Wetwork

There are other things happening - #MeToo in India, Ethiopia's reform cabinet, Pakistan going to the IMF, the Kavanaugh confirmation in America, Bolsonaro on the brink of becoming president of Brazil - but I decided to try to say something about the apparent hit job, in which media figure Jamal Khashoggi vanished after entering the Saudi embassy in Turkey. Unnamed Turkish sources have told the world that a Saudi hit squad traveled to Turkey in advance, tortured and killed Khashoggi inside the embassy, and then smuggled his body parts out of the country in diplomatic bags.

Saudi Arabia is the hub around which many things turn. It is the home of Al Haramain, the two cities of Mecca and Medina, and therefore the destination of the hajj, the pilgrimage that every Muslim must perform at least once. It is the world's most important oil producer, and the anchor of the "petrodollar" system which replaced the gold standard under Nixon. In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, in which the Muslim Brotherhood strove for power in the Arab republics, only to be beaten down again, Saudi Arabia seems to have the public allegiance of all the Sunni Arab countries, with the exception of Qatar, which hosts Al Jazeera. The crown prince's radical plans to modernize the country, have become the hope of various forces who want to see a strong and independent Sunni world, and/or one that is friendly to the west and Israel.

When Obama's America began reaching out to Iran, and especially after Russia intervened in Syria, the Saudis apparently decided that they had to take their security into their own hands. They launched the war in Yemen, which, I am inclined to believe, is about halting Iranian-supported subversion which, unchecked, would spread into Saudi Arabia itself, and especially to the Shia regions where much of the oil lies. Saudi Arabia also assembled its "Sunni NATO", directed foremost against Iran, but also against Sunni radicals like Al Qaeda and its spinoff, Islamic State. It had already been de-facto occupying Bahrain since the Arab spring; now it launched a feud with Qatar. The Saudi royals embraced Trump's anti-Iran agenda, with Trump's son-in-law Kushner becoming best friends with King Salman's son Mohammed.

Many reprehensible deeds are committed in this world, by the powerful, in the name of the state; and they usually get away with it. Some such deeds are committed in public - e.g. in war - but others are meant to be covert, or at least deniable. When the latter are exposed, it spells trouble, even if they are denied. Russia in recent years has had to deny, not just a role in passing hacked Democratic Party emails to Wikileaks, but other events in which lives were lost: the shoot-down of a Malaysian passenger plane overflying the Ukrainian civil war, and the attempt to poison a defector living in Britain.

Now we apparently have a barbaric act committed by a western ally, that was meant to be secret, but which has been publicly exposed - by elements in the intelligence service of Turkey, nominally also a western ally, but which has turned east in the aftermath of the collapse of the Syrian resistance, the failed Gulenist coup of 2016, and the threat of Kurdish separatism. In this exposure I also see the hand of the remaining Obama globalists, liberals still immensely powerful in America but seeking relevance in a Middle East divided between Trump and Putin.

The CIA long cultivated ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, to a degree that we may never know, but which probably reached its apogee under Obama. That suited Turkey, but not Saudi Arabia, opposed as it is to all ideological currents that might threaten the monarchy, whether they be atheist communists, revivers of the caliphate, or Islamist democrats. Khashoggi, cut off from the usual princely politics in the era of Mohammed bin Salman's one-man show, threw in his lot with some opposition axis that was brewing in Turkey and America, and paid the price. But his backers in Turkey, perhaps still smarting from the Brotherhood's latest defeat, made sure that he could still serve the cause in death.

And so now everyone who has something invested in the continued survival of Saudi Arabia as we know it - and that encompasses many countries - has to decide what to do about this unwelcome fact. In a sense, we have been here before: Iraq's Saddam Hussein was supposed to be the bulwark against revolutionary Iran, seizing control of the Gulf. It was only when, Iran having agreed to a ceasefire, he set about building a revolutionary Arab-nationalist power, that his crimes became a liability for the west.

