Afghanistan 2021: On the US Withdrawal and 'Ending the War'.

Written April 16th 2021.

Reacting to President Biden's decision to pull out all troops by September 2021, Simon Jenkons writes,

The military theorist Gen Sir Rupert Smith, in his book The Utility of Force has pointed out that modern armies are almost useless in counter-insurgency wars. They have roamed the Middle East from Afghanistan to Libya, “creating one ruined nation after another”. Britain’s sole justification is the hoary Foreign Office cliche about having influence, deterring terror and standing tall in the world. They are neo-imperialist vacuities.

Jenkins is largely right about how futile and counter-productive the Afghanistan War has been and it remains to be seen whether President Biden will finally withdraw all troops by September 11 2021. After all, the public diplomatic phrase ‘drawdown’ is still being used and that always implies something less than the promised pull out. 

In any case, one of the central war objectives, that of securing the construction route of the geopolitically important TAPI gas pipeline, still remains in the balance. The US has, behind the scenes, brokered a trip for the Taliban to Turkmenistan to cut them into the future prosperity this pipeline would provide, so peace might be possible.

But, of course, there is a New Great Game over Afghanistan and that was always going to make the creation of a pro-western liberal democratic client state that would assist in projecting western power into the Eurasian Heartland-and so secure dominance in the region-a delusion. Jenkins is right about the ‘neo-imperial’ hubris.

What Jenkins misses is any mention of the resource factor and the geopolitics of energy. The TAPI pipeline is part of what Hilary Clinton and Victoria Nuland referred to as the New Silk Route Strategy back in 2012. It is about uniting regional powers from Turkmenistan through to the Indian subcontinent under a US/western aegis.

The aim of the New Silk Route Strategy is set to become, if anything, potentially even more important in 2021 now that Biden has committed to rivalling China’s Belt and Route Initiative in order to check Chinese inroads from Central Into South East Asia. Russia is also trying on a spoiler strategy in Afghanistan, as in Syria.

The only way peace could ever come to Afghanistan would be for the US and Britain to try to broker a regional peace settlement with China, Russia and, of course, with Iran which has also spun around completely from a position of hostility to covertly back the Taliban. After all, TAPI is part of the sanctions strategy to thwart the rival IPI project.

We really need articles with more background information that inform Western publics what the real stakes have been in Afghanistan. The TAPI pipeline’s connection to the war is not a ‘conspiracy theory’ but an inherent part of the geopolitical struggle for the upper hand in Eurasia. The only conspiracy is the one of silence on it.

The Summer of 2018: The Approach of War with Iran

Trump's decision to appoint John Bolton as NSA could be the decisive action tilting both the US and the Middle East towards an all out major war and even escalate into a major global conflict and lead to an era of barbarity. All would depend on whether Russia and the US are able to maintain 'deconfliction' over Syria.

What's almost certain is that Bolton's ascendancy gives the green light for Israel to launch what it would regard as a 'defensive' or 'preemptive' war against both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iranian backed forces in Syria. Since February's clash, the rhetoric has increased with Israel promising what's been termed 'May Madness'.

David Gardner of the FT wrote a few days ago of the terrifying slide towards war, even before Bolton was confirmed in his post,

'War clouds are gathering again over the Middle East. Since last month’s flare up between Israel and Iran in the crowded airspace over Syria, the stars are moving into ominous alignment. After seven years of civil war, Syria’s battleground still sucks in foreign powers, pitting Nato allies US and Turkey against each other or the US against Russia. But these are mere sparks, struck mostly off proxies, compared to what might, if mismanaged or miscalculated, turn into a new region-wide war. The backdrop is threatening. President Donald Trump’s erratic administration in the US, Saudi Arabia under its impulsive young crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman (known as MbS), and Israel — where veteran prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is clinging on at the head of an ultra-nationalist coalition in the face of serial corruption probes.'

The stars are now firmly in alignment with Bolton's rise because of two interrelated developments. The first is that the end of IS has meant a vacuum of power was filled by Iranian backed forces which have served their purpose as far as the US is concerned. The second is the intensification of the Saudi-Iran proxy war.

Bolton's hardline towards Tehran has not changed since 1979. For him its way past time for a war of regime change to roll back and destroy what he regards as the one root cause of terror and tyranny in the region-the mullah's theocratic regime in Tehran. The fact Iran was necessary to keep IS in check is not a reality for Bolton.

As Bolton claimed in January  2018,

“America’s declared policy should be ending Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution before its 40th anniversary. Arab states would remain silent, but they would welcome this approach and might even help finance it…. Recognizing a new Iranian regime in 2019 would reverse the shame of once seeing our diplomats held hostage for 444 days. The former hostages can cut the ribbon to open the new U.S. Embassy in Tehran.”

Despite windbag commentary downplaying Bolton's importance, Trump hired him as part of a war cabinet geared towards ditching Obama's 2015 nuclear deal .Trump hates it as he wants to pose as the strong leader as against Obama: Bolton wants rid of it as part of continuing his determination to destroy the Axis of Evil.

Whereas Trump wants to end the nuclear deal as part of a posture, his new team want rid as they seek a war of regime change and blame Iran exclusively for the reason the Iraq war did not succeed as it ought to have: war is part of the unfinished business of remodeling the region through America's hegemonic strength.

This means a forthright alignment with Saudi Arabia and possibly supply of lethal arms to Sunni jihadists if and where necessary, with all the blowback potential for Europe that would entail, as well as an all our regional war in which Israel starts a war with Iran that brings in the US once the nuclear deal is ended.

Enter Britain ? 

Should Israel claim it is under attack and engaged in a war with Iran along with the Saudis, this would necessarily raise a dilemma as regards Britain, then Europe, in 2018, the Middle East: to stay out or align 'shoulder to shoulder' with the US. Despite Johnson supporting the nuclear deal, he could flip flop.

The reason would be that once the nuclear deal was terminated anyway, the Tory government could feel obliged to defend both Israel and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States from 'Iranian aggression'. The post-Brexit importance of both lucrative arms deals, its role as 'Global Player' and Special Relationship would be at stake.

Apart from the primacy of these foreign policy interests, Britain is beset by internal conflict, as before 1914. Corbyn is openly challenging the establishment over the unpopular Saudi alliance and its funding of jihadi terrorism and the domestic blowback caused by the foreign policy. It's increasingly lacking public support.

Set against this background, should a war break out with Iran or threaten to throughout the summer of 2018, May's government will start ratcheting up the 'Corbyn as traitor' and 'ally of Hezbollah and Iran' propaganda. Domestic security will be portrayed as endangered by Corbyn so as to bolster May as 'New Iron Lady'.

And then Britain will join.

North Korea Crisis 2017: Kim Jong Un's Strategy of Maximal Brinkmanship

'Recent events have sharpened Beijing’s antagonism. Calls for stronger action against its neighbour are growing. This week an influential academic suggested that China may have no choice but to hold talks with the US on contingency planning for war'. Tania Branigan, Guardian, Sunday 17 September 2017

China could well have to start planning a joint military plan with America that would allow for 'deconfliction' just as Russia has with the US over the war in Syria, another strategic state whose implosion and descent into warfare had destabilising consequences within and beyond the region where its located.

The situation as of September 2017 is immensely dangerous not because North Korea in itself is such a real threat to the US. The risk is that Kim Jong Un's nuclear programme demands a response which could lead to the destabilisation of East Asia through further nuclearisation and an accelerating arms race.

As Branigan points out, Trump's 'strategy' has been all over the place. The dysfunctionality of the administration is heightening the potential for China and Russia and the US, South Korea and Japan to miscalculate their responses to the North Korea crisis in a fog of uncertainty that could trigger off a catastrophic war.

At one level, the North Korean Crisis is not as severe as the one over Cuba in 1962 because Kim's hermit state simply cannot be compared with the colossal Soviet Empire or its massive nuclear arsenal at the height of the Cold War. Kim's bragging about reaching 'equilibrium' with US nuclear power is just a provocation.

