli interests, often brutally; “[t]here was a clear lesson for the inhabitants of the territories and the Palestinian diaspora in these events: Israel intended to stay in the West Bank, and its rule would not be overthrown or ended through civil disobedience and civil resistance, which were easily crushed. The only real option was armed struggle” (341). For Morris,

[t]he war and its aftermath of occupation, repression, and expansionism swiftly reignited the tinder of Palestinian nationalism, propelling thousands of young men, especially from among the dispossessed and hopeless of the refugee camps in East Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, into the burgeoning resistance organizations. At the same time, much as the Zionist enterprise had helped trigger early Palestinian nationalism, so the daily contact and friction with Israel and the Israeli authorities inside the territories now reawakened it. (343)

The settlement movement really picked up steam in the 1980s, with Ariel Sharon becoming its father and patron from within the government. Morris writes that “[b]y 1987 the 2,500 Israeli settlers in the [Gaza] Strip—or 0.4 percent of the territory’s total population—had control over some 28 percent of its state lands” and dominated the use of Gaza’s water resources (565). Through the First Intifada, Oslo, and the Second Intifada, hostility with the local Palestinians grew, as did Gaza’s settler population.

As Oslo petered off into a mere piece of paper in the face of a degenerating reality, deliberate sabotage by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the settlers, Hamas, and other militant groups, and reluctance to compromise by many other major players, hope was injected into the process again by Ehud Barak’s defeat of Netanyahu in 1999 elections, culminating in the Clinton-Administration-sponsored Camp David Summit in 2000 (a myth regarding which has sprung up in the U.S. and among supporters of Israel that Yasir Arafat blindly walked away from a “generous” Israeli offer, when the reality was actually far more complicated) and even more so during the less-publicized Taba Summit of January 2001. Taba was put on hold for upcoming Israeli elections, in a climate of increasing unrest over the Second Intifada, which Ariel Sharon had helped to spark in September of 2000 with a very provocative, armed-guard-filled-visit to the Temple Mount, home to Islam’s holy Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque, in East Jerusalem’s Old City. Barak would fall, Sharon replacing him, and he was not as keen to negotiate.

Over 8,000 Jewish settlers lived in Gaza in 2005, surrounded by over 1.3 million Palestinians. Sharon—now Israel’s Prime Minister—decided to make a huge change to this situation after crushing the Palestinians’ Second Intifada uprising, realizing the madness of having to have thousands of IDF troops protect some 8,000 Israelis living among over a million hostile Arabs in a tiny piece of land with limited resources was not in Israel’s interests. Sharon was already laying the groundwork for an Israeli withdrawal and an evacuation of the settlements in Gaza even as Arafat’s health was deteriorating in 2004.

Fast forward to 2005: Yasir Arafat had only died (possibly from poisoning) the previous year after decades of leading his people. After Oslo began in 1993, Arafat was no longer the exiled swashbuckling terrorist; he was now partially in charge of territory and population, and it would be clear that he was more suited to the role of freedom fighter than that of governor. Under Arafat’s leadership, and with sheer complicity on the part of Israel and U.S., Arafat bled the Palestinian economy dry through a combination of corruption, incompetence, and nepotism, severely retarding the process of building a Palestinian state; under Arafat, Palestinians stayed weak and divided, not that Israel minded this at all.

In the first half of 2005, Hamas was already starting to best Fatah in local Gazan elections, as Sharon proceeded with his preparations for his already announced unilateral disengagement from Gaza by aggressively going after militants/terrorists in Gaza. Throughout this period, Sharon stressed the unilateral aspect of his plan; this was going to be an “explicitly unilateral” Israeli choice, not a victory for the Palestinian resistance, and he did not want to cooperate with and thereby legitimize Mahmoud Abbas, who was elected to succeed Arafat as President of the Palestinian Authority(the sort-of government of the Palestinians established by the Oslo process), run by Arafat’s and Abbas’s political party, Fatah. Sharon liked the Palestinians nice and weak, fighting among themselves as they were at the time. But by undermining Abbas and shunning serious cooperation and coordination, despite U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s pleas for Sharon to work with Abbas, Sharon paved the way, along with Fatah’s corruption, for the rise of Hamas. Thus, Sharon went forward with his plan more-or-less unilaterally, leaving Abbas stranded and Hamas claiming victory as the resistance. For Sharon, this was not about continuing the peace process or empowering the Palestinians; in fact, it was about the opposite: it was about stopping the peace process. According to a top Sharon advisor, who at the time was tasked with running the disengagement from Gaza, it was designed to “prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state…[and to supply] the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians.” It was also designed to help Israel keep most of its larger settlements in the West Bank. Just before the plan was implemented, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quit his post in Sharon’s Cabinet in protest of the disengagement, instead wanting to retain control of Gaza and maintain its Jewish settlements.

After the Divorce, Still Plenty of Action in the Israel/Gaza Relationship

Just days after the Gaza pullout was completed, Israel began expanding a buffer zone it had been creating in Gazan territory, warning Gazans that if they approached it they would be shot. Even before the pullout it was clear to some that this growing buffer zone was being put in place, in part, to serve as a mechanism of control and not just defense. Israel also severely limited what goods and supplies could enter into and out of Gaza, and began closing Gaza’s entry and exit points. Violence also resumed between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza within a few weeks of the pullout. In an attempt to clamp down on militants and reduce violence between Israel and Gaza, the PA’s Fatah tried to suppress armed actions from Hamas and other militant groups, setting off clashes between Palestinians.

January 2006 began with chaos and would provide several tremendous shocks for the region: early in the month, Ariel Sharon suffered from a massive, incapacitating stroke, from which he would never wake, and was succeeded by Ehud Olmert, while near the end of the month, Hamas won Palestine’s parliamentary elections, earning a 72-seat-majority, while Fatah only won 45 out of the 132 seats. The elections were considered free and fair overall by international observers, although the U.S. quietly attempted to aid the PA, run by Fatah, with several programs to boost its image before the election; while technically not helping a political party per se, the aid was definitely intended to counter Hamas. Hamas, very new to politics, caught many—including Rice and Bush—off-guard with its victory. The vote was not so much a vote by the Palestinians for Islamic governance so much as it was a vote against Fatah’s endemic and systemic corruption and its inability to provide a semblance of law and order (something Bill Clinton understood, too; so do not let anyone tell you that the people of Gaza voted for “terror” or “terrorism” or to “destroy Israel”). Mahmoud Abbas would remain president, but Hamas would run the government. In response, the US and EU essentially boycotted Hamas and the government, withholding aid and support. Almost immediately, violence broke out between Hamas and Fatah.

The Gaza from which Israel “withdrew” was devastated after Arafat’s plundering and Sharon’s smashing. The Brilliant Bush White House Team thought the best thing for Gaza after all these horrors was to have elections, when the most obvious and really only choices were the perpetually corrupt and parasitic Fatah, bereft of their charismatic Arafat to give them any real appeal, and the militant terrorist resistance movement Hamas, which had been providing many social services, like education and health care, that Fatah had failed to provide. A college student with a few classes of background on Israel and the Palestinians could have guessed that Hamas would have won and Fatah would have fallen in the absence of any time to develop political parties, any serious rebuilding, and any serious cooperation or concessions from the Israelis to give the people of Gaza a sense of normality and to help rehabilitate Fatah, but not the blindly, naively optimistic U.S. Secretary of State and her President. So it was that Condoleezza Rice—Soviet specialist extraordinaire—and George W. Bush—a specialist in nothing related to foreign policy—thought the best thing for Gaza immediately after nearly forty years of occupation, colonization, and corruption was elections. Commenting on the Administration’s failure, Rice noted, in a gross understatement, that “It does say something about us not having a good enough pulse.” Yes, it did. Perhaps even more disturbing was when she said “I don’t know anyone who wasn’t caught off guard by Hamas’s strong showing. ” Perhaps not surprising that she literally did not know one single person who had a clue about the Palestinian people’s mood and views on their leaders since the Bush Administration was characterized by an almost limitless hubris coupled with a startling ability to be so dead wrong about so many of its assumptions underlying its major policies; this is certainly one of the best examples of the Bush team’srampant myopia.

Furthermore, in February, before Hamas’s government was even sworn in, the U.S. hosted Israeli and PA Fatah officials for a meeting that focused on ways to isolate and weaken Hamas. In particular, Israel and the U.S. had an ongoing discussion about developing a policy of tightening the noose around Gaza and more or less sealing it off, severely limiting what could come in or out in the hopes that the suffering of Gazans would turn them against Hamas and amounting to what could only be called a strategy of collective punishment. A semi-secret plan was adopted on February 18th by Israel and the US to go through with these and other measures designed to weaken Hamas and the soon-to-be-Hamas-run-PA (such as preventing the PA from collecting its tax revenue and denying Gaza the ability to construct a seaport) unless Hamas renounced violence and recognized Israel’s right to exist (Hamas refused). Hypocritically, it would seem, Rice publicly called for the opening of Gaza in July, even as the administration of which she was a primary part had been privately seeking the opposite for months. The U.S. would even try to get a nervous Abbas to dissolve the government and call for new elections, Rice pushing for this to happen in a matter of weeks.

Shortly after Hamas had assumed power, the UN began warning of shortages of essential, basic items, including food, as the de-facto blockade of Gaza expanded when Israel closed more crossings and intensified the sealing-off of Gaza. These conditions in Gaza persist today, with various loosenings and tightenings of certain aspects here and there, in what amounts to a form of low-level siege warfare and a blockade (an act of war under international law) of dubious legality. Israel maintains that it needs to have this blockade to prevent Hamas from acquiring weapons, but there are clearly many aspects of the blockade that are just punitive in nature, with many goods that are banned that have nothing to do with weapons. These measures even included severe limits on fishermen in terms of where they can fish, with the Israel Navy firing on fisherman if they go past what Israel has decreed are the limits for Gazan fisherman. Soon after these policies were put into place, Hamas ran out of money and could not even pay the salaries of government workers, and Gaza was in dire straits (Iran, though, would step in and fund Hamas eventually). The main US-EU-UN-Russian joint envoy to the Israelis and Palestinians even resigned in protest over this policy of cutting off and strangulating Gaza.

Late in June, in response to increased military attacks by Israel, Hamas and its allies attacked IDF troops, killing two and capturing one named Gilad Shalit. Israel’s response to this almost boggles the mind for its sheer disproportionality: before the end of the month, Israel launched a massive operation to rescue Shalit and hit Hamas, with extensive use of artillery and air-strikes, but also explicitly sough to punish the people of Gaza, blowing up Gaza’s only power station and flying jets directly over houses and apartments at low altitude to use sonic booms as a punitive tactic to frighten the population. The operation killed hundreds of Palestinians before it ended in November, and during the operation Hamas and Fatah personnel ended up fighting and killing each other. Also during this operation, Israel would simultaneously become embroiled in an invasion of Lebanon (also quite disproportionate, which would kill over 1,000 Lebanese civilians) in response to an attack that saw two Israeli soldiers captured and seven killed, similar to the attack in which Shalit was captured.

The U.S. Plays at Having a Coup Against Hamas

Having insistently pushed for the Palestinians to hold elections, then making a decision to boycott and undermine the winner of those elections when they did not like the result, Bush and Rice were now basically trying to support, arm, and train an armed force to overthrow the party that had won the very elections on which they had insisted.

That December the U.S. began redirecting the aid it had withheld from Hamas towards building up Abbas’s security personnel in the hopes that they would take on Hamas. What would follow is astounding. Having insistently pushed for the Palestinians to hold elections, then making a decision to boycott and undermine the winner of those elections when they did not like the result, Bush and Rice were now basically trying to support, arm, and train an armed force to overthrow the party that had won the very elections on which they had insisted. Incredulously, Rice, ever suffering from “grand illusions” and trapped in viewing almost everything through the experience of the Cold War, defended her push for elections several years after the failure of them was obvious. This is even more unbelievable when you consider that Bush and Rice did not put their money where their mouths were and do much of anything substantive, save for giving speeches, to try and pressure Sharon to work with Abbas and shore up him and his Fatah party with some progress towards a Palestinian state for them to show their people; Rice even ignored the advice of her deputy to try just this (but we saw before that Sharon was not really committed to a Palestinian state anyway). Both and Rice and Bush were also told that Fatah was not ready for elections, with Israel and the then-Fatah-run-PA recommending delaying the elections, but their advice was ignored.

This new secret plan of the Bush Administration’s was about as successful as all of its others for Israel and the Palestinians, as the newly-U.S.-backed Fatah forces “provoke[d] a Palestinian civil war” and “inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of Gaza.” Hamas may not have been planning to seize Gaza, but maybe felt compelled to do because of Fatah’s aggression. One unnamed Pentagon source recalled that “We sat there in the Pentagon and said, ‘Who the fuck recommended this?’ ” The Second Intifada had left Fatah’s security services degraded and nearly destroyed, and thus very vulnerable. As Hamas escalated its violence against Fatah, Fatah began trying to intimidate Hamas’ security forces through kidnappings and torture, hoping this would deter Hamas from action against it in its current vulnerable position. As 2006 drew to a close, the killing and torture going on between the two Palestinian factions was increasing, and early into 2007 there was on-again, off-again, hostilities between them, turning Gaza into a war zone. Israel also resumed strikes in Gaza in response to Palestinian rocket attacks. That December, weapons and ammunition from Egypt began being delivered to Fatah’s security services as part of the overall U.S. plan which would go through a number of other Arab states, a plan which aroused a lot of dissent from the ranks of the Bush Administration officials tasked with implementing it. Some of these Arab states sensed that the U.S. was hesitant about this, and did not follow through fully with their commitments, so the program was under-resourced from the start.

Then things escalated severely between Hamas and Fatah in February, 2007. Abbas was fearing a civil war and so caved into pressure from Saudi Arabia’s king to form a unity government with Hamas, against express U.S. desires to avoid doing this; in return, the Saudis would bankroll the PA, now to be run by both factions. Rice was furious, and intense American pressure was applied for Abbas to have a plan to scrap the unity government—even if he could not do so legally—if Hamas did not accept the conditions previously laid out by the U.S. to renounce violence and recognize Israel. Together, with Jordan, Egypt, and Abbas’s men, the U.S. came up with a detailed security plan for improving, training, and equipping existing PA Fatah-led security units and creating several new ones, increasing the overall number of armed forces by about 25 percent, all to the tune of $1.27 billion over five years. Plus, the Palestinians would be made to look as if all this was their plan, the U.S. staying in the background.