Saddam's continued resistance eventually led to America openly occupying Iraq. Obama's dalliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, and acquiescence to Erdogan's agenda of a new Sunni Islamist bloc, was no doubt an attempt to construct a new regional order that would still be friendly to America. But with the Shia in control of Iraq, and the Islamic State beaten down by Russia and Iran, Saudi Arabia has been stripped of buffer states. It might be able to call upon Pakistan for a nuclear umbrella, but Pakistan's own orientation has become increasingly eastern. So the Saudis had to become militant about their own survival. Thus the radicalism of the crown prince. And Trump went all in on this latest Saudi transformation - he got along better with the leaders of the Sunni NATO, than he did with the leaders of the original NATO - just as all American presidents, at least since Nixon, have stuck with the Saudis through thick and thin; even after 9/11.

Two futures can be seen. In one, Saudi Arabia survives and develops, a lot like Islamic State but not engaged in jihad against the west, and becomes one hub of a Sunni economic region stretching from Africa to Indonesia. In another, the Yemeni rebels are merely the harbinger of a revolt that will reach Mecca itself; at which point the viability of America's attempts to develop a new energy economy, based on fracking and electric cars, will truly be put to the test. And the true future is probably some unimaginable third way that will partake of elements of both scenarios.

Nations great and small

I had hoped that the Trump presidency might bring economic cooperation between China, Russia, and America, along the lines suggested by Carter Page in his Moscow seminar. But the American deep state nixed any possibility of cooperation with Russia; and despite his professed friendship with Xi, Trump has made good on his threat to deploy tariffs against China and a dozen other countries; and so the Trump world order is looking a lot like that of Obama's second term, with Russia and China remaining unmoved by American entreaties and threats, the twin pillars of an alternative world system.

But America remains far from alone, and I don't just mean NATO and the G-7. India and, to a lesser extent, the Sunni bloc assembled by Saudi Arabia, remain aligned more with America than with Russia and China, for their own reasons. Saudi Arabia has put itself in the same trench as Israel, against Iranian revolutionism; and India sees America as an ally to prevent encirclement by China.

I have asked myself what other revolutionary acts Trump might yet perform. He could weaponize the Qanon movement and truly go after the Clintons, but that would be best saved for the impeachment endgame of the Mueller investigation. And, he could overturn the western financial order: go after the Fed, or default on American debt. But for now the focus remains trade: we are promised a new NAFTA by the end of September, and there is no end in sight for the trade war with China.

Meanwhile, domestic affairs continue, everywhere. In China, Jack Ma retired as chairman of Alibaba (as India's Ambani passed him as the richest man in Asia), and Tencent complained that the enormous gaming industry would be held back by a new licensing process. In the west, there has been a media blitz about China's unfolding "social credit" system, and enhanced surveillance and ideological education in the Uyghur state of Xinjiang. (But there is rarely an attempt to objectively compare China's panopticon to our own.)

In Russia, a strategic plan to organize the country in a dozen economic macro-regions was revived. In India, while floods ravaged Kerala, Modi announced the Gaganyaan mission to put an Indian in space by 2022. This month, the Indian Supreme Court also ruled that the criminalization of homosexuality is unconstitutional, almost a decade after the Delhi High Court first did so.

Greece joined China's Belt and Road Initiative. Sweden's anti-immigration party grew in strength at elections, but perhaps didn't obtain the balance of power. Turkey was beset with American economic warfare directed at its currency, and protested Russian indifference as Syria prepared to take back the last jihadi stronghold, Idlib. Austria hosted a Putin-Merkel pipeline meeting, and fought opaque struggles in the western spy world to assert its populist, look-east policies.

Australia had its fourth party-room coup against a sitting prime minister in ten years. In crime-ridden Brazil, with presidential elections a month away and Lula barred from running, law-and-order Bolsonaro led the polls, but was stabbed by a communist activist.