However, at another level, the North Korean stand off could be more dangerous in its unpredictability than Cuba because the real danger comes from the potential of Russia and China on one side and the US on the other to mismanage their handling of the seemingly erratic and suicidally 'mad' Kim Jong Un.

The US approach has been based on threatening war on North Korea as a means to compel China to do what the US insists is necessary-or else. This use of coercive diplomacy towards it over a state right on its north-east borders is bound to be resented because Chinese leverage is more limited than Washington seems to realise.

China clearly resents North Korea destabilising the region but it also fears that if it collapses then there could be chaos and nuclear material floating around in conditions of anarchy. If the US and South Korea were to invade, China would have to move south of the River Yalu to create a new buffer zone.

These circumstances would recreate very similar circumstances to those of the first Korean war that never officially ended in 1953. But the bigger question is whether China, aligning more firmly with Russia in the course of 2017 through joint naval drills in the Baltic Sea and now in the north Pacific, would 'allow' any US military action.

Unless the US is bluffing, it is going either to have to issue an ultimatum or to simply attack North Korea without warning. In fact, it could not offer an ultimatum, as with Germany and Austria Hungary over Serbia in 1914, because the success of its military strikes would depend on knocking the regime out before it could respond.

The chances of a US military strike 'decapitating' the North Korean regime or significantly destroying its military before it launched devastating artillery and missile attacks across the DMZ, aimed at turning Seoul into a 'lake of fire', are minimal. In addition, it could lead to panic responses in China and a geopolitical collision.

Moreover, even Trump's real and growing threat of a using colossal of 'fire and fury' against a North Korea on China's border would lead to a heightened and widened paranoia that the US could resort to force over any number of other frozen border disputes and areas of geopolitical friction from Taiwan down to the South China Sea.

China has every interest in cooperating to find a diplomatic resolution. But it is not going to be forced or even seen to be forced simply to do the bidding of the US on its terms as though it's failure to act as the US demands implies it's responsible or guilty for any further threat or imminent recourse of the US to military coercion.

When the Chinese Foreign Ministry denied it was 'the key' to preventing North Korea developing its nuclear programme, and the US was responsible for untying the knots it had tied together, the emphasis was shifted back to the US to back down from aggressive rhetoric and 'lose face' if necessary after its blustering.

Sanctions, even on oil cannot work, as Kim has the technology to convert North Korea's large coal reserves into liquefied form. It is a state completely set up, above all, to survive anything the external powers could do. Sanctions, in impoverishing the people, make it even more intent on accelerating the nuclear programme.

The reason is that sanctions imposed by the West have already failed to dissuade the regime and China and the US are at cross purposes in trying to get North Korea to change course. China has held out that engaging with Pyongyang and still trading would give it more of a stake in not pursuing the nuclear programme.

In other words, building up trade ties and North Korea developing would give the regime more of a stake in not being rash or suicidal in that it would have more at stake to lose and the elites, in particular, more to lose if they started to get rich. Certain smart sanctions would then have more effect.

The problem is Kim's 'neo-Juche' regime has sabotaged all attempts to balance carrots with sticks by controlling a patronage system that allocates consumer goods carefully according to regime loyalty and mercilessly uses terror and execution for any in the elites who have shown too close a political link to China.

Four of the five pallbearers at Kim Jong Il's funeral in 2011 have disappeared and Kim's uncle executed for becoming too close to China. Kim's step brother was also considered a potential rival and assassinated in February 2017 at Malaysia Airport with VX nerve gas to demonstrate two things to the world.

The first is that Trump's Tomahawk missile strikes against Assad for an alleged chemical weapon attack in April 2017 was not going to impress upon Xi Jinping that he had any way of influencing or building up a counter elite or coup potential. China would never be able to remove him any more than Trump could either.

Secondly, the use of a chemical weapon was designed to remind the world that Kim has huge stocks of these weapons and is not in any denial that he has them or would use them to lethal effect against any attempt to remove him or his regime by military force. Such weapons could easily be fired against any regional state.

Kim Jong Un's Strategy: Maximum Brinkmanship and Regime Survival.

Kim is playing a game of suicidal brinkmanship based on the seemingly rational calculus that the US is going to have to recognise his power and either it or China, with US tacit approval, is going to have to offer to 'monetise' any halt to the nuclear programme or else re-engage in talks to end the Korean war.

A return to the Six Party talks are the only way out. The alternative is for North Korea to proceed, Japan to gear up for rearmament, including even developing its own nuclear missiles and for South Korea to have more THAAD anti-ballistic missiles deployed and for China to fear North Korea is being used as a further pretext to 'contain' it.

The cost of not resolving the crisis diplomatically or putting in place a process to start doing so is the dangers of any move or perceived move to resolve it through force could lead to insecurity and paranoia in conditions of heightened tensions where the North Korean crisis could trigger off a wider geopolitical clash.

THAAD anti-ballistic missiles in South Korea are to be used against short and medium range missiles, but the radar technology they come equipped with are thought to have another function as an early warning system that would downgrade the deterrent function of China's ICBMs relative to those of the US.

Kim's strategy would appear to be to ratchet up the regional crisis and to destabilise it through stimulating a potential arms race which would threaten to make a diplomatic resolution even harder in future should the Great Powers not deal with North Korea now. The longer they delay, the higher the stakes become.

The decision to fire potential nuclear armed missiles over Hokkaido is intended to get Japan to accelerate an arms race already in motion, including a shift towards developing nuclear missiles as China and Japan dispute the sovereignty of the Senkuku Islands, their claim to the seas round them and the oil that lies beneath.

Kim has increased the pace of H bomb testing and missile firing throughout 2017 probably because he realised in the new US administration the chance to contribute to the insecurity bred by Trump's campaign comments that Japan and South Korea could develop nuclear missiles and the US shouldn't pay for their security.

By launching his own dash for nuclear ICBMs, Kim is increasing the threat of hostilities not only towards his own state but also of the other regional states to one another. It's this effect of his nuclear programme and the fear that the US is not a reliable ally, one swinging between belligerence and being unengaged, that he's exploiting.

The ultimate ambition in Pyongyang is regime security. It's thought developing ICBMs capable of striking US cities within a short time frame also would deter the US from assisting South Korea should North Korea cross the DMZ and forcibly reuniting the Korean Peninsula. Certainly, ICBMs could have such deterrent effect.

As a pretext for US military action to prevent Kim having ICBMs, this falls into a trap set by Kim who in 2013 claimed he no longer recognised the forty year truce and to hasten the nuclear programme accordingly. But the idea North Korea would be able to develop ICBMs without a counter deterrent coming is not credible.

On September 5, South Korea hinted for US nuclear weapons to be redeployed there, only for President Moon Jae-in to dismiss the possibility of deploying nuclear weapons in his country, warning sensibly it could "lead to nuclear arms race in northeast Asia": this would mean both China and even Russia.

The regional powers appear to understand that the purpose of Kim's missile tests is to try to ratchet up fear and paranoia and keep playing them off in having to come to him with a deal or for the threat of war in future in the region to be increased. The problem is Trump's administration has no strategy to bring about multilateral talks.

Aung San Suu Kyi , Rakhine and the Geopolitical Struggle over Myanmar.

As thousands of Muslim Rohingya have fled west from Myanmar across the border into Bangladesh amist accusations of 'ethnic cleansing' or even a 'genocide', Aung San Suu Kyi, the leading advocate of democracy, human rights and Nobel Prize winner has now been firmly condemned for her silence on her General's actions.

Suu Kyi might do well do to heed her own advice “Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it.” However, it is unfortunately a feature of many democratic transitions from dictatorship in multi-ethnic states to have the outbreak of ethnic-sectarian separatism and violence.Yugoslavia after 1991 was one example.

The other was the 'Arab Spring' of 2011 which rapidly became hijacked as part of an Iranian-Saudi and Qatari proxy war. The Myanmar military would appear to be persecuting the Rohingya Muslim and pursuing 'ethnic cleansing' but the brutal reality is a nasty civil war in the province going on has developed since October 2016.