One unnamed Pentagon source recalled that “We sat there in the Pentagon and said, ‘Who the fuck recommended this?’ ”

But the plan was leaked to a Jordanian newspaper at the end of April, and for Hamas it was clear what was going on: the U.S., Abbas, and neighboring regimes were trying to overthrow Hamas even though it had won the election. Violence broke out again between Fatah and Hamas, and the unity deal collapsed. A new unit of 500 Fatah security troops, fresh from training in Egypt with shiny new weapons and uniforms, raised a lot of eyebrows when they arrived, especially Hamas’ and the Western press corps’. Hamas fighters attacked the new Fatah troops, but they were repulsed. Feeling threatened, Hamas went all out in its attacks that May. When June 7 saw an Israeli paper leak that there was a request for Israel to approve the largest weapons shipment from Egypt so far–including armored vehicles, rockets, grenades, and millions of bullets—Hamas held nothing back. Even though they had won the elections, their own government was not only refusing to give Hamas control of the Palestinian security services, it was using them to try to overthrow Hamas itself.

Hamas’s people insist that without this U.S.-Fatah attempt to overthrow them, they would not have carried out their own sort-of-coup in June (it’s hard to call it a coup when they were the ones who were legitimately elected; in the words of Vice-President Dick Cheney’s former primary Middle East advisor David Wurmser, “It looks to me that what happened wasn’t so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was pre-empted before it could happen.”). Fatah wasn’t even fully behind its party’s war against Hamas, as the decisions regarding this were largely coming from one longtime Fatah security chief, Muhammad Dahlan, whom Bush referred to as “our guy.” Israeli military intelligence was of the opinion that Fatah’s position in Gaza was “desperate.” So it was no surprise to Israel’s intelligence services that in just five days, Hamas’s own fighters had routed Fatah’s security people who were challenging them, chasing many of the survivors down and executing them, taking over all of Fatah’s buildings in Gaza (including Abbas’s Gaza residence), and destroying much of Dahlan’s home. Hamas even secured most of Fatah’s weapons and supplies in Gaza, including a lot of the weapons with which U.S. had been hoping to arm Fatah. The peace process was dealt a severe blow, and unlike Fatah, Hamas would allow frequent barrages of rocket fire to be unleashed at Israel, though it also would have periods of many months where it would refrain from doing so and would try to stop other militant groups from unleashing volleys. “[T]he Bush [A]dministration blundered at every turn in its dealings with the Palestinians,” and “was utterly incompetent at foreign policy;” the failure of Bush and Rice was complete and total.

For its part, and in typically short-sighted fashion, Israel apparently at this time looked forward to a Hamas takeover of Gaza; leaked diplomatic cables from WikiLeaks stated that Israel “would be “happy” if Hamas took over Gaza because the IDF could then deal with Gaza as a hostile state,” at least according to its military intelligence chief at the time. Israel, then, did not seem to be behaving as a good faith partner in the peace process.

Some Fatah people could not believe how stupidly the Bush-Rice plan was executed, to the degree that they believe those two deliberately set the plan up to fail and wanted Hamas to be in power. People that suffer from our failures often think this way, not realizing that incompetence is not uncommon in American foreign policy, and find it hard to believe the U.S. could be so stupid. Enter Bush and Rice…

For its part, and in typically short-sighted fashion, Israel apparently at this time looked forward to a Hamas takeover of Gaza; leaked diplomatic cables from WikiLeaks stated Israel “would be “happy” if Hamas took over Gaza because the IDF could then deal with Gaza as a hostile state,” at least according to its military intelligence chief at the time.

Death and Stalemate, Rinse and Repeat

In response to Hamas’ taking control of Gaza, Israel tightened its blockade of Gaza even further, which created severe shortages of essential goods and food. In order to alleviate the suffering of Gazans, Hamas offered to turn Gaza’s crossings over to Abbas or any international body, just not Israel; both Abbas and Israel rejected the offer, and Israel increased and maintained military pressure on Hamas throughout 2007, even allowing Fatah gunmen into Gaza to take on Hamas and generate opposition. Israel also began using electricity cuts as punishment and curtailed imports into Gaza to just “the minimum amount of food and medicines necessary to avoid a humanitarian crisis” and further increased “the near-total closure” of Gaza, with hundreds of thousands of Gazans having little or no access to safe drinking-water or running water. This siege of Gaza was strengthened ever further in 2008, and Israel then also brought in bulldozers to extend its buffer zone in Gaza. Violence continued until June 2008 saw the beginning of a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, which began with a rocky start but then held steady for some months, though Israel chose not to respond with any significant extended lifting or moderating of its siege of Gaza. Hamas used this time to violently repress Fatah activists in Gaza. Israel would dramatically break the cease-fire with a major incursion into Gaza in November and the siege was tightened even further when Hamas retaliated, with the result being that “Gaza’s humanitarian conditions reached a tipping point.” UNRWA even had to stop food distribution for half of all Gazans, a first in sixty years of operation. Israel even prevented the delivery of children’s vaccines, and the PA prevented the transfer of medical supplies from the West Bank. Later in November, the IDF completely sealed off Gaza. Hamas halted almost all attacks for a week, after which a trickle of emergency supplies were allowed into Gaza. But Israel was already planning a major offensive operation for Gaza. December saw more escalation, and the cease-fire reached in June, set to expire on December 19, was not renewed. Yet while Israel was building up support for a major military operation, Hamas then reached out to offer another cease-fire agreement in exchange for a major reduction in the intensity of Gaza’s siege, but Israel rejected this offer and instead went ahead with Operation Cast Lead, the largest single military operation against Palestinians since 1948. It lasted less than a month but killed well over a 1,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, while Israel’s losses were ten soldiers and three civilians. A controversial, major UN report on the fighting, known as the Goldstone Report and released in the fall of 2009 (which was over a year later sort ofpartly retracted by one of its four authors under questionable and odd circumstances; its other three authors stood by the original report and rejected the retraction), found ample evidence that both sides had committed serious war crimes during the operation and had, at times, an utter disregard for the lives of civilians, accusations repeated by other organizations as well. In any event, Israel had failed to destroy or dislodge Hamas or even weaken Hamas’ hold on Gaza, while Israel’s and the IDF’s image was deeply tarnished. Conversely, sympathy for Gazans and Hamasonly grew among the Palestinian population in Israel and the West Bank as a result of Cast Lead, actually empowering Hamas and increasing its legitimacy.

Sympathy for Gazans and Hamas only grew among the Palestinian population in Israel and the West Bank as a result of Cast Lead, actually empowering Hamas and increasing its legitimacy.

Before Cast Lead, Abbas and Olmert were perhaps closer than any other two Israeli and Palestinian leaders ever were to reaching a comprehensivepeace deal. But Olmert ended up announcing his future resignation because of a corruption scandal, making himself something of a lame-duck, and then launched Cast Lead, derailing the process. After months of stalemate, Benjamin Netanyahu, who seems to not even seriously believe in the “Two-State Solution,” took over as Israel’s prime minister in a remarkable comeback at the end of March, 2009, by forming a coalition with an extremist right-wing party and giving the post of foreign minister to its leader, Avigdor Lieberman, and by eventually winning over other parties after this move. Netanyahu is still Israel’s leader today.

As for the rift between Fatah and Hamas, there were several attempts to reconcile, but even when an attempt began in a promising way, it would eventually stall. However, in perhaps the most hopeful attempt yet, a unity agreement was reached in April, but that will be discussed later.

After the intense violence of Cast Lead, things remained at a low level of violence for the next several years, but peaked again in the fall of 2012 with predictably banal results. 2013 was the quietest year in terms of violence between Israelis and Palestinians since before the Second Intifada. And yet, no major easing of the siege of Gaza occurred on Israel’s end despite what can only be termed Hamas’ best year in terms of its behavior towards Israel. Escalation of violence began again just this spring…

No major easing of the siege of Gaza occurred on Israel’s end despite what can only be termed Hamas’ best year in terms of its behavior towards Israel.

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Below is what was Part II

III.) The Current Violence

A Principled Assessment of the Violence of the Parties in this Current Round of Fighting

A more than 600 to 1 ratio, which may only become even more imbalanced as the fighting continues, between the deaths from the response to the rockets and the deaths from the rockets themselves, means that this response failed to pass the proportionality test a long time ago.

As I write this, the over 2,900 rockets fired from the Gaza strip have managed to kill only three civilians and wound roughly two dozen, while Israel’s “Operation Protective Edge” in Gaza has killed over 1,800 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and wounded over 9,000. This is a stunning, and stunningly obscene, disparity: over a 600 to 1 kill ratio between the intervention in response to the rockets and the rockets themselves. Amid the lively (to say the least) debate on this conflict, there are several key points to be made here. 1.) Israel most definitely has the right to defend itself. No country would ever tolerate rocket fire from across its border without some sort of a response. However, 2.) such a response needs to beproportional to the threat, and Israel’s actions certainly raise “the question of proportionality,” as former U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright said on Wednesday. In addition to the human losses, the invasion of Gaza has apparently “completely destroyed”over 5,200 buildings and caused $4 billion in damage, or almost three times Gaza’s GDP. A response is in danger of becoming an illegitimate, disproportionate response and an act of aggression in and of itself if it is taken too far. And a more than 600 to 1 ratio, which may become even more imbalanced as the fighting continues, between the deaths from the response to the rockets and the deaths from the rockets themselves, means that this response failed to pass the proportionality test a long time ago. If one kid in a playground punches another in the stomach a few times, the other kid cannot punch the initial aggressor kid twenty times in the head, then break his arms and legs and claim he is only acting in “self-defense” and is justified because the initial aggressor did not fully stop all resistance. So 3.) once it becomes clear that aggression on the part of the responder has passed any sense of proportionality, the initial aggressor, too, has a right to defend himself, especially in his own territory, as do others affected by the reactive aggression. In this case, one should distinguish between casualties caused by Hamas’ and others’ rockets, fired wholly indiscriminately, and Hamas’ and others’ attacks on Israeli troops assaulting Gaza or massing outside Gaza to do just that. Over sixty IDF soldiers have been killed during Israel’s assault on Gaza, over 320 wounded, but those casualties are hard to argue against being at least partly defensive in nature. In fact, it is likely that many non-Hamas local Gazans would take up arms against IDF incursions, defending their very homes from aggression, as opposed to the idea of large numbers of “normal” Gazans undertaking the firing of rockets into Israel. However, this should most certainly not be used to justify the targeting of civilians or to claim that there are no “innocent civilians” in Gaza.

Also, when assessing any form of violence in a conflict, 4.) three main criteria must be examined.

a.) Intent is certainly one of these, and is something that can be multifaceted. A party to a conflict can have stated intents, which may or may not be true, and unstated intents, which sometimes can be pretty apparent, but other times can be pretty mystifying at best. Here, one must distinguish between a party deliberately and indiscriminately targeting civilians for death, and one that does not target civilians for death as an end-target unto themselves. Keep in mind that this intent is a separate criterion from looking at the actual casualties caused by the violence, and that that will be given attention below. In terms of intent regarding their respective acts of violence, Hamas has two main categories of violent acts in this conflict: the rocket attacks, which are intended to kill civilians, and engaging the Israeli military in and around Gaza, which target the Israeli military and can be viewed as self-defense. Israel’s attacks, in contrast, are part of a general, longstanding policy that “is not intended to maximize civilian casualties. Yet it does intentionally target civilians: it is intended to produce maximal civilian distress, while avoiding mass civilian casualties [author Roi Maor’s emphasis],” which, though leading at times to high civilian casualties, is meant to act as a deterrent, hitting civilian areas that are used as military bases and trying to make civilians think twice about supporting or allowing militant activity in their neighborhood, or to get them to pressure their government and/or militants to abandon hostilities; conversely, the militants/government may also think twice about engaging in violence if the likely response will be massive harm inflicted upon their own civilian charges. Still, while not targeting civilians specifically for death as a policy, the IDF has displayed a callous attitude towards Palestinian civilians, and one of the IDF’s ethics code authors asserting that only the safety of its personnel should affect tactics and that no additional risks to its own personnel should be accepted by the IDF to prevent civilian casualties is something that at the very least should be debated vigorously, as such a philosophy seemingly contributed to the high levels of civilian casualties in Cast Lead.* Furthermore, the IDF’s own investigations into abuses or questionable actions are not regarded as serious. One non-military panel found that the IDF was not even following its own procedures regarding civilians.

*(A digression on doctrine is useful here: as it is, there is considerable  and ongoing debate involving a wide variety of views regarding tactics and noncombatants since this is a grey area of international law. Here are some of Israel’s official rules regarding combat and civilians. Thomas Smith, writing in 2008, noted that U.S. tactics earlier in the Iraq War were killing higher levels of civilians and alienating Iraqis, mentioning that U.S. consultation with the IDF (as reported late in December 2003 by Dexter Filkins, Julian Borger, and Seymour Hersh) may have been a factor that actually brought about a deterioration of both tactics and the relationship between Americans and Iraqis, or, as he termed it, brought about the “Palestinianization” of Iraq. He also noted that Gen. Peter Chiarelli’s installment as a major commander beginning in January 2006 and, in January 2007, the appointment of Gen. David Petraeus as overall commander in Iraq led to a distinctly different approach that took far more care to prioritize Iraqi civilians’ needs and safety and produced some better results. It was Petraeus who had been responsible for revising, improving, and co-authoring the U.S. Army’s own counterinsurgency manual [2014 edition here] at the time, wisely writing in one heading “The More Force Used, the Less Effective It Is” and also writing that “An operation that kills five insurgents is counterproductive if the collateral damage or the creation of blood feuds leads to the recruitment of fifty more.” Currently, the U.S. Army’s own manual from 2012 on Civilian Casualty Mitigation painstakingly and correctly notes that

Short-term thinking must be avoided because it is likely to lead to behavior that will generate widespread resentment and lead to a more insecure operational area in the future. Over time, units focused entirely on their own protection are likely to adopt a pattern of maneuvering aggressively, firing weapons indiscriminately, threatening civilians, and causing unnecessary CIVCASs [civilian casualties]

and that “Aggressive measures to protect the force in the short term can place units at greater risk in the future if resulting CIVCAS incidents alienate the population.” Not so much out of a moral principle, then, but out of consideration for the prospects of the Army’s own long-term success and safety and American national interests, it seems the U.S. military’s doctrine would allow exposing soldiers to more risk in the short term to better protect civilians because high civilian casualties over the medium and long-term can make an operating environment even more dangerous for the Army if a population grows increasingly hostile and/or becomes more inclined to support the enemy because of such civilian casualties. Essentially, it means that one must, at least to a degree, think strategically even when acting tactically. This is a wise policy, and, as it seems there is not this level of strategic consideration in Israel’s official military literature in terms of its tactics, Israel would do well to consider adopting a similar approach, not only for the sake of Palestinians and other Arabs that Israel could be fighting again in the future, but for the sake of the safety of Israeli military personnel in the long-run and for the sake of Israeli national interests. Thus, Israeli doctrine differs considerably from American doctrine, and, in fact, it is often counterproductive to Israel’s long-term interests and actually prevents it from making strategic gains or resolving conflicts, causing Israel to suffer from the “institutionalization of temporary solutions.” It is a telling flaw of Israeli thinking that the U.S. military was able to see many of its mistakes relating to civilians and adjust its tactics and strategy after only a few years of occupying Iraq and Afghanistan while Israel has been occupying Palestinians for almost fifty years and has been unable to see the need make similar adjustments to its tactics or strategic thinking. Rather than the other way around, then, it would seem that Israel could learn a lot from America’s recent evolution of its military thinking and practice. Col. Tony Pfaff, while recognizing and embracing the utilitarian arguments, argues that there are also ethical and moral responsibilities not to transfer an excessive and high amount of risk to noncombatants and to pursue alternatives to options that would do so, since soldiers essentially exercise sovereignty over where they operate, sovereignty that makes them partly responsible for area civilians. For him, the challenge is one of balancing risk between the soldiers themselves and noncombatants, not a transfer of the maximum possible to one party or the other; with this, I would agree. Finally, a cautionary note: as is always possible, there may be differences between official doctrine and practice [This digression later became the basis for a future article]. Now, back to the criteria of assessing violence in a conflict…)

It is a telling flaw of Israeli thinking that the U.S. military was able to see many of its mistakes relating to civilians and adjust its tactics and strategy after only a few years of occupying Iraq and Afghanistan while Israel has been occupying Palestinians for almost fifty years and has been unable to see the need make similar adjustments to its tactics or strategic thinking.