In America, Apple vied with Amazon for most valuable company, and Jeff Bezos's personal wealth continued into the stratosphere, as money poured into Amazon stocks. Even when the inevitable "correction" comes, with stocks falling back in value, Bezos will probably remain the richest man on earth for some time.

New Pakistan

I have to regard the victory of Imran Khan in Pakistan's elections as the event of the month. Khan is like Trump in that he is a celebrity turned politician, who beat two traditional political dynasties (Sharif and Bhutto); though unlike Trump, he wasn't also fighting against factions of the "deep state". At the crossroads between Iran and the Gulf Arabs, China and India, Afghanistan and America; possessor of the Islamic bomb (and a former proliferator), and the country where Osama bin Laden spent his last years in hiding; and with a population of 200 million that is 98% Muslim... Imran's Pakistan is potentially one of the key ingredients in a sovereign Muslim bloc of nations, should such an alliance truly take shape.

The month also saw Trump meet Putin in Europe. At the same time, Obama was in Africa to honor Mandela; and shortly afterwards, Putin, Xi, and Modi came to town (and also Brazilian president Temer) for a BRICS meeting whose themes included Africa and the "fourth industrial revolution". Elsewhere in Africa, Ethiopia continues its radical reform, Nigeria remains divided by religion, and Zimbabwe had its first post-Mugabe election.

Trump remains a political whirlwind, presiding over economic feuds with China and the EU, and fending off critics and scandals with his tweets, while preparing for the mid-term elections in November, and also preparing to escalate pressure on Iran. America wants to drive Iranian oil off the international market by sanctioning anyone who buys it; Iran in turn could make it hard for Saudi oil to get out, by further arming its allies in Yemen, who have already carried out little-reported missile attacks on targets in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Supreme truth

For many years, I have thought that Aum Shinrikyo, or at least its terrorist wing, was controlled by North Korea - and that this was known to the Japanese and American governments. Now, after many years in prison in Japan, the remaining leadership of Aum has been executed. That this finally happened in the new age of amity with North Korea is probably not a coincidence.

What's next: Trump meets Putin?

The meeting between Trump and Kim has multiple potential meanings. It could be a prelude to increased American detachment from East Asia. Trump may wish to negotiate with Putin and Xi, over the heads of South Korea and Japan, in order to produce a new regional equilibrium of decreased militarization and increased economic integration.

Then there is the new hardline American approach to Iran. For now, Europe, China, and India are keen to preserve the economic ties with Iran that the Obama deal legitimated; but America is likely to sanction entities in those countries, that trade with elements of the Iranian military power structure. Trump's willingness to meet with Kim tells the Iranians that he is willing to make a new deal; but he may also be trying to remove North Korea as a source of military supplies and knowledge.

Finally, this meeting with Kim may be but a prelude to a far more important meeting with Putin, perhaps six or more months from now, in order to de-escalate the new cold war that began under Obama, and which the American deep state - or those elements of it that are "#NeverTrump" - have done everything they can to keep going, despite Trump's obvious desire to make a deal with Putin too.

As a postscript, let me review a few other things that are happening, or that are going to happen:

Spain and Italy got new governments. The Italian government is a left-right, anti-center coalition which has started turning away the boats from Africa.

Turkey has an election this month, Pakistan has an election next month. One expects no change in Turkey. But in Pakistan we shall see if Imran Khan's turn has arrived at last.

Mexico has an election next month, Brazil has an election next year. The cartels have been killing many Mexican politicians. The winner could be "Amlo", a leftist populist. As for Brazil, despite the universality of the corruption revealed by Operation Car Wash, they have tried to pin it mostly on Lula and Dilma, so perhaps they will end up with Bolsonaro, widely regarded as Brazil's Trump.

Where we stand: the geopolitical alignments of 2018

The previous post seemed necessary, in order to explain my interpretation of the present.

Before Trump, we could say that there were two cohesive blocs in the world, an American-led bloc which promoted liberal internationalism, and a bloc led by Russia and China which promoted a revival of national sovereignty.