Moreover, the Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) which is launching an insurgency is a fanatical newly branded jihadi group backed by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia for geopolitical advantage. The new Myanmar-China gas pipeline runs right through coastal Rakhine and the Saudi would like to extend control over the province.

Riyadh wants to pose to pose as the champion of global Sunni jihad and block off Iranian gas and oil exports through to China which will, in return, supply much need electricity to Myanmar. Riyadh has been bankrolling intolerant Wahhabi Islam throughout neighbouring Bangladesh in order to extend its influence.

Though Harakah al-Yakin (HaY) was mostly concerned with local grievances, it converted to become the ARSA the better to draw in funds from the Gulf States, in the same way the Sunni jihadists in the FSA attempted after the Syrian uprising was hijacked for similar geostrategic reasons and to sabotage rival projects.

The silence of Suu Kyi could well reflect knowledge that Myanmar is becoming the site of a jihad backed by external powers and that the insurgency-terrorist threat is real. That could offset the fact Myanmar military is cracking down disproportionately and driving out Rohingya Muslims in revenge for ARSA attacks.

Weapons have reached ARSA through southern Bangladesh into Myanmar via the Bangladeshi border and Bay of Bengal. As with the KLA in the conflict with the Serbian-Yugoslav forces, much funding comes from the Rohingya diaspora community. It's becoming a regional  Islamic jihad cheerled by the Saudis.

This meddling in Myanmar's internal affairs started in 2012, just as it did in Syria and Yemen after 2011. Riyadh started to provide funds for the Rohingya and, even prior to that in 2009, the previous king offered sanctuary to 250,000 Rohingya of whom 3,000 were amnestied from its prisons and sent back to Myanmar.

Saudi Arabia is doing what it usually does in trying to radicalise Muslims through Wahhabi teachings and using their terrorist threat as power political leverage. Riyadh would be able to use its defence of the Rohingya to upgrade its status as a defender of Muslim human rights and get the West bound closer to it in its rivalry with China.

One reason for this alignment is the Myanmar-China pipeline. For it allows less energy to go between Africa and the Middle East by tanker via the Malacca Straits which is patrolled off Malaysia by the US navy and could be used to choke China's energy hungry economy of oil should both Great Powers collide over geopolitical interests.

The US has only expressed 'concern' over events in Rakhine. It would not want to drive Myanmar and Thailand further towards China's sphere of interest. Both states have become more closely aligned since 2012 and the Thai coup. Both have trying to balance off Western interests, not least in Myanmar's oil and gas, China.

As for Aung San Suu Kyi, she would risk being deposed if she attacked the still powerful generals who could be sure of total and powerful Chinese support in order to preserve and protect the Myanmar stretch of its huge new "One Belt, One Road" initiative, one that challenges US hegemony in Asia.

The West too is ready to criticise her now as an irrelevant and tarnished asset in the New Great Game. Her previous champion Timothy Garton Ash has, since 2012, little or nothing to write in public about her as a beacon of human rights and freedom while US officials are probably wondering how to balance their interests best.

Apocalyse Now: September 2017- The Escalating North Korean Crisis.

'..the reckless rhetoric coming from the Trump administration — such as a threat of “fire and fury” and a claim that North Korea is “begging for war” —  damages alliances and raises the risk of conflict.'

The reason for the Trump administration's escalation of the rhetorical war is that there seems not to be any diplomatic strategy in place other than Trump's tactic of a 'Madman Act'. Emulating Nixon in 1969, the idea seemed to be to get China to compel what's considered a proxy power-North Korea-to the table.

The problem with this tactic is that it heightens the paranoia in Pyongyang without there being any evidence, as there was in the late 1960s over Vietnam, of any attempt at back channel diplomacy going on. Consequently, as this crisis gathered momentum in early 2017, a potentially lethal game of  'chicken' has developed.

Kim Jong Un has no idea what Trump could do and has every rationale to play for the highest stakes in this game of nuclear brinkmanship. In April, Trump, who opposed involvement in Syria, suddenly did a complete reversal of policy and fired off tomahawks on the pretext of an alleged Assad gas attack.

The real reason had being to impress upon Xi that Trump could do anything and that cooperation over North Korea, and reining in Kim, was vital if he were not to consider doing the same against another rogue dictator. But the Chinese simply don't have the leverage over Kim that Trump assumes they have.

In fact, the public and savage execution of Kim's uncle in 2013, either thrown to dogs or blasted live out of a cannon, was designed to signal that those who had aligned close to Beijing could expect to be purged or murdered, a policy of terror that has undermined China's attempt to use trade to mollify the regime.

Trump's expectation that either Xi sorts out Kim or Trump will deal with him from supreme strength-including 'fire and fury'-is bound to turn what is potentially a containable conflict into a serious war, even World War Three, should China then draw red lines as regards any unilateral use of force to 'take out' the regime.

In fact, the best diplomatic response has actually, probably for this purpose of 'deconfliction', been from China which has advocated a 'dual freeze' policy whereby talks could be established and Pyongyang would agree to freeze its nuclear tests in return for the US-South Korea ceasing its war games and drills.

Ultimately, if there are to be talks, there needs to be an opening move followed by a mutual intent to try to bring the First Korean War that ended in 1953 to an official end and steadily demilitarise the Korean Peninsula on both sides of the DMZ. This would mean Russia and China are essentially a party too.

North Korea: Permanently Awaiting War.

North Korea lives in terror state of fear imposed by the regime and by history. It has been on a permanent war footing ever since the conflict ended: in fact, the war has not ended in North Korea where propaganda drills it into the people morning, noon and night that a vile US Imperialist attack is coming.

As Bruce Cumings has pointed out, whereas Trump probably has no idea about the 'forgotten history' of the Korean War, North Korea has perpetually expected a second devastating attack in line with the deeply traumatic impact of the first. The disconnect between how the war is remembered in the US and North Korea is clear.

Whereas the US war is depicted as being that of a 'policeman' to deter unprovoked communist aggression, few "understand that the South also mounted hundreds if not thousands of terrorist attacks on the North". Standard accounts also tend to underplay the sheer destruction unleashed by US carpet bombing.

Cumings makes clear in his The Korean War that the bombing destroyed 80% of cities in the north and killed five million people. When Air Force General Curtis Le May had literally run out of any more targets, he then decided to bomb the huge irrigation dams, destroying 75% of North Korea's water supplies.

The intractable problem in September 2017 is that the US gives all the signals in planning a unilateral action and Kim could have a semi-suicidal drive to see his brinkmanship through until he demonstrates he has functioning ICBMs that make him untouchable. Trump has rejected talking again and again.

Comparisons between North Korea and Iran.

Pyongyang is also bound to be aware that even if it were to strike a deal with the US, it would be worthless as Nikki Haley, who claimed Kim was 'begging for war' in the UN, has also set about intentionally sabotaging the nuclear deal with Iran, despite the fact the atomic inspectors found Tehran in compliance.

The race towards attaining nuclear weapons was hastened in earnest within North Korea in 2002 when George W Bush placed North Korea on the 'Axis of Evil' along with Syria, Iraq and, of course, Iran. The attempt to find Iran non-compliant in 'spirit' is more about purely power political considerations.

Throughout the summer of 2017, Haley and members of the Trump administration, as well as those close to it such as John Bolton, have been trying to undermine the deal because the long term consequence of the Iraq invasion has been the rise of Shia power and the westwards expansion of Iranian influence.

If WMDs rather than geopolitical and strategic resource considerations in the Middle East had been paramount, North Korea should have been the focus of diplomatic initiatives to continue a freeze on nuclear weapons programme in according with the framework set up in 1994 in which it would stop in return for energy help.

Given the fate of so many rogue state actors, such as Saddam, it's unclear whether why Kim could ever trust the US to keep its word. Gaddafi gave up his WMDs in 2004 when Blair struck a post-Iraq War deal with the West in order to survive. Just seven years later, France and the UK led yet another war of regime change.

North Korea: Determined on Highest Stakes Brinkmanship.