Another part of the intent behind the choice of Israel’s tactics is very political, so force is applied in a very Clausewitzian way for Israel here: the father of Israel’s military doctrine (termed Low Intensity Conflict) for most of the last few decades made it clear that this doctrine was designed “To undermine the adversary’s determination and to lead to the adversary’s abandoning his objectives, through a cumulative process of inflicting physical, economic, and psychological damage, and to lead the adversary to realize that his own armed engagement is hopeless.” Thus, force is directed at the population as a whole not in order to kill them but with the intent to make them submit to Israeli political designs over time through attrition. This strategy actually reveals an unwillingness to compromise or even attempt a political settlement, and helps to explain why Israeli political leaders like Sharon, Netanyahu, Lieberman, and others have actively tried to undermine the peace process. It is also worth noting that if this approach fails to break the enemy into submission it will only serve to increase violence and prolong the conflict.

The second main criterion for assessing violence in conflicts is b.) assessing the types of tactics used and their immediate likely effects. Regardless of what actual final outcomes occur, certain tactics are much likelier to kill more innocent people (say, firing artillery or using gunboats to shell an area, which are very imprecise tactics), while other are much more likely to spare lives (e.g., using smaller, precision weapons, or sending in disciplined ground troops as opposed to aerial bombardment). And likely, all of these tactics are being used at different times, which can make an assessment complicated: the use of precision weapons in one instance does not “cancel” out the use of artillery in another, or vice versa, when talking about a densely populated civilian area. All tactics must be factored into a final analysis, and the fog of war often makes it difficult to know which commanders are closely following guidelines that try to minimize civilian suffering and casualties, and which are doing so only loosely or not at all. If a military claims that certain rules are the norm, but it turns out they are not followed, those unsanctioned actions are still the responsibility of the military and the government in question. The fact that such regulations exist matters little if they are not seriously enforced. As with many things in life, then, here the rulebook matters much less than the actual practice.

Save the complaints because it just makes you look bad when you say “Awwww, but the terrorists are making it harder for us to avoid killing civilians.” Tough.

Israel likes to complain that it is not fair that Hamas does things like store weapons and ammunition in schools or among civilians, and that Israel ends up being blamed for the civilian casualties. To me, it is ridiculous on one level for Israel to complain about this (Netanyahu just the other day said that “All civilian casualties are unintended by us, but intended by Hamas. They want to pile up as many civilian dead as they can…it’s gruesome…They use telegenically dead Palestinians for their cause. They want the more dead the better.”) because in asymmetric warfare, each sidehas advantages and disadvantages specific to their positions of power or lack thereof. The more powerful party has fun things like tanks and jets and the Iron Dome, but has to play by the rules of war and just deal with the fact that the other side probably will not play by those rules, factoring this reality into how it approaches the conflict and still taking great care to minimize civilian casualties in spite of the enemy’s foul play; the weaker party lacks big weapons but can get away more with breaking the rules and endangering civilians because that is just how asymmetric warfare works and has always worked. If the tradeoff for having tanks and jets is that you have avoid some things that make military sense because your enemy, say, stores weapons in an orphanage for disabled children, well, that’s still not a bad deal and it still gives your side a huge advantage over your weaker enemy. So save the complaints because it just makes you look bad when you say “Awwww, but the terrorists are making it harderfor us to avoid killing civilians.” Tough.

William Saletan, writing for Slate, has written a number of very thoughtful and serious pieces examining this very issue of tactics as currently being employed by Israel’s military in Gaza and by Hamas. Saletan points out in a piece written early on in this round of hostilities that, on the one level, the tactics used by Israel show that, at least in a significant proportion of their strikes, Israel is actually undertaking serious efforts to avoid high levels of civilian casualties, especially compared with Hamas (and lest you think he is “pro-Israel,” his previous piece condemned Israel’s collective punishment of, well, all Palestinians). In certain situations, Israel attempts to warn civilians of impending/imminent attacks through text messages, leaflets, and very small “roof-knocking” bombs intended to warn/scare off residents, especially when targeting the homes of terrorists or militants. Yet Saletan also notes that the targeting of civilian homes, whether the homes of terrorists or not, is questionable. The warnings have been confirmed by Hamas and Gazans. Hamas, in contrast, fires rockets indiscriminately into Israel, declaring that “all Israelis” are fair game; they are deliberately targeting civilians for the sake of targeting civilians and killing them.

Hamas, in contrast to Israel, fires rockets indiscriminately into Israel, declaring that “all Israelis” are fair game; they are deliberately targeting civilians for the sake of targeting civilians and killing them.

However, other civilians say they received no warning before their houses were hit. In a subsequent piece, Saletan goes deeper: he mentions that there questions about how consistent Israel is with this policy since there are clearly times when there have been no warnings. There are also issues of timing: some warnings come five minutes or less before the attack, and some targets clearly had no military value, such as a beachside café that was showing World Cup matches or a beach where only children were playing. The latter attack was carried out with shells from an Israeli gunboat, which are not exactly precision weapons. Vice News, in a video entitled “Nowhere Safe in Gaza,” shows, starting at about the 10-minute mark, that even an area right near a hotel specifically designated as a safe zone and where many journalists were staying was not off limits. The only power plant for the more than 1.8 million people who live in the Gaza Strip has also been targeted. The plant had already been hit and was operating at a severely reduced capacity, and this latest strike has completely knocked it out. This has “threatened to turn the deprivations in Gaza into a humanitarian crisis. The facility powers water and sewage systems as well as hospitals, and it had been Gaza’s main source of electricity in recent days after eight of 10 lines that run from Israel were damaged,” and, indeed, conditions have become even more awful than normal for the residents of Gaza. Then there is this video that shows a sniper killing a wounded civilian. Hospitals, mosques, and schools have also been repeatedly hit, though it is not always clear if the fire comes from Israel or misfired Hamas rockets; the latest Israeli fatal shelling of a school sheltering civilians was a location UNRWA had notified the IDF about a full 33 times, and even the U.S. said it was “appalled” by this “disgraceful” attack on the part of Israel. In one attack, it seems Israel killed twenty-five people to target one militant, hitting a house filled with his family during a Ramadan iftar, the meal that breaks the Ramadan fast. Another strike on a full apartment building—possibly the deadliest single Israeli strike in Gaza many years—killed thirty-five people at home with their families, , and wounded another twenty-seven people. Other similar strikes that cause heavy civilian casualties are not uncommon. Fred Kaplan sarcastically quipped “Who knew there were 1,500 militarily legitimate targets in that tiny, impoverished strip of land?” when Israel had hit that many targets at the time he was writing; up through today, Israel has hit nearly 3,300 targets in Gaza. Multiple reports on multiple days further note extensive use of artillery, very imprecise as far as weapons go, and apparently the IDF is using flechette ammunition in some of these artillery strikes, ammunition designed to increase, not decrease, casualties. And it is also using area artillery bombardment in Gaza as “an attempt to encourage the population’s evacuation,” a tactic which seem extremely likely to cause heavy civilian casualties; in this situation, Israel’s military is firing an imprecise weapon into an area where it knows civilians still are present not to target combatants but in order to induce an exodus. Here, whether the intent is to kill or not seems moot because civilians arebeing deliberately targeted by artillery and will die as a result anyway. Human Rights Watch likens Israel’s artillery use to Hamas’s firing of rockets in terms of its fairly “indiscriminate” nature. Clearly, then, there are issues of targeting and tactics, even if in some instances Israel is taking, to use Saletan’s phrase, “exemplary” measures to avoid killing civilians, for in others it is clearly not and the balance is not in Israel’s favor. In the attacks overall, the UN says roughly 75 percent of the deaths have been civilian.

UNRWA has said that nearly 260,000 Gazans (over 14 percent of all Gazans) who have fled their homes are sheltered in over 90 of their schools, and, overall, about one-quarter of Gaza’s population has been displaced by the fighting. Israel’s creation of a buffer zone from which it is driving out the population has, in fact, become so extreme that it now encompasses a full 44 percent of the Gaza Strip.

There is also the issue of forced migration and the displaced. Before its ground invasion, Israel ordered over 100,000 Palestinians to evacuate from parts of the densely populated Gaza Strip. The UN agency that helps Palestinians, UNRWA, has said that over 260,000 Gazans (over 14 percent of all Gazans) who have fled their homes are sheltered in over 90 of their schools, and, overall, over one-quarter of Gaza’s entire population has been displaced by the fighting and over 10,000 houses destroyed. There is a sad irony in Israel ordering evacuation, because it is mainly Israel that forcibly keeps almost all Gazans in Gaza, which is very small; Israel keeps most of the crossings closed to travel most of the time, with Egypt keeping its single crossing closed most of the time as well. This, in effect, makes Gaza, even in the eyes of some Israeli Jews, a giant prison. And people are fleeing one location only to come under attack in another. They ask “Where are we supposed to go?” A headline from the parody news site The Onion is, sadly, almost totally accurate: “Israel: Palestinians Given Ample Time To Evacuate To Nearby Bombing Sites.” Israel’s creation of a buffer zone from which it is driving out the population has, in fact, become so extreme that it now encompasses a full 44 percent of the Gaza Strip. This means that the population is becoming even more concentrated as people are herded into less space, increasing the risk for even more casualties during hostilities.

Then there is the issue of human shields: Israel accuses Hamas of using civilians as human shields, but it is actually a complicated situation. Some people are voluntarily acting as human shields, something that has been an issue before. There is no evidence yet of Hamas forcing people into harm’s way, which is the legal international law definition of a human shield, but Hamas has encouraged Gazans to ignore Israel’s warnings about imminent strikes and it regularly operates in crowded civilian areas; in addition, in this latest round of fighting found Hamas has been found storing rockets in UNRWA schools three separate times, and the group also operates in or around mosques and hospitals. So while Hamas is not helping and its actions certainly place civilians at higher risk, not less, it is not accurate to say that Hamas is forcing people to be human shields against their will. Israel is not an angel when it comes to this subject either, as it has also used Palestinian civilians as human shields, forcing them into dangerous situations like walking immediately in advance of IDF troops in while they are advancing in combat zones and/or while they are clearing houses and examining potential booby traps, and this was a policy set at the highest levels of the IDF; Israel’s High Court of Justice ordered this tactic to be stopped, but there is evidence that Israel has continued the practice anyway.

Another tactical aspect which must be considered is how both are going about the business of cease-fires on behalf of civilians. Some cease-fires have been agreed to, but over the weekend each side rejected a cease-fire offer from the other. Hamas even offered a 10-year truce earlier in the conflict in exchange for an opening of the Gaza border crossings to more goods and services, international supervision of Gaza’s sea traffic to replace the Israeli Navy, and the re-release of prisoners who were just re-arrested but had been freed in a deal reached in 2011, whereby Hamas freed Gilad Shalit, captured in 2006, in exchange for Israel freeing over 1,000 Palestinians prisoners. Hamas’ offer seemed a decent one, at least worth exploring, but Israel did not take it seriously. Now Hamas, feeling an existential threat from this invasion, is insisting any longer-term cease-fire include ending/easing trade/travel restrictions and economic and infrastructure investment for Gaza; this, too, is hardly unreasonable, but is not being considered by Israel, which says it wants to downgrade Hamas’s military capabilities even further. In fact, 86.5 percent of Israelis just surveyed said they opposed a cease-fire. So the chorus of condemnation abroad is matched inversely by overwhelming Israeli public support at home; thus, on his domestic front, Netanyahu even has free reign to expand the operation. But while bombs are falling and people are dying, you take whatever ceasefire you can get. For Hamas, active hostilities is not the time to gain political points when you are in the far weaker position; the actual cease-fire is a great time to discuss any and all these issues.

Netanyahu places any and all the blame for any civilian casualties squarely on the shoulders of Hamas, which is irresponsible with the lives of Gazans. But this is nonsense, because bad behavior on the part of Hamas does not mean that Israel “is free of moral responsibilities”(or legal responsibilities, for that matter) for the consequences of its choices. Either way, both sides are clearly “deeply negligent in their responsibilities to avoid causing Palestinian civilian casualties,” the misdeeds of one side cannot justify the misdeeds of the other, and the UN is, appropriately, going to investigate both Israel and Hamas for war crimes.

Either way, both sides are clearly “deeply negligent in their responsibilities to avoid causing Palestinian civilian casualties,” the misdeeds of one side cannot justify the misdeeds of the other, and the UN is, appropriately, going to investigate both Israel and Hamas for war crimes.