There are still two blocs. But the American-led bloc is experiencing internal turmoil, both culturally - the battle between diversity and revived tradition - and politically - America is led by a nationalist willing to confront countries already within America's sphere of influence, and also willing to reach out personally to leaders outside the bloc.

I wrote before that we are in a world of four strongmen - Trump, Putin, Xi, and Modi. (Of course there are many others on the scene, but they are the four big figures.) That Trump is America's strongman is truer than ever. The American bloc has become his personal fiefdom. His rule is less ideological, but more authoritarian.

Over the weekend, there was a G7 summit in Canada, and a SCO summit in China. The SCO summit was quieter, more collegial, also far more consequential. India, Pakistan, and Iran attended. There was talk that India might seek a trade connection to Europe via Pakistan and Afghanistan. Meanwhile Trump bickered with his G7 colleagues, said Russia should be readmitted to the grouping, and then headed to Singapore for his summit with Kim Jong Un.

I would like to add something about the relations of India, and the Muslim world, with the three big powers. India geographically is in the eastern bloc, but politically and even linguistically, it can get along with the western bloc. It plays both sides.

As for Islam, the de facto defeat of the Islamic State has been succeeded by a new stage in the sectarian rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Under the leadership of crown prince Muhammad bin Salman, the Saudis launched their war in Yemen, blockade of Qatar, cobbled together a Sunni military alliance, and began Vision 2030, a project of cultural and economic modernization at home.

This would-be Sunni NATO is effectively allied with Israel and America, while Russia finds itself on the side of Iran's Shia crescent, and also Turkey, who turned east when faced with the threat of Kurdish separatism.

How we got here: a reminder

After the cold war ended, around 1990, America went from being one of two superpowers, to being the global "hyperpower". The World Trade Organization aspired to create a single global market. Russia was reduced to being a source of natural resources for the German-led EU. China's one-party state was an anomaly that would inevitably politically modernize. Resistance to the global order came from a handful of rogue states - North Korea, the last true socialist state, and various Muslim countries opposed to Israel.

But change brewed under the surface. In Russia, Primakov envisioned an eastern alliance between Russia, India, and China, and Dugin sought a new ideological basis for eastern resistance to the west. On the borders of the Muslim ummah, mujahideen fought on half a dozen fronts, emboldened by the fall of the Soviet Union. China strengthened Pakistan, North Korea sold missiles to the Middle East, Pakistan spread nuclear knowledge to other Muslim countries.

The 9/11 attacks turned the American ideological hegemony into an overtly military one. Bush occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, and forced Pakistan to fight its own jihadis (the alternative being an overt Indian-American military alliance). The nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea became the center of interminable diplomatic processes. US military commands were created for every continent, and the NSA spied on the entire Earth.

Under Obama, the hegemon tried to be more inclusive. The world economy was governed by the G20, not just the G7. The president was the son of an African man, and grew up in an Asian Muslim country. He dabbled in supporting Islamist democracy in the Arab world, and made a nuclear deal with Iran. In America itself, racial (and gender) diversity became an obsession.

But none of this was enough. Russia was reborn as defender of tradition and as the armory of a multipolar world. The 9/11 terrorists, who sought for years to recreate the caliphate in Iraq, moved to Syria in the aftermath of the Arab spring, unleashing a wave of migration into Europe that overturned the center-left consensus there, in favor of right-wing nationalism. China ceased hiding its strength and announced a project of economic integration stretching across Asia. And finally, in America itself, a celebrity billionaire revealed himself as a nationalist strongman and acquired the presidency despite opposition from almost the entire media and political establishment.

Season of dialogue

At the highest level of the world system, the moment seems to be one of relative success for Trump and Netanyahu, and conciliatory gestures from Putin and Xi.

Putin's new administration retains "Atlanticists" like Medvedev, and he hosted Netanyahu without rancor. China has been reaching out to Japan and India; there will be a working group on Japanese participation in Belt and Road. Putin just had an informal summit with Modi (arms sales, North-South economic corridor), and will meet with Abe later this week (disputed islands).