Mark Almond is right that Kim has little way too of backing down now over the tests. One ultimate rationale for nuclear power is regime survival and to impress on his own people the state is genuinely eternal, like the first Dear Leader himself, and no outside power is going to try to 'liberate it' from without.

Becoming a nuclear power is the last definite way Kim could ensure his regime lasts, as the threat of future sanctions that would be truly draconian and designed to destabilise his state would still require China to calculate whether it could afford to have a failed state with nuclear weapons right on its border.

Then, in the US, Trump is also struggling domestically with criticism he is a weak leader when he came to power pretending to be tough and consequential. As with Kim, it's now a game of nerves and who is going to blink first. And at present there seems no indication either side understands the other or will back down.

This is truly a problem from hell. There is no guarantee the Trump administration knows what the hell it is doing or what it could unleash should the US decide it's 'now or never' and go for a military solution to destroy Kim's regime before he acquires an ICBM arsenal that could reach mainland America.

'Freeze and Rollback' or 'Dual freeze': Rival Diplomatic Approaches.

North Korea might freeze missile testing as part of a quid pro quo in which, once negotiations are opened, require the US and South Korea to stand down the war game preparations. China would be brought in as part of a negotiated plan to fund North Korea on condition its nuclear programme remains frozen.

This would require North Korea to submit to inspectors in exchange for unlocking Chinese funding. This plan would have the benefit of drawing China into a deeper and more substantial role in holding Pyongyang to account, in ways it cannot at present, and to have more responsibility for reining Kim in.

Victor Cha and Jake Sullivan call this, in the Washington Post, a 'freeze and rollback' scheme. He isn't convinced by the 'dual freeze' plan. However, once China is more effectively involved into a mechanism to hold Pyongyang to account, there then could later be a broader move to demilitarise the Korean Peninsula.

China, as the power political circumstances stand in September 2017, is not going to be drawn into a deal in which it has the choice of either forcing Kim to stand down or else face a unilateral military action by the US to destroy the regime on its borders in which it has the choice of accepting on US terms or not.

Ultimately, the resolution of this crisis has to be regional and aimed at the US reducing its military role in South Korea and for China to step up and take responsibility for holding North Korea to account. It's dangerous to demand of China it does so 'or else' the US would attack North Korea to end the threat.

Unfortunately, there is, in US nationalist circles, still this Cold war idea North Korea is just a 'puppet' of China and that it's deceiving the West and its allies over its attempts to rein Kim in. The UK's Boris Johnson's demand that it must place more draconian sanctions on Pyongyang mindlessly replicates this stance.

China faces the nightmare dilemma that if it simply cuts off all supplies to North Korea, and its sanctions have actually been draconian so far, the regime could collapse and even become more aggressive in even threatening China as its nuclear arms swash around in a border state in conditions of chaos.

Worse, the US demand in the UN for severe sanctions that would see Russia and China cutting off oil and gas supplies would intensify the potential for regime collapse and Kim to ratchet up the nuclear programme to the point of a first missile strike. Without sanctions being attached to talks, the risk to China rises.

As Kim uses this threat as one reason why China could not cut off all supplies and trade, Cha's strategy of tying Chinese funding for the regime to a verified freeze in proceeding with the nuclear programme would be one way of ensuring it actually goes towards state survival and mutually accepted goals.

If Trump could be pushed into brokering such a China-North Korea deal, he would be able to come away with being able to claim success for his brinkmanship in response to Kim and to restore confidence in the US as a regional force for stability and cautious diplomacy. China's stance would be validated too.

The Future Threat Unabated.

This is the only realistic chance of averting catastrophe. If the stand off is left to develop, and North Korea achieves nuclear power status with ICBMs, the unofficial acceptance of this, combined with the unpredictable nature of the regime and concern over its capability and intent, would stimulate a nuclear arms race.

Both South Korea and Japan would not be prepared to rely on a Trump administration that is dysfunctional, comes out with contradictory claims and rhetoric on a daily basis and makes dark threats that are not credible in relation to North Korea. Trump has given every impression of empty blustering.

The prospect then for a worse crisis later would be increased. For if no war or diplomatic resolution, North Korea would have developed a second-strike capacity and it would be too late to do anything to  put pressure on Pyongyang to curtail its nuclear programme and all regional powers would arm to face the threat.

North Korea is the 'joker in the pack' as regards nuclear missile power. None of the regional powers are onside with Pyongyang. None have security against it, as none know who the missiles could or would be aimed at. That would compel Japan to develop a nuclear deterrent and resurrect Chinese fears of it.

Though a nuclear armed North Korea might need to be adapted to, the process whereby the regional and global powers do adapt to it is fraught with the potential for a series of potentially catastrophic strategic miscalculations on both sides, the 'fog of uncertainty' and blundering that led to war in 1914 and, almost, in 1962.

The North Korean Crisis of 2017 is being compared to the Cuban Missile Crisis but it's far more potentially dangerous, as then there were two sides in a 'bipolar world' which had the capacity to engage to defuse the crisis. This time no Great Power quite has any idea what Kim Jong Un intends or could do.

While North Korea isn't in itself much of a nuclear threat, the danger lies in the potential for China and the US colliding over their approach to dealing with this state and China panicking in response to any US plan or an ultimatum, in which an attack on North Korea is mooted, and counter mobilising in reaction.

While common opposition to North Korea's nuclear programme could bring the Great Powers together, mutual fears and suspicions within the region-and an incompetent Trump administration-is playing havoc with the strategic calculations of the regional powers in ways that could multiply the confusion and room for error.

Sooner or later, either the US is either going to have to go to war with North Korea, back down and be seen to allow Kim a victory or else it's going to broker talks involving both it, China and the two Korean governments. Which way Trump will go-or be pushed-is unpredictable as much of what he does is a big show.

What's certain is the longer the North Korean Crisis goes on, the greater the danger of a miscalculation in response to Kim upping the ante by even more displays of seemingly psychopathological aggression will be in proportion. He has no intention of ceasing in his strategy of provocation and brinkmanship.

Useful Articles and Links on Geopolitics and Great Power Politics

Here is a list of some of the most interesting articles on Geopolitics, Great Power politics and Grand strategy I have read recently or else intend to read soon. It will be expanded and updated with new items in the coming weeks.

-Books

General.

Fareed Zakaria, The Post -American World

Henry Kissinger, World Order.

Paul Kennedy, Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.

Mark Mazower, Governing the World.

Resource Wars and the New Great Game

Michael Klare, Resource Wars

Michael Klare, Blood and Oil

Michael Klare, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet.

Michael Klare, The Race for What's Left.

US Empire

Alfred McCoy, In The Shadows of the American Century, The Rise and Decline of US Global Power.

James Dower, The Violent American Century: War and Terror since World War Two

US and East Asia/ China

Graham Allison, Destined to War: Can China and the US Avoid the Thucydides Trap ?

Martin Jacques, When China Rules the World.

Henry Kissinger, On China.

Simon Winchester, Pacific ( Chap 10 'Masters and Commanders' )

Bill Hayton, The South China Sea

Robert Kaplan, Asia's Cauldron

NATO Expansion, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus.

Richard Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine


-Articles

Geopolitics.

Paul Kennedy, The Pivot of History ( Guardian, Saturday 19 June 2004 ).

Michael Klare, Escalation Watch, Tomdispatch, Jan 17 2017.

Trump's Cruise Missile Diplomacy: Iran & North Korea Could be Next ( The Nation, April 11, 2017)

The US Empire.

Alfred McCoy, The Demolition of U.S. Global Power , ( TomDispatch, July 17 2017 )

East Asia and the US.

R, McGregor, Could Trump’s Blundering Lead to War between China and Japan? ( Guardian, Thursday 17 August 2017 )

J, Scahill, Donald Trump and the Coming Fall of American Empire, ( Intercept, July 22. 2017 )

2017: Notes on the Coming US War with Iran.

On July 29 2017, Iran's Revolutionary Guard accused the US Fifth Fleet ship USS Nimitz of firing warning shots at a rocket bearing vessel in the Persian Gulf near the Resalat oil and gas platform. During the US election, Trump had vowed that any Iranian ships that harass the US navy would be 'shot out of the water'.