Whatever precautions Israel does take—and Israel does deserve credit for the use of these tactics when they are actually used, as well as for the intent behind them—the frequent use of tactics that are extremely likely to cause many civilian casualties more than outweighs such precautions in an overall assessment. To be sure, many more would die without these precautionary practices intended to spare civilian life, but the massive numbers of casualties the less discriminate tactics inflict are, ultimately, the defining feature if only by virtue of the large number of civilian casualties; thus, Israel’s efforts to spare civilians overall “are failing.” If Israel wants to be viewed differently, it should increase use of the precautionary tactics and decrease the use of, say, mass artillery bombardments. Such is the nature of war that if twenty military units exercise exemplary restraint but a single artillery unit kills hundreds in minutes, the attention and weight go to the artillery unit. And a military and government are not judged by their individual parts, but how they operate as a whole. This is not to suggest Israel should take any of these tactics completely off the table, but perhaps the best thing Israel could do militarily to both reduce civilian casualties and improve its own image is to be more discriminating and selective with what weapons it uses when, where,and how often. Not every operation requires ground troops and tanks  and helicopters and  jets and drones and artillery and naval gunboats. If just one of these is used poorly, the entire operation is threatened with being characterized by such use. In particular, the frequent use of artillery and naval gunboats in one of the most densely populated areas on earth, especially when all those other weapons and options are available, seems particularly gratuitous, callous, and careless. It seems there is actually considerable variation in the quality, cohesion, and structure of the IDF, which is at least one plausible and partial explanation for some of these problems with inconsistent performances and contradictory tactics and approaches.

Israel could be more discriminating and selective with what weapons it uses when, where, and how often. Not every operation requires ground troops and tanks and helicopters and jets and drones and artillery  and naval gunboats. If just one of these is used poorly, the entire operation is threatened with being characterized by such use.

However, when assessing violence in a conflict, as important as intent and tactics are, in the end c.) the most important criterion is what are theactual effects of the violence irrespective of intent and tactics, for even with the best of intent and a discriminating approach to tactics, it is the effects the violence in the real world which will have the most lasting impact. So even if the intent is noble and the best possible tactics are chosen, failure and chaos are always possible, and, in the end, the results are what will be primarily judged, not intent or tactics. That is why the use of force by a powerful military is a decision that carries so much weight and should not be undertaken other than as a near-last or last resort. The actual effects must especially be measured against the level and nature of what the violence is in response to, as well. In looking at the effects of any particular action, operation, campaign, or war, there are further subdivisions that must be considered, and for each, one must ask what are going to be the shorter term effects, and, more importantly, what are going to be the longer term effects?

Keeping this in mind, i.) one must ask what are the likely shorter and longer-term political ramifications of these violent acts, for, as von Clausewitz famously put it, “War is the continuation of policy [or politics] by other means,” and (less famously) is “an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will.” Fred Kaplan summed up Israel’s operation nicely when wrote for Slate that “Israeli ground troops are moving into Gaza. From a purely tactical and short-term view, it makes sense. From a strategic and medium-to-long-term view, it’s crazy.” The subtitle of his article states (correctly) that “The Israeli government has lost the ability to think strategically.” In fact, as we discussed earlier, one can say that it generally has not had or even attempted to exercise that ability much in the last few decades. Regarding Israel’s military operation, Kaplan asks “what’s the point?”

Fred Kaplan summed up Israel’s operation nicely when wrote for Slate that “Israeli ground troops are moving into Gaza. From a purely tactical and short-term view, it makes sense. From a strategic and medium-to-long-term view, it’s crazy.” Kaplan asks “what’s the point?”

Specifically, Israel wants to weaken Hamas (what Israel refers to as “mowing the grass” so it does not become overgrown, Hamas being “the grass,” Israel’s attacks being the “mowing”), and, in general, it wants to be safer and more secure. That much is obvious. That is what is so vexing, “because in the medium-to-long-term-view,” this operation will have the opposite effect, even though, for now, it is clearly devastating Hamas and making Israel safer (for now) on the Gaza front, where there will almost certainly be fewer rocket attacks and fewer rockets to fire, as well as far fewer tunnelsfrom which Hamas can operate. But the real questions revolve around the longer-term effects.

In the longer term, in many ways, this will end up being a repeat of Lebanon in 2006 (and in the 1980s for that matter) where Israel won the battles but created far worse problems for itself over the longer-term. The Sabra and Shatila massacres, and the thousands of Lebanese civilians who died during Israel’s siege of Beirut, generated a tremendous amount of support for the Palestinians and Lebanese in the 1980s, and Israel was seen as “the bad guy,” even earning condemnation from U.S. President Ronald Reagan (Israel did such a bad job in Beirut that an international peacekeeping force that included American troops was brought in, but was short-lived, especially after suicide truck bombings of a barracks killed 241 American and 58 French servicemen). And, in the process of invading Lebanon, Israel helped to birth terrorist Hezbollah. Israel’s attempt to cripple Hezbollah in 2006 through an(other) invasion of Lebanon, even for all the casualties inflicted against, it, only saw the world focus more on the many civilian casualties and saw Hezbollah’s stature and power grow. Today, Hezbollah, far from isolated, is a major partner in the governing coalition of Lebanon’s parliament, and in many ways this is because of the 2006 Israeli invasion. Fast forward to today and Gaza, and a similar outcome to the two Lebanon wars—Israel loses the public relations war, and its very target in the conflict becomes far more empowered in the long-run—seems quite possible. Israel needs to consider that if its long-term goal is to weaken Hamas, it seems to already have failed in that regard. As an aptly titled piece suggests, with military force, “you can’t kill Hamas, you can only make it stronger,” because ultimately, dealing with Hamas will require a political solution. It is very possible to destroy a military unit, but Hamas is a committed movement(those tend to be harder to destroy) that is “capable of taking a punch.” Before this latest round of fighting, Hamas was weak and unpopular among Palestinians and isolated, even after reaching a unity deal with Fatah’s and Mahmoud Abbas’ PA, which it did so after a seven-year dispute out of a position of weakness. It had recently lost the support of its three most powerful foreign sponsors: Iran and Syria because it had voiced support for the “the will of the Syrian people,” and Egypt because the pro-Hamas Muslim Brotherhood’s Morsi is long-overthrown (his Muslim Brotherhood is at once cousin/brother/father to Hamas) and the secular generals who don’t like Islamist movements are firmly back in charge under Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. And, in general, the regional Arab governments have tacitly supported Israel with their lack of support for the embattled Hamas. But now, thanks to Israel’s attack, coupled with Israel’s refusal to throw Abbas and the PA any kind of a substantive bone, Hamas is now seeing a surge in support, and even in the West Bank, Fatah’s apparent stronghold. In fact, Israel is actually helping Hamas with its approach to the Palestinians. And, inversely, Abbas’s and Fatah’s support is apparently shrinking because of their inability to reap any rewards from the non-violent, negotiation-oriented approach with Israel, even creating sharp division within the upper echelons of Fatah. Abbas himself is being criticized for cooperating closely with Israel and getting “nothing” from Israel in return.

As an aptly titled piece suggests, with military force, “you can’t kill Hamas, you can only make it stronger,” because ultimately, dealing with Hamas will require a political solution.

Israel’s government’s lack of commitment to a serious peace process in which Israel actually makes major concessions to Palestinian leaders and the Palestinian people as a whole (and, as we have seen, the Gaza pullout was not such a concession) has created a political calculus in some Palestinians who, having seen the non-violent, cooperative faction Fatah get “nothing” from Israel, embrace violence in the style of Hamas as the only alternative available to them. More so than any single factor, Israel’s unwillingness to reward Abbas and Fatah for cooperation and nonviolence since Abbas first came to power in 2005, or even to reward Hamas for its reigning in other militant factions and practicing and contributing to a level of nonviolence in 2013 and early 2014 that was unparalleled since the year 2000, has created the situation on the ground today where non-violent Abbas is weak and losing support and Hamas is growing in power and gaining support as it pursues violence. If Israel stupidly continues to not reward non-violence and thus encourages violence, it will have to look in the mirror when it wants to point fingers. Whatever Israel does militarily, it is its political choices more than anything else that will affect Palestinians’ willingness to engage in violence. The idea that “most Palestinians” only want to kill “Jews” because they hate them is utter-self-serving-nonsense that justifies Israeli militarism, political cowardice, and a policy aimed at preserving the status quo and nothing more. To be fair, given Jews’ uniquely tragic history and the rhetoric coming from Palestinian extremists, it is understandable that Israeli leaders are reluctant to take risks, however measured, but that is the job of leaders: to take measured risks that are in in the long-term interests of their people even when the easy and popular choices lead in different directions.

More so than any single factor, Israel’s unwillingness to reward Abbas and Fatah for cooperation and nonviolence since Abbas first came to power in 2005, or even to reward Hamas for its reigning in other militant factions and practicing and contributing to a level of nonviolence in 2013 and early 2014 that was unparalleled since the year 2000, has created the situation on the ground today where non-violent Abbas is weak and losing support and Hamas is growing in power and gaining support as it pursues violence…Whatever Israel does militarily, it is its political choices more than anything else that will affect Palestinians’ willingness to engage in violence.

But, for the sake of argument, let us say that it is likely and realistically possible that Israel could destroy Hamas or weaken it to the point of its toppling or irrelevance: again, the issue of myopia rears its familiar head because one has to wonder if Israel has seriously given any thought as to what could realistically replace Hamas. The fact of the matter is there are groups in Gaza far worse than Hamas, and apparently now some of themare establishing ties to ISIS, or The Islamic State (of Iraq and al-Sham/Syria/The Levant), now wreaking havoc in Iraq and Syria. These groups in Gaza are more hardline and have been criticizing Hamas for being too “moderate.” Hamas also faces the regular challenge of preventing these groups from launching their own attacks against Israel even when Hamas is able to secure cease-fires; Islamic Jihad, just to name one of these groups, has been able to derail cease-fires between Hamas and Israel before. Ironically, Hamas even fears some of these groups could muscle them out of power in Gaza, just like it was able to do to Fatah in 2007. As a result, Hamas is often cracking down on these groups and arresting their members, while, conversely, these groups are often protesting against Hamas. And some of them are gaining public support at the expense of Hamas. Needlessly to say, the rivalries between Hamas and these groupscan be intense and sometimes violent. And if Israel weakens Hamas too much, it is conceivable that one of these more violent, more extreme groups could take over Gaza or even roll out the red carpet for ISIS.

But there are other factors to consider. In this situation, what can make this an even more dangerous fiasco for Israel is that West Banker Palestinians are protesting (rioting?) in large numbers, and there has been a very unusual amount of unrest and street violence from the normally quiet Palestinian-Israelis/Israeli-Arabs (one-fifth of Israel’s citizens) as tensions have been mounting slowly over a number of issues, from Israeli shootings and killings of teenage protesters during demonstrations on this May’s “Nabka Day” (“Day of Catastrophe”, or, for Israelis, their Independence Day), to Israel’s questionable, massive crackdown in the West Bank that involved the arrests of hundreds of Palestinians, arrests that were themselves a provocation, though they were (nominally) in response to the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers. In a purely tactical situation, Israel may deal Hamas a lot of physical damage, but Israel may also face the prospects of increased violence from Palestinian-Israelis/Arab-Israelis and from West Bank Palestinians, a risk which increases every day that its incursion into Gaza continues. And even if this does not happen now, the current operation may make that more likely in the future, with a “Third Intifada” just waiting to erupt (even as I have been writing this article, and I began this article early last week, Hamas has called for a “Third Intifada,”and protests and violence and killing are spreading to the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which is exactly what I predicted Hamas would probably try to do and what would transpire in the West Bank and East Jerusalem). The uproar from Israel’s own Palestinian Arab citizens is perhaps the most troubling issue that Israel now must confront. And it raises the question: how effectively could Israel face unrest and even resistance from 20 percent of its own citizens, West Bankers, and Gazans all at the same time? Whatever the answer to that question, one thing is certain: Israel’s actions in Gaza will not only make things more difficult with Gaza, but also with the West Bank and inside Israel itself.

Another thing which Israel needs to consider is that this operation in Gaza will already further erode support for Israel globally, even among its strongest and probably only ally in which the population still supports Israel over the Palestinians. I am, of course, talking about, the United States. Incredibly lopsided operations like this one, the nature of social media and how it is affecting coverage of this conflict, changing  demographic trends in America, and an American news media that is increasingly less pro-Israel have all been combining to weaken formerly unwavering U.S. support for Israel, especially among young Americans, who actually blame Israel more for the violence and have more sympathy for the Palestinians than Israelis. Support is even weakening, quite surprisingly, among American Jews. Yes, Jews! Also, no longer can Israel just assume strong bipartisan support from both Republicans and Democrats; there are signsthat Israel is beginning to lose the Democratic Party as well. As mentioned earlier, young Jews are especially liberal, and are drifting away from an Israeli occupation that is inherently undemocratic and from an Israeli society that has been catering to right-wingers and lurching to the right, politically speaking, for years. Additionally, in Israel, “few Israeli journalists have cultivated Palestinian sources because there is amazingly little interest among the Israeli public in understanding Palestinian affairs.” These trends are complemented by an increasing isolation of Israelis and Palestinians from each other, not just physically (in no small part thanks to Israel’s massive separation barrier in the West Bank, which dwarfs the Berlin Wall) but in terms of even exposing themselves to each other’s narratives and media exposure as well (not dissimilar to the type of partisan media self-cocooning that is occurring in America today). So Israel not only is becoming increasingly isolated from the rest of the world, it is also isolating itself from Palestinians, and not just with its massive wall. Further military action with no serious, concurrent effort on the political front will only make Israel even more isolated and could empower a growing boycott movement (BDS) that is targeting Israel, exposing Israel over time to crippling sanctions from the EU, seriously considering such action if Israel does not begin working seriously with Palestinian leadership, and from other major world powers.

Israel not only is becoming increasingly isolated from the rest of the world, it is also isolating itself from Palestinians.

As far political results of Hamas’s actions, the likely shorter-term consequences are apparent already: Israel will be even less likely to award Gaza or Hamas any concessions as a result of violence. In the longer term, each new round of fighting makes it less likely that any serious peace deal will be reached. Yet what should be clear from some of the preceding paragraphs is that, politically, anyway, Hamas could be able to make up some of its losses for being perceived as “too moderate” by its rival Islamist movements in Gaza and having been unable to deliver any relief from Israel’s blockade, since Hamas now at least seems to be putting up a decent fight, inflicting notable losses on the IDF. It seems possible that Hamas could benefit in the longer-term either by gaining support for having put up such a good fight against the Israelis and/or by leveraging the international outcry against Israel’s invasion to get Western and regional powers to push Israel harder to loosen its blockade of Gaza. Conversely, it is also quite possible that the Gazan people might be so angry at Hamas after all the death and destruction that if there is not some sort of material gain for them in terms of a relief of the blockade, and if all that Gazans will get out of Hamas’ rocket fire is just death and destruction at the hands of Israel, Hamas could find itself in serious trouble with Gazans (and as mentioned already, this is not necessarily going to mean a better replacement). Abbas echoed the concern about the pointlessness of Hamas’ rocket fire when he rhetorically asked in a TV interview “What are you trying to achieve by sending rockets?” In another appearance, he pleaded: “We are the losing side, and every minute there are more and more unnecessary deaths. … I don’t like trading in Palestinian blood.”

Naturally, the ii.) other question one must ask is what are the shorter and longer-term tangible/material consequences, as in people and property. Right now, as already mentioned, the short term consequences are a tremendous amount of death and destruction meted out by Israel, and a dramatically smaller amount of death and destruction meted out by Hamas, except IDF casualties are significant by its sensitive standards. In the longer-term, the actions of each are likely to increase violence, death, and destruction in general on the part of the other, though, of course, the rockets of Hamas are unlikely to become dramatically more effective anytime soon, and thus the balance of the violence, death, and destruction suffered will be on the Palestinian side, delivered by Israel’s military.

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Below is what was Part III

IV.) Shorter-Term Context

How/Why Did This Latest Round of Fighting Start?(or, What Was Going on Just Before All This Happened?)

Now that we have assessed the violence, one of last things we need to do before making any kind of final judgment is to look at just how and why this latest round of violence started.

As noted earlier, 2013 was a record year for peace and quiet (always a relative thing in this conflict) in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank as far as violence. There were a few minor incidents which broke the calm in the first few months of 2014, but nothing major; calm was still the norm. The “peace” process negotiations between the Netanyahu-led Israeli government and Abbas’s PA—a process pushed on the reluctant parties by an invigorated and hopeful U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in July 2013 after a nearly three year hiatus—were at this point on life support and “going nowhere,” to use the words of The Economist. The talks were agreed to under a general framework negotiated by Kerry in which the Palestinians would refrain from joining specific UN bodies, including the International Criminal Court (ICC), from which they could legally challenge Israeli actions and initiate investigations of war crimes. Abbas, in defiance of Israeli and U.S. wishes, had pressed for a vote in the UN General Assembly late in November 2012 to upgrade Palestine’s status at the UN from non-member “Observer Entity” to non-member “Observer State”—a status shared with the Vatican/Holy See and Kosovo—and the vote was overwhelmingly in favor, 138-9 with 41 abstentions; Abbas’s move was met with condemnation and punitive moves by Israel, which were added to the U.S. Congress’ withholding of funding for Palestinians even before the vote; this move enabled the Palestinians to have the option join the ICC and other bodies, but they held off because of a combination of threats and pressure from the U.S./Israel and also to use the potential moves as leverage against Israel. In terms of Kerry’s framework for jump-starting the talks in July 2013, in exchange for the Palestinians not joining these UN bodies, Israel would release some Palestinians prisoners (but the details over how many and when were vague and became disputed).

After many months, little progress had been made and the talks were at an impasse in March 2014; Abbas wanted the last of the prisoners released as a condition for extending talks, while Netanyahu wanted Abbas to extend talks in return for Netanyahu considering to putting their release to a difficult, uncertain Cabinet vote. Behind it all, the U.S. was exerting a lot of pressure on the parties, particularly on Netanyahu. During this impasse, tensions were further heightened by an IDF raid in the West Bank that killed three Palestinians and wounded at least seven more. Netanyahu wanted to delay the scheduled March 29 release of the final batch of Palestinian prisoners in part because a miscommunication between him and Kerry led him to have a different understanding of what was supposed to happen and when (although now that we know Israeli intelligence was spying on Kerry’s phone calls, there are questions as to how genuine Netanyahu’s confusion really was); Abbas threatened to resume his efforts to join the UN institutions if the prisoners were not voted to be released by 7 PM on April 1. He waited and was told that the Israeli Cabinet would vote before noon that day. Yet that morning, Israel’s Housing Minister, Uri Ariel, who is deeply opposed to the negotiations and to a Palestinian state and eagerly seeks to plant more Jewish settlers in the West Bank, approved over 700 new Jewish settlement housing units to be constructed in East Jerusalem—occupied in 1967 illegally by Israel and regarded by Palestinians as their hopeful future capital—in what was seen as a deliberate move to sabotage negotiations. Noon passed, and so did 7; finally, just before 8, Abbas gave up and moved forward with the process to join the UN bodies. There was a chance to delay the paperwork after more assurances about the prisoner release, assurances that had been given before, if Abbas would agree to nine more months of talks, but the previous nine months had gotten the Palestinians nowhere while Israel kept building settlements, and, at that point, and under pressure from others in his Cabinet who also felt Israel was not serious and that negotiations would go nowhere (not an unjustified feeling, given Netanyahu’s history of obstructionism and delaying tactics), Abbas went forward with part of his “Plan B” and submitted his paperwork to the UN.

Kerry seemed to place the majority of the blame for the failure of the peace talks on Israel as well. And most importantly, this view is apparently shared by President Obama and the White House, too, though publicly, the President places blame on both sides more-or-less evenly.

Tzipi Livni (the only person in the current Israeli government with any power who could even remotely be termed a “dove”), who led the negotiations for Israel (but was kept on a tight leash by Netanyahu), blamed Uri Ariel and Israel’s settlements for the collapse in the talks; indeed, throughout 2013, when Palestinians were exhibiting good behavior, the rate of new settlement construction in the West Bank more than doubled from the rate of 2012, increasing 123 percent. Martin Indyk, the U.S. special envoy to both the Israelis and the Palestinians during the peace process, publicly tried to lay the blame evenly, but reading between the lines and in more off-the-cuff and private remarks, he too seems to place the blame more on Israel and its settlement expansion. He also noted that the Israeli announcements of more settlement construction with the release of each batch of prisoners made it seem as if Abbas was trading land for prisoners, severely undermining him among Palestinians and infuriating Abbas. Other officials echoed that the primary blame belonged with Israel and the settlements on the condition of anonymity. Even more importantly, Kerry seemed to place the majority of the blame for the failure of the peace talks on Israel as well. And most importantly, this view is apparently shared by President Obama and the White House, too, though publicly, the President places blame on both sides more-or-less evenly. At the very least, the continued settlement announcements and building on land that was supposed be part of a future Palestinians state all throughout the negotiations made Abbas feel that Netanyahu was not a serious partner for peace.

A growing power imbalance between the parties left unaddressed by the United States—either by putting real, substantive pressure on Israel to seriously accommodate Palestinians or by significantly empowering Palestinian leadership—made an agreement even more unlikely and elusive throughout the whole process. Additionally, there were severe issues of trust between both sides, and even personally between Abbas and Netanyahu, which also hurt the process. And since each side fears the influence and rise of the other side’s extremists, this trust deficit is worsened by the fact that Hamas’ official charter calls for the destruction of Israel, by the fact that Hamas refuses to recognize Israel as a state, and by the fact that multiple senior Israeli officials, including members of Netanyahu’s Cabinet, publicly stated that they are against the establishment of a Palestinians state, some even calling for the annexationof the West Bank or an increase in the level of military occupation there. There is even serious doubt as to Netanyahu’s commitment to the concept of a Palestinian state, even more so after some very recent comments(remember, he had played lip service to Oslo while deliberately undermining that peace process, too, in the 1990s). As one prominent Israeli was quoted as saying by The New Republic:

“I see it from a mathematical point of view,” said Avi Dichter, the former chief of Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence agency. “The American effort will always be multiplied by the amount of trust between the two leaders. So if Kerry’s pressure represents the number five, and then Obama’s help brings the American effort to ten, it really doesn’t matter. You’re still multiplying it by zero. The final result will always be zero.”

Furthermore, both Abbas and Netanyahu were under serious pressure from their respective political rights—Abbas had already lost Gaza to Hamas and was even vulnerable in the West Bank, while Netanyahu’s last stint as Prime Minister ended precisely because right-wing parties left his coalition over the peace process.

Still, negotiations about extending the seemingly-doomed negotiationscontinued. Meanwhile, the Palestinians’ “Plan B” had a second element: reconciling with Hamas. On April 23, Abbas shocked both Israel and the U.S. by announcing a unity deal with Hamas, hoping to end their roughly seven-year dispute, a move that generated considerable debate and was no small task to bring to fruition in light of the bitterness and bloodshed that had characterized their dispute. In response, Israel ended negotiations with Abbas and the PA the next day. The unwillingness of Hamas to recognize Israel is matched by Israel’s unwillingness to negotiate directly with Hamas. By May, it was clear that the peace process had failed and, at least for now, was dead. Still, it has been pointed out that the unity deal was nothing that should have immediately sent Israel into committing rash actions; after all, neither Fatah nor the Hamas would be running the interim government before a new slate of elections, scheduled as part of the deal; rather, independents and technocrats would form the government and would have to be approved by both factions. In other words, no Hamas members would be part of the new government, but that did not matter to Israel. Former former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski said he thought that Netanyahu was “making a very serious mistake. When Hamas in effect accepted the notion of participation in the Palestinian leadership, it in effect acknowledged the determination of that leadership to seek a peaceful solution…with Israel. That was a real option. They should have persisted in that.” The odds, then, did not look bad that the unity government would be a partner that was able to work with Israel, yet Israel did not even consider that as an option, let alone try.

In mid-May, another incident occurred that only further inflamed Palestinians: Israeli security forces shot and killed two Palestinian teenage protesters during lightly violent demonstrations on Israel’s Independence Day, or “Nabka Day” (“Day of Catastrophe”), as Palestinians see it. Video from surveillance footage subsequently released by human rights activists did not corroborate Israel’s version of events, and the two boys were shown being shot in the back while walking away from the disturbances, which had by then quieted down and were not violent. A key witness to the incident subsequently reported that he was detained, harassed, and threatened by Israeli security personnel, who were angry with him, he said, for sharing his version of events with the public. Thus far, one soldier has been suspended for the shooting, but nothing else has yet come out of the investigation. Human Rights Watch called the incident a “war crime.”

Even though the new government seemed to address core Israeli concerns by recognizing Israel, renouncing violence, and excluding Hamas from the Cabinet, Israel condemned the U.S.’s willingness to work with it in extremely strong, bitter language that was highly unusual for its relationship with America, saying that “American naivety has broken all records.”

Though the biggest story in May was Pope Francis’ visit to the West Bank and Israel, that same month, Abbas finalized his plans for a new, non-partisan, technocratic, and temporary unity government, which would run the PA for roughly six-months until elections could be held. At the beginning of June, Abbas swore in the new government; several ministers were absent because Israel would not let them travel from Gaza, even though they were not members of Hamas. In response the swearing in of the new government, Netanyahu proclaimed that “Today, Abu Mazen [Abbas’s nickname] said yes to terrorism and no to peace.” But this seemed to be a gross mischaracterization. The U.S., unlike Israel, realized that its previous condemnation of the unity deal had been premature, recognizing that the fact that Hamas would not actually be running the new government was a window of opportunity, especially since the new government was committed to non-violence and recognition of Israel. Thus, the U.S. (as well as the EU) made clear its willingness to work with the new government. Yet even though the new government seemed to address core Israeli concerns by recognizing Israel, renouncing violence, and excluding Hamas from the Cabinet, Israel condemned the U.S.’s willingness to work with it in extremely strong, bitter language that was highly unusual for its relationship with America, saying that “American naivety has broken all records.” Israel also said that it would consider the new government responsible for any attacks coming out of the West Bank or Gaza.

So when three Israeli teens from West Bank Israeli settler communities–Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaar, and Eyal Yifrach—disappeared and were feared to have been kidnapped on the night of June 12th, Netanyahu immediately criticized Abbas and the new technocratic government, saying that Abbas was responsible for the safety of the teens and telling Kerry that “This is the result of bringing a terrorist organization into the government.” This disappearance and probable kidnapping of the three teenagers was not treated as a criminal investigation; instead, the response was a massive military operation of the IDF in the West Bank, the largest IDF operation there since the Second Intifada. The focus of the heaviest IDF activity was Hebron, the West Bank’s largest city and home to over 250,000 Palestinians, as well as its surroundings, with the IDF increasing checkpoints, limiting entry into and exit from the city, and engaging in house-to-house searches. Within a few days, Netanyahu had put the blame squarely on Hamas, but also held the Abbas and the PA responsible because of the unity government move; those initially arrested included “Hamas members of Parliament, former ministers, imams and professors,” taken “in night raids across West Bank cities, villages and refugee camps.” Additionally, over fifty of the prisoners released in the Shalit deal—which Netanyahu himself had orchestrated—were re-arrested. Even a non-violent, secular NGO that had helped work out the reconciliation deal had its offices “ransacked.”Palestinians even doubted if the kidnapping was real, or if it was staged as excuse to crack down on Hamas and ruin the unity government, and also noted that Hamas did not claim responsibility for the kidnappings and that it had normally taken responsibility for kidnappings it had carried out in the past. Many of the arrests were aimed at punishing and suppressing Hamas, and not specifically undertaken to find the missing boys. Israel also virtually shut down access to Hebron and Gaza (Gaza even more so than usual), the week-long shutdown of Hebron costing the city about $12 million a day in lost business, while non-Hamas militants began firing small numbers of rockets into Israel from Gaza, and Israel would respond with airstrikes.

When three Israeli teens disappeared and were feared to have been kidnapped, Netanyahu immediately criticized Abbas and the new technocratic government, saying that Abbas was responsible for the safety of the teens and telling Kerry that “This is the result of bringing a terrorist organization into the government.”

On the Israeli side, the whole nation was gripped by the fate of the three missing boys, with thousands praying, holding rallies and vigils, and avidly checking the news for any new developments; Jews around the world offered their emotional support, too. A “semiofficial” social media campaignwas even started by Israelis: #BringBackOurBoys; it was quickly turned and used against Israel by Palestinians in reaction to young Palestinians being detained by Israel during the West Bank crackdown, and also in reaction to the many young Palestinians detained and killed in general by Israeli forces over the years. As the arrests grew to be in the hundreds, protests erupted in the West Bank, and Israeli troops shot and killed four Palestinians over the course of several days, including a 15-year-old-boy; more were wounded. Livni came out during the crisis and said that Netanyahu was wrong to criticize and blame Abbas at the beginning of this situation; in fact, Abbas had constructively aided the investigation after Israel had demanded his aid, even though just by doing so he was criticized at an “unprecedented”level for aiding the “enemy,” painted as a “traitor,” and sent death threats by more than a few Palestinians. Hamas, for its part, stupidly and unproductively praised the kidnappings as an act of resistance, but at the same time (first implicitly, then explicitly) denied it was the culprit; other claims of credit from other groups were questionable. It is doubtful as to whether Netanyahu would have taken a different course of action if Hamas had offered cooperation and a sympathetic tone, given Netanyahu’s reaction to Abbas even after the PA was aiding in the search for the boys, but it is still a possibility that Hamas could have avoided more confrontation by taking different public stances; it certainly did not do everything it could to avoid confrontation in its selection of words that it used publicly.