While a military exchange in the Gulf has not yet broken out, a state of hostilities between the US and Iran has been developing amidst an atmosphere of mutual suspicion and paranoia-'War consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known'.

Hobbes' view of war applies directly to the circumstances of the Greater Middle East in 2017, where there is no US diplomacy with Iran going on to deal with their growing distrust of each other and where there is a zone of instability and war stretching from the Eastern Mediterranean right through to the Persian Gulf region.

A US War with Iran has been on the cards from the start of 2017. From Trump's campaign rhetoric about the nuclear deal 2015 being a bad one to Michael Flynn's statement in January 2017 that 'Iran was being put on notice', the President has taken an increasingly aggressive stance towards Iran using threatening language.

Throughout the summer of 2017 the Trump administration has demonised Iran for playing a 'destabilising' role in the region as a consequence of the expansion of its military role, through proxy forces, in Syria, Iraq, Southern Lebanon and Yemen. This is seen as part of a revolutionary Islamist threat replacing IS.

IS is a Sunni jihadist group, which was formed in 2013 from splinter groups from the Gulf State backed FSA and jihadi groups in northern Iraq-and that required Iranian assistance in defeating-is being downplayed as the Caliphate was destroyed. In its place, Iranian backed militias are gaining ground and seen as 'the new threat'.

The danger is President Trump could use any clash between Iranian and US forces, or proxies, at any time, as a pretext to launch a war. It's an ominous possibility for a leader beleaguered at home by accusations of collaboration between his election campaign team and Russia. His presidency has been a lame duck one.

For a President who came to power promising to 'Make America Great Again', the temptation to start a war to make good on his determination to restore both his own image as strongman and ramp up his executive powers, as well as to force a hostile media to align patriotically behind the nation, is bound to be tempting.

Domestic policy is one area where US politicians can circumvent the President and get on with things without him. On foreign policy, this is not at all possible as the President has imperial powers. Trump is so unpredictable that there is basically no attempt at diplomacy going on with the regional powers in the Middle East

So US influence is not being used to balance power between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The end of the Caliphate has depended on Iranian backed militias in Iraq and Syria, but in eastern Syria there are clashes between them and US backed forces. Iranian drones and a Syrian air force fighter were shot down in June 2017.

To the east, in the Persian Gulf, the spat with Qatar has been interpreted by some US leaders as the fault of Iran trying to split the GCC countries, the better to expand its regional power. Trump simply doesn't have the diplomatic skill to keep Saudis under check while engaging with Iran to bring about a regional peace.

That makes clashes leading to a direct confrontation possible, rather like the US and Soviet Union at the start of the Cold War, with the difference that there is no diplomacy in place as there was after Nazi Germany was defeated. With no common enemy to unite the otherwise hostile rivals, a collision is inevitable.

This is making for a hot war, as both sides in the Greater Middle East, the Gulf States and Iran, are polarised into two competing power alliances with Great Power backers beyond the region, though Russia is not formally allied to Iran in the Syria war. Russia's interests in the Middle East overlap with Iran but don't coinicide

Trump is impetuous. While dealing with Russia by diplomacy over Syria as this would be one way to 'escape forwards' from domestic criticism and a way to defeat 'Iranian expansionism' in the region, a threat to the dominance of the Gulf States. This has nothing to do with 'humanitarian intervention' and is about geopolitics.

The Saudi lobby is an important influence in Washington among even Democrat politicians. A war with Iran would win them over and dampen down the focus on Russia and force them to align behind the President 'in the national interest', with dissenters portrayed as traitors and 'anti-American' by White House figures.

Just as the war on Iraq in 2003, the temptation is to fight a war for geopolitical supremacy against Iran, a regional power whose influence extended westwards precisely because the Iraq War overthrew a Sunni minority dictator and created a sectarian war in which the Iraqi Shia became dominant in the new democracy.

However, the problem in a democracy such as the US, is that there has to be an ennobling justification for war with Iran in 'public diplomacy' beyond the obvious one that its about defending the dominance of the Gulf States, in particular Saudi Arabia, because of lucrative arms deals and the GCC hosting Western military bases.

Iran and 'Weapons of Mass Destruction'.

On June 27, Iran was accused of being responsible for any chemical weapons attack carried out by Assad. It had knowledge of a 'planned attack' that would be responded to by force. The White House provided no evidence Assad 'planned' a chemical weapons attack but its threat was assumed to have deterred their use.

The alleged use of chemical weapons by Assad in April provided a much needed opportunity to be use the image of gassed civilians, especially children, to justify the US repositioning itself on the regional chessboard as a decisive heavyweight player after Russia and Iran had gained the upper hand in the Syria War. 

The missile strikes against an Assad air base had insignificant military value. But it signalled Donald Trump's determination to set his stamp on global politics as a 'tough' President prepared to act against a Russian and Iranian backed dictator and in defence of its interests in the region and credibility as a Great Power.

The humanitarian pretext was invoked as a means to ensure the US remained a credible actor in Syria's endgame as its military to the east in Iraq set about using a combination of air power and native ground troops to crush IS there and in Mosul. This was achieved by July 2017 with around 40,000 civilian believed dead.

Trump 'let the generals of the leash' to get faster results in defeating it in order to rival Putin's use of air power to defeat Sunni jihadists in east Aleppo in December 2016, one that would restore the US image of being a military superpower and to prepare for the next stage of the struggle against Iranian regional domination.

The crushing of the Sunni rebels in east Aleppo was the decisive defeat of the Sunni revolutionary threat to Assad's administration in Damascus. It was a global humiliation for the US and its attempt to preside over an alliance of powers that had been intent since 2012 on the line that 'Assad must go': this needed to be avenged.

In actual fact, there are few differences between the Russian defeat of Sunni jihadist groups in east Aleppo and the US led defeat of IS in Mosul. This is one reason a pliant media in the US and Britain has generally failed to give any media coverage to the fall of Mosul at all with the honourable exception of Patrick Cockburn.

While the UN hand Amnesty International have accused the US and Iraq forces of indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas, even of war crimes, with the US using banned white phosphorus munitions on IS held Raqqa, the media has screened out these brutal realities whereas Russian brutality was given saturation coverage.

As Russia is a Great Power with nuclear capabilities, the revenge target for US and Sunni rebel defeat in Syria would have to be Iran. The fear in Tehran that the US could target Iran because it did not have nuclear weapons could be a fear worth provoking further by Trump indicating he wanted to end the nuclear deal.

Shredding the 2015 Nuclear Deal with Iran.

The problem with the nuclear deal has lain in the fact Iran is complying with the terms of the deal in which Iran would allow inspectors in to validate that Tehran was not pursuing a nuclear missile programme. This has led Trump to shift to the 'post-truth' claim that Iran is not complying 'in spirit' rather than fact.

Trump issued a veiled threat against Iran on Tuesday, warning Tehran to  stick to the terms of a nuclear deal with world powers or else face "big, big problems." A week after certifying Iran as complying with the 2015 agreement Trump made clear to thousands of frenzied supporters that he did not believe it was complying.

White House officials claimed new economic sanctions against Iran were being prepared over its ballistic missile program. Trump devoted part of his speech in Youngstown, Ohio, to Iran and is whipping up nationalist enmity to it as part of an ongoing political campaign that has not ended since he became President.

"If that deal doesn’t conform to what it’s supposed to conform to, it's going to be big, big problems for them. That I can tell you. Believe me. You would have thought they would have said 'thank you United States. We really love you very much. Instead, they've become emboldened. That won’t take place much longer"

To that end, Trump reacted to the defeat of his reform of healthcare bill in Congress with a round of firings. There is, as yet, flux in Trump's administration and a sense he doesn't know in which way to take his administration. The drive towards war could well provide that sense of 'clarity of purpose' that's otherwise been absent.

The Chief of White House Staff, who has been appointed in his place, is General John F Kelly, formerly of Southcom and a paranoid believer in the cosmic threat of Iran and Hizbollah not only in the Middle East but also even from Latin America and towards the USA's southern borders with in partnership with 'rogue states'.