The massive operation to find the three boys—which by the end of June would leave five Palestinians dead and more wounded in confrontations with Israeli security forces, would lead to unrest and protests, would lead to thousands of homes being searched, would lead to suspects’ homes being demolished, would lead to the arrests of over 400 Palestinians who were mostly Hamas-affiliated and included much of Hamas’ top leadership, and would bring Israeli-Palestinian relations to their worst level since the Second Intifada—finally turned up their dead bodies on June 30th. Netanyahu, who kept up his accusations against Hamas throughout the operation even though he provided absolutely no evidence of its involvement in the crime, was unequivocal: “They were kidnapped and murdered in cold blood by beasts…Hamas is responsible, and Hamas will pay.” Regular TV programming—including World Cup broadcasts—were interrupted to share the fate of the boys with the Israeli public, who were grief-stricken and outraged.

Before continuing with this narrative, it is important to make several points about Israel’s operation: the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli youths was awful and tragic, but is more of a crime than a massive military act or escalation. At this point, Israel’s response to deal with the lives of three of its own had ended up killing more Palestinians than the number of lives it was trying to save; it had collectively punished the West Bank’s largest city and its hundreds of thousands of Palestinians for a week; it had arrested over 400 Palestinians using the military without due process (Palestinians do no really have much of a due process when it comes to being arrested by Israeli authorities); it had aggressively targeted the Hamas movement, and not just its terrorist/militant wing, even though no evidence was provided to implicate Hamas as an organization or its leadership; it had severely undermined Mahmoud Abbas and derailed his unity deal with Hamas; and it had inflamed tensions to level not seen in almost a decade.

I would not be the first to question the massive, aggressive, ongoing collective punishment of a large amount of Palestinians (now well over a million, if you count the current fighting) as a response to the kidnapping/murder of three Israeli teenagers; and I would also not be the first to suggest that Netanyahu cynically and obscenely used the tragic events surrounding these three innocent Israeli teenagers to pursue a wider agenda against Hamas, Abbas, and the PA in response to their unity deal. As head researcher at a the Interdisciplinary Center based in Israel noted, “Netanyahu wants to use this kidnapping as a way to accomplish something which he wanted to accomplish anyway, which is the serious degradation of Hamas activity in the West Bank.” Former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski echoed similar thoughts even more explicitly, noting that “Instead [of working with the new unity government pledged to non-violence] Netanyahu launched a campaign of defamation against Hamas, seized on the killing of three innocent Israeli kids to immediately charge Hamas with having done it without any evidence, and has used that to stir up public opinion in Israel in order to justify this attack on Gaza, which is so lethal.”

Netanyahu’s actions after the disappearance of the three boys seem to truly be a master class and clinic on Churchill’s famous maxim “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”

It is no secret that Netanyahu was incensed at Abbas’ unity deal and international (and especially American) support of it. Netanyahu’s cynicism is hardly disputed, and his willingness to be both extremely shrewd and harsh in his actions is not in dispute either. I have been following politics closely for almost a decade-and-a-half, and I have to say Benjamin Netanyahu is one of the shrewdest, most gifted, and most effective politicians I have ever seen. As one political academic in Israel notes, “Bibi [Netanyahu’s nickname] continues to be the consummate politician in the short term, but things could come back to spite him in the long term.” His ability to rally public opinion—both Israeli and American—is remarkable; he knows just what to say, just how to pull on a heart’s strings; he also knows how to play almost any situation to his advantage politically in the short-term (and to be fair to him, Israeli politics are notoriously volatile and unstable, which can often make-longer term political considerations a secondary concern). This is not to say that I agree with what he does, just that he is very good at getting what he wants done, done. Netanyahu’s actions after the disappearance of the three boys seem to truly be a master class and clinic on Churchill’s famous maxim “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”

I am here going to ask the reader to keep this next point in mind throughout the remainder of this article: even at the time, Israeli authorities involved in the investigation into the disappearance, then murder of the boys acknowledged that whoever was behind it might have been acting as a lone cell, without any direction, authorization, or support from Hamas as an organization or its leadership, and no evidence has yet been provided demonstrating anything to the contrary. Those suspected of the act are from a clan—the large Qawasmeh clan—that, while affiliating with Hamas, at times acts independently and even against Hamas’ aims and directives, trying repeatedly to derail cease-fires Hamas has agreed to in the past. In fact, we now know from the Israeli police that it actually was a lone cell, apparently Hamas-affiliated (of which there must be at least a little doubt, given the clan’s history of acting both against Hamas and for it) but acting independently and not acting on Hamas orders. All this means that what we have so far is an extremely aggressive operation in the West Bank that targeted Hamas for something for which it was not directly responsible and in which it was not involved as an organization; at this point, Israel would clearly have to be said to be the aggressor and instigator, especially after so long a period of quiet from Hamas and its support for a unity government that did not include its members in the Cabinet but instead renounced violence and recognized Israel as a state, even if Hamas itself did not explicitly endorse those principles.

We now know from the Israeli police that it actuallywas a lone cell, apparently Hamas-affiliated but acting independently and not acting on Hamas orders. So, what we have so far is an extremely aggressive operation in the West Bank that targeted Hamas for something for which it was not directly responsible and in which it was not involved as an organization; at this point, Israel would clearly have to be said to be the aggressor and instigator.

According to unnamed Israeli officials, even while this was going on, Hamas was—as it had all throughout 2013—working to reign in the smaller militant groups that were trying to engage (and sometimes succeeding) in firing rockets, and refrained from firing rockets itself. Under severe pressure from Israel despite its extended period of generally non-violent behavior, Hamas continued to deny responsibility after the teens were found dead and threatened to retaliate if Israel continued to attack Gaza. The same day the boys were found, and in response an Israeli strike, Hamas itself launched rockets at Israel for the first time since November 2012 that Monday, and Israel responded on Tuesday by escalating its air attacks, carrying out 34 strikes in Gaza. Israel made it clear that it was going after Hamas once the boys were found dead, and that is what it did. And things were only about to get worse, with more heartbreak on both sides.

If this series of events brought out some of the worst in Palestinian society—praising the kidnapping of three innocent teenagers and vilifying Mahmoud Abbas for trying to help Israel save their lives—the second phase of all this ugliness would certainly bring out some of the worst in Israeli society. Even as the funerals for the three boys were underway, right-wing mobs numbering in the hundreds hit the streets of Jerusalem, demanding revenge and chanting “Death to Arabs!” as they tried to attack people. A Facebook campaign called “The People of Israel Demand Revenge” emerged, garnering 35,000 supporters before it was taken down; it highlighted people calling for violence against Arabs, including active-duty IDF soldiers holding their weapons. This incitement was condemned by Justice Minister Livni. And even worse, a Palestinian teen named Muhammad Abu Khdeir was abducted close to his home and killed in Jerusalem the day after the funerals for the unfortunate Israel boys. In contrast to the rush to judgment of the Israeli government after the three Israeli teens’ abduction, Israeli authorities called for calm and patience and for people to await the results of an investigation. Palestinians in East Jerusalem, in a rare outbreak of violence for that area, rioted and confronted Israeli authorities in response to the killing. The suspects for the kidnapping and murdering of the three Israeli Jewish teens were called “terrorists,” their houses demolished; but the Jews suspected of killing the Palestinian Arab teen were “Jewish extremists,” and hypocritically being treated by a different set of procedures. (Just a quick aside: Hamas should be held just about as responsible for the acts of a lone cell acting without authorization as the Israeli government should be held responsible for the killing of Khdeir by lone Jewish “extremists.” And both societies and governments are quite clearly guilty of ongoing incitement and extremism, even if not to totally equal degrees). William Saletan wisely called for the house demolition to apply equally to these Jewish suspects, or to have the policy of house demolitions be terminated. Violent riots, incitement, protests and clashes between Jews and Arabs in Israel only worsened and spread when it was revealed that Khdeir was likely burned alive; furthermore, Khdeir’s Palestinian-American cousin, visiting on vacation, took part in a protest and video footage of him being savagely beaten by Israel police, even when he was not resisting, surfaced on YouTube. Tensions continued to rise, including rocket-and-airstrike exchanges between Hamas and Israel in Gaza, as Khdeir was given a martyr’s funeral that became a public rally against Israel. Violence continued, and Israeli troops began to mass around Gaza as the Israeli government approved a call-up of 40,000 reservists on July 8th.

If this series of events brought out some of the worst in Palestinian society—praising the kidnapping of three innocent teenagers and vilifying Mahmoud Abbas for trying to help Israel save their lives—the second phase of all this ugliness would certainly bring out some of the worst in Israeli society.

And, that, weary and exhausted readers, is how we got to this latest round of death and destruction.

Who Really Controls Gaza? (or, Does Israel Still “Occupy” Gaza?)

(This section later became the basis for a future article)

The final thing we must reckon with before we delve into our final assessment of blame and responsibility is to look at who controls Gaza, because the degree of control matches the degree of responsibility for the welfare of the people of Gaza and for what happens in Gaza.

Israel and its supporters are fond of claiming that it totally withdrew in from Gaza 2005, that there is no more occupation, that Israel has no obligations to Gaza as an occupier under international law, and that Hamas is fully responsible for Gaza. Some go as far as to claim Israel’s control never even amounted to legal occupation, even from 1967. However, Israel’s position is incredibly misleading. While people may debate the reasons for, and the justification of, and the exact degree of Israel’s control over Gaza, there can be no debate that Israel still exercises a significant amount of control, and that with that significant control comes significant responsibility.

Israel’s position is incredibly misleading. While people may debate the reasons for, and the justification of, and the exact degree of Israel’s control over Gaza, there can be no debate that Israel still exercises a significant amount of control, and that with that significant control comes significant responsibility.

Let us break down the specifics of that control:

Israel has complete control over Gaza’s airspace. Gaza’s airport was only built in 1998, but Israel closed it in 2000 with the outbreak of the Second Intifada and later bombed it in 2001. The only aircraft going into Gazan airspace are Israeli military aircraft.

Israel also has total control over Gaza’s coastal waters. It does not allow goods to move by sea into or out of Gaza (with only very rare exceptions), and imposes severe restrictions on Gaza’s fishing industry. And Israel also maintains a naval blockade. It destroyed Gaza’s nascent port facilities in 2001, and has prevented new facilities from being established ever since.

Israel also maintains full control over all land crossing between Israel and Gaza. It often keeps most, and sometimes all, of the crossings closed. Sometimes, some of the few crossings that are open are open only for humanitarian situations or urgent medical situations. Only a few thousand of Gaza’s 1.8 million people are allowed to cross, on average, each month. Israel has total control over which good are allowed in and out and when, exercising an enormous influence over the economy, zoning, and urban planning of Gaza. Israel also has some control over the one crossing between Egypt and Gaza, as anyone who travels through it must be pre-approved by Israel via the population registry. Egypt’s crossing saw a lot more movement of goods and people under Morsi, but this movement shrank dramatically after his ouster, and after clashes with militants in the area in August 2013, it was closed by Egypt’s military government, but has just been reopened “sporadically” during the past few weeks of conflict to allow a trickle of Gazans injured in the fighting (140 as of August 1st) to seek medical treatment in Egypt.

Israel also still has complete control over the Palestinian population registry. Any changes to birth, marriage, divorce, or death records, in addition to official address changes, must be approved by Israel. The issuing of official ID, including passports, must also be approved by Israel. Since the beginning of the Second Intifada in 2000, Israel has not allowed Gazans who have been living for years in the West Bank to change their official addresses to reflect this.

Israel also controls most of Gaza’s taxation. It sets the international customs rates and Value Added Tax (VAT)—which is included in the price of any goods—for all goods sold in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel collects the VAT or customs fees from the merchants, and then it has the power to transfer these taxes to the Palestinian Authority. When Israel chooses, it can (and often has) withheld these taxes when it has disputes with the Palestinians. Hamas has gotten around some of this by levying its own taxes on goods smuggled into Gaza from Egypt through tunnels (not to be confused with the tunnels Hamas built for military reasons). Most of these tunnels were destroyed recently by Egypt, crushing Gaza’s economy, and in the past, Israel has also taken action against these smuggling tunnels.

On the ground inside Gaza, do not let anyone tell that Israel completelywithdrew; Israel actually controls several buffer zones inside of the Gaza Strip, totaling 17 percent of all Gaza’s territory and one-third of all of its farmland. These zones include an officially off-limits zone, and a further zone which is a “grey-area.” Any Palestinians in either zone risk being shot, and shootings are not uncommon. Furthermore, Israel destroys crops and structures within this zone multiple times a week, on average. Israel also says it maintains the right to militarily enter all of Gaza at will, which is clear from its repeated invasions and military operations conducted after the 2005 disengagement.

Israel actually controls several buffer zones inside of the Gaza Strip, totaling 17 percent of all Gaza’s territory and one-third of all of its farmland.

Israel controls most of Gaza’s civilian and utility infrastructure. Israel supplies most of Gaza’s power through eleven power lines running into Gaza from Israel. Though Gaza has a power station that was built in 1998, it was severely damaged in 2006 and has not been fully repaired since, and was just hit multiple times by Israeli forces in this last round of hostilities, completely shutting the plant down. Israel had also previously restricted the importation of resources needed to run the power station. Gaza’s dependence on Israeli-supplied electricity also means that most water and sewage utilities are also dependent on Israel, since they need electricity for their pumping actions. Internet, wireless and wired communications services are also all run through Israeli networks, and Israel obviously controls the importation of materials necessary to repair, maintain, and expand them.

Israel also controls all travel of Palestinians between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and to anywhere else. This is not just because Israel separates the two territories; Israel also controls all entrances into and exits from the West Bank, including its border with Jordan, and does not allow those with Gaza residencies to travel into the West Bank, even for academic reasons.

Given that all this amounts to “effective control,” when it comes to international law and treaties which Israeli is a signatory to, Israel still has legal responsibilities under international law, including under Article 42 of the Hague Regulations, as it is still an occupying power governed by the Law of Occupation, even if its ground forces have generally withdrawn from 83 percent of Gaza. Despite the partial withdrawal of ground forces, then, the Gaza Strip must still be considered for all practical and legal purposes an occupied territory and under Israeli military occupation from 1967 through today for all of the reasons mentioned above. Gaza has not had one day of full sovereignty, or anything even close to it, since the 2005 Israeli “disengagement.”

Gaza has not had one day of full sovereignty, or anything even close to it, since the 2005 Israeli “disengagement.”

All this means that yes, while Hamas exercises a major degree of control, so does Israel, and under international law, both have responsibilities for the Gazan people and for what happens in Gaza. It could even be argued that Israel bears most of the responsibility, but even if it does not, it still bears a major portion of it, and Hamas itself can only held responsible for the people of Gaza and what happens inside Gaza to the degree that it can exercise full control over Gaza. The sad reality for Gazans, then, is that they are the joint legal responsibility of two entities—Hamas and Israel—that do not directly communicate with each other, that hate each other, that want to destroy each other, and that rarely put the interests of the Gazan people over their own.

The sad reality for Gazans, then, is that they are the joint legal responsibility of two entities—Hamas and Israel—that do not directly communicate with each other, that hate each other, that want to destroy each other, and that rarely put the interests of the Gazan people over their own.

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V.) Assessing Responsibility

How Should We Assess Blame?

Here we finally are, looking into how to divide responsibility in this miserable mess of a fight in Gaza, part of the larger Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It must be stated that we cannot judge the actions of the current Gaza fighting in isolation from the other events and long-term context of this conflict, and not just in relation to the physical violence. That is not to say the events of the past necessarily do or do not excuse actions in the present, but they certainly can make them more understandable. If two peoples live side-by-side in peace, harmony, and equality, and one of the peoples attacks another with rockets without provocation, that situation is easy to judge. And that situation would not be the one we are discussing in this article.

We have seen the history of Gaza going back to 1967. We could have discussed the previous period, but the more recent past has far more bearing on the present than that which is more distant, just as the more distant past has more bearing than the even more distant past, and 1967, as such a watershed year in the history of this conflict and the region, seemed the best place to start for this discussion. I have provided links to many quality sources should the reader wish to explore further, and I encourage the reader to do so; and if the reader does do so and sticks to quality sources that make an attempt at objectivity and are not cheerleading, then I am confident that the reader will not dispute my overall characterization of the events up to this point.

Having seen the history of Israel’s relationship with Gaza going back to 1967, then, I feel confident that you will be on the same page when I quote John Judis to sum up a bit of the long-term reasons for why this fighting is happening now:

What matters to me, and what is often ignored, is the overall moral and political context in which this and past conflicts have occurred.
Israel is one of the world’s last colonial powers, and the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are its unruly subjects. Like many past anti-colonial movements, Hamas and Fatah are deeply flawed and have sometimes poorly represented their peoples, and sometimes unnecessarily provoked the Israelis and used tactics that violate the rules of war. But the Israeli government has continued to expand settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and to rule harshly over its subjects, while maintaining a ruinous blockade on Gaza. That’s the historical backdrop to the events now taking place.
… ultimately the colonial power bears a great deal of responsibility for the continuing conflict.

So it is clear that to argue that Hamas’s rocket attacks were unprovoked or an act of aggression, full stop, period, is not accurate. And here, we must begin a discussion of violence, behavior, and structures.

What Israel, amazingly, does not seem to understand is that such extreme collective punishment is likely to generate more hostility, not less, that could lead to more violence, not less, so that, in the process of going after and killing however many militants or terrorists, Israel ends up creating at least as many terrorists and militants as—and probably more than—it actually kills.

It seem to me that speaking of this Israeli operation as pure self-defense is a falsehood in and of itself. For one thing, Israel’s very effective Iron Dome missile defense system—partly developed and funded by the U.S. and having close to a 90% success rate against the missiles it is targeting in this current round of hostilities—makes it much harder to justify such a large-scale operation in Gaza in only defensive terms, and makes such a large-scale operation unnecessary from a defensive perspective (and even before the Iron Dome’s deployment, Palestinian rocket attacks killed very few Israelis). Israel was apparently safe enough for Birthright trips to Israel for young diaspora Jews to continue and for Netanyahu to urge the U.S. not to cancel flights to a Tel Aviv coming under rocket fire, but not safe enough to approach the military operations Gaza in such a way that would have inflicted far fewer civilian casualties. We have already seen that official Israel military doctrine allows for a very broad idea of self-defense that includes severe collective punishment as a force intended for deterrence, but war for punishment’s sake can be very problematic in terms of its justification. The word “punish” comes up a lot in Israeli discussions concerning Israel’s policies and actions regarding the Palestinians and their militant groups, and over the almost decade-and-a-half that I have been observing this conflict, it seems that often there is a significant punitive element in Israel’s military activities that goes beyond any purist’s definition of self-defense. What Israel, amazingly, does not seem to understand (but, as we saw, U.S. military doctrine now finally does) is that such extreme collective punishment is likely to generate more hostility, not less, that could lead to more violence, not less, so that, in the process of going after and killing however many militants or terrorists, Israel ends up creating at least as many terrorists and militants as—and probably more than—it actually kills.

When Kerry said to Netanyahu that “it is worthwhile to try to understand what life looks like from the Palestinian point of view,” Netanyahu’s response summed up what he thought of the relationship between Israeli policies and Palestinian violence: “This has nothing to do with the occupation and the settlements.”

Israel views the problem with the Palestinians as behavioral, one requiring a stern hand to punish bad behavior, but does not look at the problem as structural, or stemming from the systemic oppression, colonization, and dispossession that are hallmarks of Israeli policies in the Occupied Territories; when Kerry said to Netanyahu that “it is worthwhile to try to understand what life looks like from the Palestinian point of view,” Netanyahu’s response summed up what he thought of the relationship between Israeli policies and Palestinian violence: “This has nothing to do with the occupation and the settlements.” In this analysis, Israel does not need to change its policies as the behavior and individual choices of Palestinians and their leadership are what leads to violence, not any unjust structures that Israel has created and forced upon the Palestinians. This myopic view strikes me a bit like looking at Spartacus’s revolt in the Third Servile War against the Roman Republic as if the fault of that war lies entirely with slaves who “initiated” violent “behavior” in “choosing” to attack their masters and not to submit to their masters or Roman armies and Roman authority. Clearly, the dehumanizing conditions of Roman slaveryand the cruelty inherent in much of its practices would be a fairer place to lay the blame instead of blaming the slaves suffering under that system for taking up arms to secure their basic human rights. So when we look at Palestinians using violence against Israelis, is there any doubt as to the dominant role of the occupation and the settlements? Whether Spartacus and his slaves or the Palestinians today (and that is not to equate the Palestinian condition with slavery), we can say they both were/are suffered/suffer from structural violence. And structural violence cannot be viewed as any less violent or any less awful than physical violence* [I have since evolved on this, see note on the bottom]. This truth was echoed by the Roman statesman Cicero, who was a contemporary of Spartacus’s revolt, when he himself wrote that “wars should be undertaken for the one purpose of living peaceably without suffering injustice” (On Obligations 1.35). In other words, you can fight when you are being either physically attacked or suffering from structural violence. This represents a conception of peace going back over 2,000 years that is not merely the absence of physical violence, but also of structural violence as well. Thus, peace and justice are inextricably linked, and structural violence is, if nothing, the perpetuation of the suffering of injustice through the imposition of unjust structures and systems.

Structural violence cannot be viewed as any less violent or any less awful than physical violence.* This truth was echoed by the Roman statesman Cicero when he himself wrote that “wars should be undertaken for the one purpose of living peaceably without suffering injustice” (On Obligations 1.35). In other words, you can fight when you are being either physically attacked or suffering from structural violence. This represents a conception of peace going back over 2,000 years that is not merely the absence of physical violence, but also of structural violence as well.

I hope that it is obvious to the reader at this point that the nearly half-century of Israeli occupation “was always a brutal and mortifying experience for the occupied” (Morris 568) and clearly a major form of structural violence. Does this mean that Hamas should be sending rockets to Israel in order to kill Israeli civilians? No. But it does mean that, in general, we cannot put the blame for the overall conflict squarely or even primarily on the shoulders of Hamas or the Palestinians. If American slavery or Jim Crow still existed in the U.S. today, would not those suffering under those institutions have the right to fight for their freedom if those imposing these institutions upon them did not cease and desist to do so after non-violent attempts to get them to stop had failed? The first American patriots who felt justified in taking up arms against the British Empire did so because of the structural violence of “taxation without representation” and of other particulars enumerated in the U.S. Declaration of Independence. One can only imagine how the American Founding Fathers would react to the conditions imposed upon the Palestinians by the Israelis. But Hamas is no Continental Congress, Khaled Meshal no George Washington. And Hamas has certainly engaged in more than its fair share of unproductive behavior.

Hamas, in this case of renewed fighting in Gaza, undertook a course of action that makes sense only if you think that trading the lives and limbs and houses of thousands of Palestinians is an appropriate bargaining chip in a hardcore game of deadly poker in which it is not guaranteed that those “chips” will win you anything, but there is a guarantee of massive suffering, destruction, and death. As we already saw Abbas poignantly asking, “What are you trying to achieve by sending rockets?” Violence only makes Israel less likely (compared to its already low likelihood) to grant Hamas and Gaza (and the Palestinians in general) any concessions; even Livni, the Palestinians’ best friend within the current Israeli government, was just recently quoted as saying, in reference to Hamas and the fighting, “You want to talk about lifting the siege? Not with us, and not now.” Hamas had a choice as to how to respond, and it chose to fire its rockets, to the detriment of its people.

In the end, Hamas must be blamed for its indiscriminate tactics, its rejection of cease-fires, and its willingness to use Palestinian civilians as bargaining chips in its political duel with Israel. There seems to be something perversely obscene when your side is the one incurring almost all the casualties, and the vast majority of those casualties are civilians under your protection and care, and you reject a cease-fire proposal so that you can push for terms more to your liking as bombs and bullets and missiles and shells rain down on your people. A battle is not the time for negotiations when a cease-fire is already being offered, which is what an actual cease-fire is for. To re-quote Abbas again, “We are the losing side, and every minute there are more and more unnecessary deaths. … I don’t like trading in Palestinian blood.” Additionally, whatever Israel does, blindly and deliberately targeting civilians is not a justified response, and Hamas’ deliberate targeting of civilians gives Israel a moral edge over Hamas in its intentions, a moral edge Israel uses to justify to both the world and to its own people its own questionable choices in tactics; you constantly hear Israeli spokespeople claim “We Israelis value our lives and the lives of Palestinians; Hamas does not, it deliberately targets Israeli civilians and deliberately puts Palestinian civilians at risk.” In regards to the welfare of the people of Gaza, that means that much of the time spent on the public international debate is consumed by Hamas’s choice of tactics, and not spent highlighting the actions of Israel’s that are also worth condemnation. In addition, Hamas encouraging people to stay in the line of fire, and telling Gazans to ignore Israeli warnings, suggests a very diabolical plan indeed: it would not be crazy to suggest that Hamas’s main goal here was to goad Israeli into a massive assault which would kill many innocent Gazan civilians and spread images of dead children and women all over Twitter, Facebook, and the global news media, further isolating and generating outrage towards Israel, and allowing Hamas to be portrayed as the heroic defender of its people, which it clearly is not (one should note the eerie similarity to the playbook of Osama bin-Laden and al-Qaeda, whose explicitly stated goals were to use the 9/11 attacks to goad the U.S. into a disastrous war against a Muslim country and use that war to rally international support for al-Qaeda, tarnish public opinion of the U.S., and hurt the U.S. economically). Unlike Abbas, Hamas seems all too willing to trade in Palestinian blood to achieve its goals.

Very shrewd of Hamas, indeed, if the lives limbs and homes of thousands of your own people are to be viewed as acceptable bargaining chips for you to gain political points at the expense of your rivals and for you to posture yourself better in your prime-time showdown with the hated Zionist enemy. One truly wonders, beyond all the propaganda, how many of the dead, mangled, and displaced would have given their consent if asked beforehand to be used in such a way.

Rather than serve the interests of its people, Hamas is using the people to serve its interests. And, having just reached a deal with apparently-erstwhile rivals Abbas and Fatah on a unity government from a position where it had little or nothing to lose, Hamas may also be seeing a chance to gain at Fatah’s and Abbas’s expense, which has already started happening in West Bank. Very shrewd of Hamas, indeed, if the lives limbs and homes of thousands of your own people are to be viewed as acceptable bargaining chips for you to gain political points at the expense of your rivals and for you to posture yourself better in your prime-time showdown with the hated Zionist enemy. One truly wonders, beyond all the propaganda, how many of the dead, mangled, and displaced would have given their consent if asked beforehand to be used in such a way. After that fact, it is more likely to be given, if only for the very human reason to want to be able to say your loved one died, or you lost it all, for some meaningful reason. One poll taken in the middle of this latest fighting in Gaza showed that Gazans wanted both a cease-fire and Hamas to stop its violent actions. If the results of every single other round of violence between Israelis and Palestinians is to be even a remotely decent indicator, the actions of Hamas will all very likely very much be in vain.

Hamas must also be blamed for much of the general suffering of the people of Gaza; if Israel exhibits little willingness to alleviate Gazans’ suffering and to loosen the siege/blockade of Gaza, Hamas’s behavior makes it almost certain that Israel will have no willingness to do so now. And instead of putting more funds into alleviating the deep, pervasive poverty of most Gazans, Hamas’s leadership focused, relatively, on building a series of expensive tunnels from which it could attack Israel and on acquiring an arsenal of rockets. And Hamas is far from blameless for Gaza’s siege/blockade itself, which is justified by Israel primarily because Hamas does not recognize Israel’s right to exist and does not renounce violence and terrorism. Were it to do these things, especially to recognize Israel’s right to exist and remove the language in its charter calling for Israel’s destruction, it would be exponentially harder for Israel to justify its blockade/siege and the international pressure for Israel to end it would be overwhelming. Yes, Hamas does not want to “give” Israel something for nothing, and recognition is one of the things Israel most ostensibly wants from Hamas. Nevertheless, these position could have been changed at any time since Hamas was voted into power eight years ago; they were not, and maintaining these positions makes it much easier for Israel to justify its inexcusable collective punishment of all Gazans, and much harder for the rest of the world to get Israel to end it. Instead, the people of Gaza are stuck with the “double imprisonment” of “Hamas rule” and Israel’s siege. And Hamas’s constant and vile incitement, extreme rhetoric, and positions refusing to recognize Israel and calling for its destruction are the Israeli right-wing’s best justifications and excuses for its own extreme behavior and positions, and the best source of its empowerment. In short, the distasteful and provocative extremist Avigdor Lieberman would not be Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs without Hamas or its equivalent. Hamas’ words and actions also fill ordinary Israelis with fear that an entity sworn to destroy them controls Gaza and would be one of two major political parties in any future Palestinian state.