Trump has also downgraded the role of the State Department and quarrelled with Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, over its validation of Iran's compliance with the nuclear deal. Trump has wanted to open up suspicions that Iran is not being held in compliance in order to deliberately create the impression he wants to ditch it.

Foreign Policy Journal reported on 22 July 2017,

 'The president assigned White House staffers with the task of preparing for the possibility of decertification for the 90-day review period that ends in October — a task he had previously given to Secretary Tillerson and the State Department,” a source close to the White House told Foreign Policy......On Monday morning, work was on track for the administration to again certify that Iran was meeting the necessary conditions, but the president expressed second thoughts around midday. A meeting between Trump and Tillerson that afternoon quickly turned into a meltdown. A third source with intimate knowledge of that meeting said Steve Bannon, the White House chief strategist, and Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to the president, were particularly vocal, repeatedly asking Tillerson to explain the U.S. national security benefits of certification. “They repeatedly questioned Rex about why recertifying would be good for U.S. national security, and Rex was unable to answer,” the source said.“The president kept demanding why he should certify, and the answers Tillerson gave him infuriated him,” the source added.'

The sum purpose of Trump's condemnation of the deal could well be to create a self fulfilling prophecy, in which Tehran will be so convinced it's going to be under attack anyway that it would encourage the Iranian hardliners to advocate restarting the nuclear programme. Trump's 'madman act' is partly a means to that end.

Trita Parsi  states 'If this path is continued down, we risk having a scenario where Iran ignites its nuclear weapons program and once again risks putting the U.S. and Iran at war. That's what we're gambling with here. It would be a very different conversation if the Iranians were in violation, if the Iranians were cheating'

Parsi concludes "this only leaves the impression Trump is seeking confrontation regardless of what Iran does or doesn't do." Indeed, Trump told The Wall Street Journal ,as regards whether Iran would be certified compliant in October, "I think they'll be noncompliant. I  think they're taking advantage of this country".

Projecting Iranian Non-Compliance.

Given that most Republicans in Congress opposed Obama's nuclear deal and Trump wants to reassert his authority as a 'real' President, as opposed to a blundering reality television star, the task then would shift towards trying to 'prove' Iran was not complying, despite all the IAEA inspector's factual evidence that it is doing so.

David Sanger reported in The New York Times ,

'..the US has begun raising with inspectors in Vienna the possibility of demanding access to military sites in Iran where there is reasonable suspicion of nuclear research or development. If the Iranians balk, as seems likely, their refusal could enable Washington to declare Tehran in violation of the two-year-old deal'.

Parsi outlines, in more detail, what that would mean,

'Use the spot-inspections mechanism of the nuclear deal,to demand access to a whole set of military sites in Iran. Once Iran balks—which it will since the mechanism is only supposed to be used if tangible evidence exists that those sites are being used for illicit nuclear activities—Trump can claim that Iran is in violation'

The aim would be to destroy the nuclear deal while projecting responsibility for that and the aggression that followed on to Tehran. Instead of restraining Trump and counselling caution both Tillerson and H R McMasters have tried to advise the President on how to bust the deal while making it appear as though Iran was guilty.

Senate Foreign Relations Chair. Bob Corker, ( Republican ) forthrightly terms this strategic approach as "radical enforcement" of the deal. He claims, gleefully, that "If they don’t let us in "boom." You want the breakup of this deal to be about Iran. You don’t want it to be about the US, because we want our allies with us."

The problem is not 'if' the deal ought to be abandoned and war pursued, but more the way to stage and choreograph the fall out so that the other Western nations that want the nuclear deal are brought onside with the US instead of hoping to pursue diplomacy to keep it. The EU nations could well object-apart from Britain.

Parsi puts it square in continuity with the neoconservative's case for the war against Saddam: 'This is a charade, a rerun of the machinations that resulted in the Iraq war. ..The administration is committed to finding a way to claim Iran has violated the accord, regardless of the facts—just as George W. Bush did with Iraq'.

Making the Case for Regime Change.

“I think there is broad view and broad consensus among all in the region, all Arab nations, among Israel, and among others of Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region”- Secretary of State Tillerson.

Parsi believes Trump would have far more of a difficulty selling the war on Iran because of the way the American public were 'played' the last time when the Bush administration conflated the global Islamist terrorist threat after September 11 2001 to make the case for war against Saddam on the basis he would use WMD.

This presumes most Americans are 'anti-war' because of the way the Iraq conflict destabilised the entire Middle East and then made possible the growing sectarian enmity between Sunni and Shia Islamist forces that played out in Iraq and then Syria after the Sunni Arab Uprising failed to remove Assad and caused a civil war.

However, the new case for war on Iran would involve blaming the failure of the first American War on it, the reason a second is necessary as IS is defeated. For the destruction of IS was partly needed to protect the Sunni monarchies from facing a threat they helped conjure up by bankrolling Sunni jihadists in Syria after 2011.

As IS posed a threat to control of Iraqi oil reserves, one major reason the Iraq War was fought, though this was derided as a 'conspiracy theory' by propagandists at the time. With IS rolled back and crushed the next threat to that oil would be Iranian control over Iraq, an exaggerated claim but one US politicians fear.

However, the fact the US war of 2003 ended up enabling Iranian influence to spread westwards into Iraq, a geopolitical feat that even the revolutionary war of 1980-1988 was unable to achieve, has infuriated the remnants of the neoconservative right and the right wing nationalists that were first to align behind Trump in 2016.

This includes Newt Gingrich and John Bolton who in July 2017 attended a conference in Paris held by the NCRI, a popular front organisation for opponents of Tehran at which Gingrich ranted 'Iran must be free. The dictatorship must be destroyed. Containment is appeasement and appeasement is surrender.'

Bolton, who almost became Secretary of State, said 'Tehran is not merely a nuclear weapons threat, it is not merely a terrorist threat, it is a conventional threat to everybody in the region". As a consequence, the declared policy of the United States of America should be the overthrow of the mullahs' regime in Tehran.'

To complete both the defeat of IS and the Shia Islamists in Iraq and to knock them out as a regional force of 'terrorism' and 'extremism', certain ideologues have looked towards dissident groups such as MeK. The plan to destabilise Iran had been mooted as far back as 2002 when Bush placed Iran on the sinister 'Axis of Evil'.

That Iran is being accused of regional destabilisation is Orwellian doublethink and ideological schizophrenia. For the most part the majority of the funding for 'terrorism' and 'extremism' comes from the Gulf States, but in accordance with these facts being true, the alternative must be believed that Iran is doing so.

Trump's administration has made a case for 'alternative facts' through spokespeople as Kellyanne Conway The big question is whether the US media would hold a Trump case for war with Iran to account or whether it would simply recycle government claims as 'facts' in the way it did with the Bush administration.

But the deeper reason for the case for 'regime change' is the toxic and corrupting role of Saudi Arabia in Washington. MeK is supported by the Saudis. Prince Turki al-Faisal, a senior member of the Saudi royal family and former head of that nation’s intelligence service, was present at the NCRI meeting to offer support.

In Riyadh in May 2017, Trump helped destabilise the Gulf region by aligning firmly with the Saudi Crown Prince and his calls for the creation of a new 'Arab NATO' to check Iran. Trump was gulled into supporting this by the Saudis flattering him as a great leader at the same time as he clinched a $100b arms deal.

If the Iran-Saudi enmity over the Persian Gulf and the growing polarisation between them could lead the US into war on behalf of the Saudis, the main check on this in late 2017 would appear to be the tilt of Turkey and Qatar towards Iran and Russia over determining the diplomatic and territorial endgame in Syria.

The End of the Sunni Anti-Assad Alliance.

The fragmentation of the anti-Assad alliance was consolidated by a Russo-Turkish realignment in early 2017 and the construction of Turkstream pipeline being agreed upon. Previously, after the 2011 'Arab Spring', the Sunni powers of the Greater Middle East had been seen to be in alignment under the aegis of the Western powers.

The complete lack of realism underlying Western grand strategy was demonstrated both by the belief that there was a 'third force' between IS and Assad in Syria that would provide the basis for a Sunni democratic state out of a revolution and war. Even before IS became a power in 2014, the FSA had been hijacked by jihadi militants.

The Sunni powers were never totally aligned with each other. Within Syria, the FSA fragmented partly because Saudi Arabia and Qatar were fighting a 'proxy war within a proxy war' between themselves in trying to bankroll and give financial favour to the faction most likely to win out and serve its geopolitical interests.

The carving up of North and West Syria into spheres of interest and protection between Ankara and Moscow and the gas pipeline from southern Russia under the Black Sea to European Turkey, has put an end to the rival geostrategy of a 'Sunni pipeline' via Turkey and Syria from Qatar, thus refocusing their strategies.

That gas pipeline would have been a major source of gas towards the EU which would reduce its dependence upon Russian energy and to diversify supplies, as would have Iran's rival 'Shia' pipeline from the South Pars gas field it shares with Qatar in the Persian Gulf. This was one reason the EU favoured the nuclear deal.

Russia's decisive military intervention in 2015 prevented both possibilities. But it led Qatar and Turkey back towards realigning with Iran to develop previously undeveloped parts of their respective Persian Gulf gas fields in April 2017. In August 2017 Russia and Turkey agreed to jointly develop new land based reserves.

Saudi Arabia and GCC states have felt humiliated by Sunni defeats in Syria and Shia ascendancy in Iraq. In Syria, the destruction of the non-IS jihadi forces, their abandonment by Turkey and Qatar and the shift towards balancing their regional interests with those of Iran as a counter to the Gulf States has been resented.

While Qatar and Turkey have shifted away from supporting Sunni jihadist forces, Trump aligned firmly behind Riyadh against Doha in the diplomatic war and against Iran which he schizophrenically accuses of 'promoting terrorism'. The word 'terrorism' has largely become a meaningless cant term for militias opposing 'our interests'.

The Saudi ultimatum to Qatar is of a piece with the scaling up of US military action in eastern Syria throughout June 2017 against Iranian backed forces and those of Assad. As the SDF forces contain a large contingent of Kurdish militiamen, Turkey had all the more reason to tilt towards Tehran to prevent irredentism.

The Saudis had an interest in ratcheting up the pressure on Qatar as the crisis broke after Doha and Tehran both agreed to develop their Gulf gas reserves. It was resented because Qatar had previously agreed not top develop them and the assumption was , if it were to do so, they would pass on price concessions.

The fear is Qatar and is cooperating with Iran to set up a rival Sunni power axis in the Middle East between the GCC and Iran. Qatar's support for Islamist groups in the region could lead to disaffected Shias rising up, as was clear in Bahrain back in 2012 after the Arab Spring broke out and Saudi tanks rolled in to crush it.

Already, the Saudis are crushing a Shia uprising within in August 2017. The greatest nightmare of the Saudis is that, in a state increasingly unable to stave off social discontent by diverting dwindling oil revenues towards social projects, with oil prices consistently down, is a Shia uprising in its main oil producing regions.

The Saudis have also failed to contain Houthi forces in Yemen since 2015 which they regards as an Iranian front to divert its energies to the south west and to exert control not only over the strategic chokepoint of the Straits of Hormuz but also over the equally vital oil tanker traffic routes via the Bab El-Mandeb Straits.

Israel and Iran .

Hizbollah has been active in Yemen and in the clashes in eastern Syria. Nasrallah has already boasted that after defeating ISIS it could send 'hundreds of thousands' of Shia Islamist fighters to Southern Lebanon if war were to break out between it and Israel. A Third Lebanon War still could break out in the course of 2017.

The immediate threat of a war between Hizbollah and Israel was defused by US and American negotiations with Jordan after the G20 Meeting which created a buffer zone between it and Syria. But the Iranian 'threat' to Israel is still a card the US has to play in justifying war with Iran as the Syria war comes to an end.

One factor in this is the end of the war in Syria also has meant Hamas has been able to come out of the cold after it was left isolated by the coup against the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt in 2013 and deteriorating relations with Shia Hizbollah and Iran. Tehran and Qatar are restablishing ties with the group in Gaza.

The Hizbollah 'threat' to Israel and Yemen, in addition to the US fear of a land bridge between eastern Syria, Iraq and Iran, is a factor behind the escalation of US backed forces and fighters in that region. The Caliphate is crumbling and hence the Saudis are more concerned with Iranian and Qatari regional 'terrorism'.

The defeat of the Sunni jihadist groups in Syria in east Aleppo in December 2016 was a blow for Saudi prestige. The GCC alliance is feeling humiliated and has every interest in the US being lulled into a clash with Iran. Trump has failed to offset Saudi aggression by tilting towards Tehran as Obama did in order to defeat ISIS.

Trump's support for the Saudis saw him fall right into the trap they set for him in placing his credibility solely on support for an Arab NATO,  leaning towards them and Egypt rather than the rival Turkey-Qatar axis. As Qatar leant towards Iran, and with Assad ascendant in Syria, Trump's administration refocused on Iran.

Despite the contradictory statements emanating from Tillerson and Mattis in their determination to balance support for Riyadh with acting as honest brokers over its unfortunate diplomatic war with Doha, the Trump administration is unified in regarding the degrading of Iranian regional power as major ambition.

At present, American foreign policy looks in disarray. But Trump's administration is not prepared to have Iran determine any post-ISIS political settlement and, more disturbing, it seems utterly uninterested in engaging in diplomacy with Iran. This has led Iranian diplomats to question whether the nuclear agreement would last.

A US War with Iran in late 2017 or early 2018 is a developing prospect. Russia remains a power it can do nothing about in Syria. However, it would be in a stronger position vis-à-vis Moscow if Tehran's regional power was diminished and it could try military strikes as means to do so, promote 'regime change' and 'knock out' Iran.

August 2017: The War Clouds Gather.

In August 2017, the issue of chemical weapons use in Syria by Assad is being reasserted as the OPCW is criticised by unnamed 'sources'  for not doing enough to assign blame on Damascus. The OPCW is led by a Turk and Turkey is seen as no longer being trusted in coming up with the politically correct verdict on Assad's guilt.

The disturbing aspect about the Iran question is how so many Republicans and Democrat hawks would prefer to risk war rather than keep the nuclear deal of 2015. Trump prefers to shred it entirely, others such as Tillerson as a means to renegotiate it at a time when the real fear is of the decline of the US and its allies as hegemons.

Some might prefer to ditch it to get a better and more forceful one as the reality is that the hostility of the US against Iran is more about its ability to counter the power of the US and its allies in the region than simply about the issue of nuclear weapons. Iran is resented too for having extended its influence in Iraq.

The idea is that if Iran acts as a 'conventional threat', then it cannot 'hold the world to ransom' in other ways just because of the fear it might have developed nuclear weapons had it not been for the deal. Now that IS is finished, the 'new threat'  is of Iran moving in to the vacuum and being able to determine Syria's fate.

This is why Nikki Haley was emitting lines about how Iran was not being held properly account by the atomic agency inspectors on Friday ( i.e. they keep telling the truth and certifying Iran is in compliance ). The Trump administration, far more so than that of Bush, is far more keen on the new 'post-truth politics'.

The pattern is similar to the run up to war with Iraq in 2003. It's also why there are renewed stories of unnamed sources being reported in the media, such as Reuters, that the OPCW is not doing enough to assign clear blame to Assad for chemical weapon attacks the US has already decided both Syria and Iran is responsible for.

This is useful when trying to justify why US backed proxy forces could make a territorial claim in Syria and retain a future stake for the US. But all the evidence is that these forces are not dominant in eastern Syria outside Kurdish enclaves such as Rojava. It's unclear whether Trump would be play the Kurdish independence card.

For President Erdogan has realigned with Russia and with Iran to bring an end to the war by carving out spheres of territorial interest. Turkey is in NATO, so Ankara is free from threats from the US. But such long term initiatives as the development of Iran's gas reserves, along with France's Total, undermine US sanctions.