However, we must remember that in firing rockets Hamas was acting in response to what was politically motivated Israeli aggression in response to kidnapping/murder in which all current evidence shows Hamas as an organization was not involved. One of the standard Israeli narratives is that if Hamas would just stop firing rockets, Israel would stop its offensive. There is some truth to this, but such a statement implicitly supposes that Hamas initiated this, and that Israel was simply reacting in self-defense. While I am loth to call firing rockets at Israel indiscriminately as any sort of “self-defense,” this round of rocket-firing can only be properly viewed as an (improper) response to Israeli aggression against Hamas. Firing rockets was far from its best option, but Israel’s extremely aggressive actions towards Hamas in June led to the rockets of July after over nineteen months in which Hamas had shown exceptional restraint, nineteen months in which Israel did nothing to significantly reward such behavior, or even to bolster Hamas’ rival, the Fatah of Abbas and the PA, during nine months of farcical “peace” talks; instead, Netanyahu’s utter intransigence, greatly increased settlement building and aggression from settlers, and a continued blockade/siege were the only rewards for the Palestinians. That is not to excuse the rocket attacks, but we must also not excuse Israel’s relatively unprovoked action against Hamas, coming so soon after the collapse in the talks. Israel then proceeded with its extremely violent actions in Gaza, all based on more-or-less false pretenses, when calm had been the norm on the Gaza front since November 2012. Israel, then, is the party most (but hardly solely) responsible for escalation in the past few months.

Israel definitely gets a moral victory over Hamas’s tactical intent—it does not target civilians in order to kill them like Hamas does—but that is basically where its moral victories over Hamas in tactical choices end. Yes, Hamas operates among the population, which is certainly putting people at risk, but that is both a given in asymmetric warfare and how virtually all guerrilla armies for thousands of years have operated, and Israel’s planners clearly did not take that into account in its choices of its overall tactics. And Israel’s tactics—even if Israel calls ahead of time and warns civilians to evacuate (even if sometimes just minutes before), which is certainly more than Hamas does (but is still certainly not enough)—are still brutal and show deep negligence on Israel’s part regarding its obligations to protect innocent life, as has been demonstrated earlier. A nation that prides itself on Western, democratic values and that is the number-one recipient of U.S. aid must do better than to set the bar at Hamas’ level and say “See? We’re better than they are.” In addition, Israel is so much more powerful than Hamas that it also carries more responsibility with this power to exercise it more carefully. Again, asymmetric warfare is not pretty, and it is not fair, but I imagine that Israel would much rather be in its position that in the position of Hamas or the Palestinians, and being the more powerful party does carry certain additional responsibilities.

A nation that prides itself on Western, democratic values and that is the number-one recipient of U.S. aid must do better than to set the bar at Hamas’ level and say “See? We’re better than they are.”

Then, of course, there are the structural issues. Israel, as just mentioned, is far more powerful than Hamas, and also than the Palestinians. This power imbalance extends in the same way to all of Israel’s Arab neighbors. This has been the case for decades, if not since Israel’s founding. More so than any other party since 1967, then, Israel has had the power to shape Gaza, Hamas, the West Bank, and the Palestinians. And its policies in these areas and towards these people have been defined by three things: a military occupation that denies them even the most basic rights and freedoms, a settlement policy that is itself an aggressive, violent act of dispossession and theft that makes Palestinians distant second-class citizens in their own land, and a conscious attempt to derail Palestinian nationalism and break the will of Palestinians to resist. Some argue that Israel deliberately uses the so-called “peace process” to simply stall while it continues to further expand into and divide the West Bank, a process in part designed to divide the Palestinians not only physically but also politically. If Israel was serious about peace, the argument goes, it would reward the PA, Abbas, Fatah, and West Bank Palestinians for recognition, non-violence, and cooperation by making serious concessions to them and allowing major progress on the road to Palestinian statehood in the West Bank; this would show Hamas and Gazan Palestinians that it is non-violence that gets rewarded, while violence is only punished and achieves nothing. If anything, Israel’s own behavior has done the opposite: two decades of peaceful protests and attempts at politics were crushed and ignored by Israel from 1967 until 1987, when in December of that year the First Intifada erupted, which was also a rebellion against Arafat’s Fatah for its inability to improve the lives and conditions of Palestinians. Hamas played a key role and gained a lot of power in the Intifada, at Arafat’s and Fatah’s expense (does this seem familiar at all? It should, because you are watching a rerun today). By denying the Palestinians any progress through peaceful means, Israel was giving Palestinians a choice: submit, defeated and humiliated and on their knees, to Israeli domination, or, engage in violence. So the Palestinians chose the latter instead of submission, contrary to Israel’s hopes.

Israel even helped create and supported what would become Hamas as a way to weaken support of Fatah, even more evidence that Israel was not seeking a partner for peace so much as pursing a British-style “divide-and-conquer” strategy. In this case, the Islamists were seen as a way to undermine and counterbalance the main Palestinian faction of Fatah.

Israel even helped to create and supported what would become Hamas as a way to weaken support of Fatah, even more evidence that Israel was not seeking a partner for peace so much as pursing a British-style “divide-and-conquer” strategy. In this case, the Islamists were seen as a way to undermine and counterbalance the main Palestinian faction of Fatah. The Israelis succeeded in weakening Arafat and Fatah, but helped create a Frankenstein in Hamas. It was only after the First Intifada that Israel agreed to relinquish some control of Palestinian territory with the Oslo Accords of 1993, and this only after twenty years of ignoring Palestinian pleas for self-rule. Instead of self-rule, though, Palestinians got a rivalry between a Hamas trying to derail the Oslo peace process and corrupt Fatah on the one hand, and on the other hand, less than a year after Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination in 1995, it got Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister, who gave his own best effort to derail the Oslo peace process, cater to right-wing Israelis, and continue to colonize, settle, and expand Israeli control in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu, ever the obstructionist, was opposed to Oslo, like Hamas, albeit for different reasons, of course.

It was David Ben-Gurion himself, the founder of Israel and its longtime leader, who said that “the most dangerous enemy to Israel’s security is the intellectual inertia of those who are responsible for security;” and it was a Palestinian journalist who said that “the legal father of the suicide bomber is the Israeli checkpoint, whilst his mother is the house demolition.”

As one paper states, “Israel’s general strategic goal has always been that of maintaining the status quo by deterring major attacks against it.” This in and of itself is essentially a strategy that lacks strategy, or a strategy that is a prescription for a merely tactical approach. A cynicism bound both by almost two millennia of Christian anti-Semitism and the Holocaust mindset is hardly a way of thinking that is likely to lead to a brighter future. That Israel’s leaders may be resigned to an inevitability of the status quo is both a failure of imagination and a danger to the future of Israel. It was David Ben-Gurion himself, the founder of Israel and its longtime leader, who said that “the most dangerous enemy to Israel’s security is the intellectual inertia of those who are responsible for security;” and it was a Palestinian journalist who said that “the legal father of the suicide bomber is the Israeli checkpoint, whilst his mother is the house demolition.” Thus, Israel can be said to have created violent mass resistance through twenty years of occupation that ignored Palestinians’ peacefully expressed aspirations for freedom and dignity; it helped to create the second round of mass resistance in 2000 when it failed to be a genuine and committed partner in the Oslo process; it empowered and paved the way for Hamas’s rise with its disengagement plan designed to undermine Abbas, Fatah, and the PA, along with America’s inane coup attempt and Fatah’s corruption; and has since undermined the moderate, non-violent Abbas, Fatah, and their PA by giving them nothing to show for their efforts in a near-pointless peace-process and thus, conversely, encouraged violence by showing the fruitlessness of non-violence and cooperation. By creating the conditions for the rise of a violent resistance movement and then giving that resistance movement no reason to not resist, Israel has done more to create the current crisis and overall state of affairs than any other single party in this conflict. Or, to relate all this to the quote about Hannibal in the beginning, Israelis have been able to “gain tactical success that they were unable to translate into strategic success.”

By creating the conditions for the rise of a violent resistance movement and then giving that resistance movement no reason to not resist, Israel has done more to create the current crisis and overall state of affairs than any other single party in this conflict.

Something must also be said about the U.S. here: in many ways, the U.S. has never been treated so poorly by an Israeli government or leader. Having engaged in a big push for diplomacy that has now failed, the U.S. is still aiding Israel’s military with roughly $3 billion in official aid per year in recent years (over 16 percent of Israel’s defense budget in 2013), among other types of aid and strong diplomatic support, especially in the UN Security Council, support that continues even now. It is far past high time that the U.S. use and the threat of the loss or reduction of that aid as leverage to encourage Israel to change its course, since asking nicely has so far gotten nowhere. Reaching a long-term settlement with the Palestinians should not be viewed by Israel as a “favor” to America or as a “concession” to Palestinians; it is vital to Israel’s national security and its preservation of its identity as both a Jewish and a democratic state. If the U.S. keeps enabling Israel to engage in policies that are both criminal towards Palestinians and self-destructive for Israel, it will be acting as if it is Israeli’s drug dealer and should be rightly blamed when its customer harms itself and its neighbors. If the U.S. does not apply substantive pressure to Israel to change its course, especially on settlements, the U.S. will be even more complicit in this disaster of a situation than it already is, and will deserve a decent chunk of the blame should a real “Third Intifada” erupt, if we are not seeing that happen already.

In a very sick way, Hamas and Israel’s current government need each other to justify their most questionable behavior; they each almost gleefully point their finger at the other whenever justifiable criticism is lobbed their way. Israel and Hamas thus are each other’s political Iron Dome, each empowering the other to feel confident in pursuing their most reckless and reprehensible policies and actions. Caught in the middle as casualties are the Gazans, the Palestinians in general, Abbas, Fatah, the PA, and, to a much lesser extent, the Israeli people. Oh, and, of course, the peace process and any chances of peace.

In a very sick way, Hamas and Israel’s current government need each other to justify their most questionable behavior; they each almost gleefully point their finger at the other whenever justifiable criticism is lobbed their way. Israel and Hamas thus are each other’s political Iron Dome, each empowering the other to feel confident in pursuing their most reckless and reprehensible policies and actions.

Hamas and Israel are agents; Israel does not “force” Hamas to fire rockets, and Hamas does not “force” Israel to invade Gaza. The actions of each are decisions made by the individual parties, and as independent agents, they both bear a lot of responsibility for these decisions. But people also make decisions because of the circumstances they are in and because of the long and short-term behavior of other parties influencing them. These forces are not ones that simply begin or end with any specific round of fighting, but are generally present long before and long after any particular set of hostilities. In this sense, Israel and Hamas can also be said to be negatively influencing each other into committing even further acts of stupidity and violence; they truly bring out the worst in each other. Sometimes, one wonders if this is the goal; it would be so much better if, for once, they would try to bring out the best in each other, however drastically short that would be of anything even resembling an ideal.

Conclusion: Means vs. Ends

By now what I stated in my article’s title should be obvious: the people of Gaza (and to a far, far lesser degree, the people of Israel) are bargaining chips in a high-stakes poker game between Israel and Hamas, not at all ends in and of themselves, but means to Israel’s and Hamas’ own ends.

In the case of Hamas, these ends are staying in power and some vaguely defined freedom in some distant future, no matter the cost in human lives. This freedom will involve the destruction of Israel as a state and the liberation of all of historic Palestine, righting the wrongs of the British imperialists, undoing the Nabka, and redeeming the pride of Palestine. The Jews, perhaps, can stay and be well treated to a degree, but under Palestinian control and under a Palestinian state, absent the blight of the Zionist entity now called Israel.

To the Israeli leaders, the ends are the short-term politics of coalitions and elections and suppressing the Palestinians enough so that their national aspirations will never be a threat to Israel’s status quo of power and control over Gaza and the West Bank (or Judea and Samaria, as Israel officially calls the West Bank, almost as if it is just a normal part of Israel); in their cynical worldview, the oppression of Palestinians is necessary and only by teaching them that submission is their only choice in the long run can they diffuse the Palestinian threat to Israel’s existence. Palestinians must accept a large degree of Israeli control, leave, or die fighting it. Perhaps after realizing this, someday Israelis and Palestinians can live in a degree of peace and freedom, but under Israeli domination and with Jews clearly in charge, as Netanyahu has indicated he believes deep down.

This is not to sound entirely cynical; both Hamas’ and Israel’s leaders surely believe they are the best leaders for their people, that the alternative leaders are terrible, and that they are justified in sacrificing human lives in order to stay in power and do the most good in the long-run.

That there are large numbers of Israelis and Palestinians who want this should not make people forget that there are also large numbers who would settle for a lot less (and even within Hamas and the current Israeli government). If there is to be any hope in this miserably depressing, tragic conflict, it is with the idea that the people on both sides who are willing to settle for a lot less in the interests of peace can find common ground.

That common ground seems pretty obvious: Hamas must renounce violence and terrorism, and recognize Israel as a legitimate state, while Israel must lift the siege of Gaza and end its occupation in the West Bank. After this, Israeli and Palestinian leaders must each pledge to work out details of final borders and pledge to work closely together to protect the other side from their own extremists. This will require the current Israeli government and Hamas to each made drastic changes in their policies, approaches, and attitudes.

It was the great philosopher Immanuel Kant who wrote that you should “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.”

It was the great philosopher Immanuel Kant who wrote that you should “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.” If there is ever to be true peace and coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians, between Arabs and Jews in this troubled region, Israeli and Palestinian leaders will need to treat their own people and each other’s not just as means for the leaders’ own ends, but as ends in and of themselves.

The alternative? Copy and paste this article, but add a different date when the next round of fighting starts, and repeat this action until they get it. Then, we may finally be able to write a different story, one that is long overdue.

Several weeks after this piece was published, hostilities in the Gaza area finally ceased on August 27th, leaving 2,104 Palestinians, 72 Israelis, and 1 Thai guest-worker working in Israel dead. Little if anything has changed for the better overall, and many would argue things are getting or are about to get worse in terms of chances for real peace.

*****

*December 5, 2018: I would, in hindsight, have said my views have evolved as regards this statement: “And structural violence cannot be viewed as any less violent or any less awful than physical violence.” I would now argue that you very much can grade non-physical structural violence as being of a degree of severity that is less than physical violence, but it is still a terrible thing.

See related May 14, 2021 article on the 2021 fighting: Death, Stupidity; Rinse, Repeat: What Is New, What Is Old in Latest Israeli-Palestinian Tragedy  

© 2014-2019 Brian E. Frydenborg all rights reserved, permission required for republication, attributed quotations welcome