The US has had its nose pushed out of Syria. Hence the reason for the increased sanctions which are largely about using punitive economic measures as a tool of power and leverage. Basically, the US has very few pieces left on the chessboard with the Turkey-Qatar axis aligning towards Iran to bring about a new balance of power.

It would be better if the US tried to accept it and work with the situation as it is. But it might try to upset the chessboard by attacking Iran and its militias in the region so it could open up the game for it and the regional players aligned with it once more. The cost of this would be to reignite a regional conflagration and destabilisation.

It's unclear whether the Trump administration is aware of the dangers of a war on Iran. The emphasis might well be on renegotiating the nuclear deal rather than scrapping it altogether, not least as the EU powers, especially France and Germany, are adamantly for retaining it. It's not clear if Trump actually cares about this.
 

The British Media is Silent on Trump's Shift to Confrontation with Iran

When the Independent moved online and ceased its print editions in 2016, this was seen as the beginning of the end of an era. The June 2017 general election in Britain saw too the decline of the populist right wing tabloid media as a decisive force that could determine victories for the Conservative Party.

The rise of social media has fragmented traditional audiences and 'the reading public'. Roy Greenslade has predicted the demise of the 'reactionary' tabloid media in the Guardian. What he hasn't dealt with is the decline of 'mainstream' newspapers as a proper source of information on international power politics.

It's not clear what future the 'serious' quality newspaper heritage media has when it fails to make itself relevant by journalistic coverage of the global politics and events that matter, a tradition being continued at present by a diminishing number of real journalists such as Patrick Cockburn of the Independent and his despatches from Iraq.

The fall of Mosul was barely covered in the Guardian compared with the coverage east Aleppo received when it fell to Assad's forces and Russian airpower in December 2016. The 40,000 civilian casualties have not been even registered in public consciousness nor the roughly 5500 believed killed by Western air power.

By any objective criteria, the liberation of the largest ISIS held city in Iraq ought to have been a major news item. But it was mentioned as if the war against ISIS was largely one in a far off land with little connection to Britain or the US, a footnote in a struggle that has long ceased to have much immediate relevance.

The fact the destruction of the IS Caliphate was downplayed so much might have something to do with lack of interest in civilian casualties that could have been caused by Trump's determination to 'bomb the shit out of ISIS' and to 'let the generals off the leash'. This was raised in the US media, but in Britain-silence.

Also not reported anywhere in the Guardian is the decisive shift of the Trump presidency towards a confrontation with Iran. It got a fleeting mention in an Observer editorial with Iran's ballistic missile 'threat' regarded as one Trump simply wasn't 'dealing with' despite his rhetoric. Nowhere has the Iraq style plan for war on Iran been mentioned.

It might be that the pretexts for war are so flimsy now and, as the Iraq War has demonstrated the US and US publics won't be 'played' by the government and media again, that the emphasis is on a media blanket, in simply not putting anywhere near enough emphasis on reporting the facts or informing the public in Britain.

The Guardian featured one article by Trita Parsi a few weeks ago and one by Trevor Timms lambasting Trump for his 'bloodlust' on Iran: the line is that Trump is the problem more than the Washington elites , both Republican and Democrat, who would be prepared to align behind Trump is he decided on confrontation with Iran.

Parsi is one of many international diplomacy experts who have been writing in the last week of July about the Trump administration's determination to subvert the nuclear deal and project responsibility for its aggressive postures on to Iran. The New York Times has covered this and, to an extent, the Washington Post.

Parsi is clear as to the strategy,

'President Donald Trump has made it clear, in no uncertain terms and with no effort to disguise his duplicity, that he will claim that Tehran is cheating on the nuclear deal by October—the facts be damned. In short, the fix is in. Trump will refuse to accept that Iran is in compliance and thereby set the stage for a military confrontation. His advisors have even been kind enough to explain how they will go about this. Rarely has a sinister plan to destroy an arms control agreement and pave the way for war been so openly telegraphed.  

The unmasking of Trump’s plans to sabotage the nuclear deal began two weeks ago when he reluctantly had to certify that Iran indeed was in compliance. Both the US intelligence as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency had confirmed Tehran’s fair play. But Trump threw a tantrum in the Oval Office and berated his national security team for not having found a way to claim Iran was cheating. According to Foreign Policy, the adults in the room—Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, and National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster—eventually calmed Trump down but only on the condition that they double down on finding a way for the president to blow up the deal by October. 

Recognizing that refusing to certify Iran would isolate the United States, Trump’s advisors gave him another plan. Use the spot-inspections mechanism of the nuclear deal, they suggested, to demand access to a whole set of military sites in Iran. Once Iran balks—which it will since the mechanism is only supposed to be used if tangible evidence exists that those sites are being used for illicit nuclear activities—Trump can claim that Iran is in violation, blowing up the nuclear deal while shifting the blame to Tehran.

This decisive shift in the approach of Trump towards Iran was not reported in any British mainstream media outlet, despite the similarities to the build up of the war with Iraq and despite the fact Britain's government regards itself as America's 'first ally' and that any US confrontation with Iran could well drag the UK in.

The Guardian is in danger of becoming a lamer version of the Huffington Post. The international coverage throughout 2017 has been appalling. There is no news coverage of Trump's attempts to shred a deal that could prevent a major war breaking out. Just the mainstreaming information on twitterspats and outrage pieces.

On defence, Richard Norton Taylor seems to have retired and so the shameful concealment of the Saudi role in backing jihadi ideology in Britain simply has not been focused on nor the reasons why the Conservative government is intent on suppressing the 2015 commissioned report into the funding of terrorist activity from the Gulf States.

Those interested in foreign affairs, those wanting quality and balanced, objective reportage simply aren't going to want to pay for Guardian, though they would be if the coverage was better. The Guardian is fine for scanning the headlines, but so is the BBC or any other media platform. It's simply not outstanding on international affairs any more.

The Independent might not be soon. Cockburn is indispensable for understanding the Middle East. But it's disturbing that a large chunk of the shares have been snapped up by a Saudi businessman, Sultan Mohamed Abuljadayel. While it might remain a 'progressive' media outlet, one wonders how long Cockburn might last.

Cockburn has done more than any other journalist in Britain to report the truth and reality of both the war in Iraq and in Syria, that Gulf State funding was a factor in the rise of ISIS and that the 'moderate rebel' propaganda trope recycled in the media was just that: the Free Syria Army had long been hijacked by jihadists.

Moreover, Cockburn is critical about the role of Saudi Arabia in funding global Wahhabi ideology and disseminating jihadi ideology-even in Britain. As he wrote just after the Manchester terrorist attack, the BBC and other media know Saudi Arabia is behind the funding the 'radicalisation' but refuse to report it.

As newspapers go online, British media is actually quite feeble compared to the US. If Trump went to war to Iran this autumn, few in Britain would have any idea that it had been brewing away much of the year or that Trump's administration had shifted towards confrontation or even some form of regime change option.

It's unclear how the US liberal media would react to Trump gearing up for a war on Iran, whether it would swing round to rally opinion behind the President, as it tended to before the Iraq War, or whether it would take a more confrontational and sceptical stance as once it did with Nixon's handling of Vietnam.

At least in the run up to the Iraq War, between 2002 to 2003, people were informed of a British government case for war they could be aware about and question. If war with Iran broke out and Britain predictably aligned 'shoulder to shoulder', it could happen very rapidly and appear as though it came 'from out of nowhere'.

Update Aug 5 2017,

The Guardian has reported more on the potential threat to the editorial freedom of the Independent,

'Sultan Muhammad Abuljadayel works for NCB Capital, the investment banking arm of the National Commercial Bank, which is controlled by the Saudi government and is one of the biggest banks in the Middle East'. News of Abuljadayel’s stake emerged last week, sparking concerns that the website’s liberal political stance and hard-hitting coverage of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record and foreign policy could change.  Saudi Arabia’s suppression of freedom of speech has been heavily criticised. It is one of several Middle Eastern countries that has demanded the closure of the broadcaster al-Jazeera in return for lifting a blockade of Qatar.