It was the anniversary of Israel's founding and Palestine's dispossession. The US withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal (so now it sanctions Russia, Iran, North Korea), but the other parties - Iran, the European powers, Russia and China - vowed to keep it going. Israel killed Palestinian marchers at the Gaza border (and was condemned most prominently by Turkey), and bombed Iranian forces in Syria even as Netanyahu visited Russia for (world war 2) Victory Day.

The Korean leaders met. Kim Jong Un has begun to resemble just another hobnobbing world leader - two trips to China, an excursion to Singapore if the summit with Trump goes ahead.

Scattered smaller countries had their national dramas. Malaysia had its unlikely revolution, Armenia replaced a president, Iraq strengthened the nationalist Muqtada Sadr, Maduro hung on in Venezuela.

It's not new, but I have been wanting to mention the African free trade agreement concluded in late March. All the big Asian powers will want to get involved.

Two summits and a red line

The summit between North and South Korea is to take place today. I won't try to predict the immediate outcomes. I will say that long ago, I read a Tom Clancy novel in which some South Korean generals were said to relish the North's nukes, as the property of a unified Korea. My point is just that the strengths of north and south are complementary - military and economic - and if they worked together, they would suddenly be a major power, even one to rival Japan.

At the same time, Modi and Xi are meeting in Wuhan, somewhat unexpectedly. Last year the Doklam border crisis was resolved in time for the BRICS summit in China. This year, India has revived participation in the Indo-Pacific "quadrilateral" of America, Australia, India, and Japan, that is widely seen as a counter to expanding Chinese influence; but in June, there is a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization - formerly centered on China and Russia, recently expanded to include India and Pakistan. So once again, an upcoming summit provides a reason for pragmatic conciliation between the two sides.

Indian hawks are upset, they consider this weakness from Modi (at a time when the Indian media and the Congress party are also agitating against Modi's party as anti-woman and anti-Muslim). As for China, one doesn't hear criticism of Xi, but he did just have a phoney "trade war" with Trump in which China made concessions as well as imposing counter-tariffs. So both powers have their issues to navigate right now.

Obama's 2015 nuclear deal with Iran - his big attempt to fix things in the Middle East, that was immediately followed by the Russian intervention in Syria - is considered in question, first on May 12, later in July. The crux of the deal was that economic sanctions against Iran would be ended, if Iran allowed verifiable restrictions on its nuclear program.

Trump has been establishing his own "red lines". He is generally not interested in regime change. He wants US forces out of Syria (though perhaps to be replaced by Arab and Turkish forces under the control of the emerging "Sunni NATO"). But he was willing to bomb the Syrian chemical weapons infrastructure. So we may say that he retains America's status as a protector of Israel, and the key issue is WMDs in Syria and Iran.

In and around Syria

A year ago, the Trump administration said it would not seek to overthrow Assad; there was a chemical weapons incident; and America bombed a Syrian airbase.

This week, Trump said American troops would be out of Syria soon; there was another chemical weapons incident; and this time, it was Israel who bombed a Syrian base.



So, at times when the American government says it will reduce its involvement in Syria... either the Syrian army uses that moment to terrorize its remaining opponents by using chemical weapons; or the Syrian rebels try to draw America back in, by martyring a few dozen civilians in a fake chemical weapons incident.

Now that this has happened twice, I do not see any other possibilities.

Trump has tweeted that a price must be paid, but not necessarily right away. So I think that for a while we will just see verbal condemnation from him.

Meanwhile, the Syrian army is in control of the city where the attack occurred. It was the last stronghold of the Islamist opposition. So they have a territorial victory, even if they must now deal with a new storm of condemnation and more, from the West.

America and Russia are on opposite sides here. To some extent, Israel and Turkey are in the middle. Reportedly, Netanyahu criticized Trump for wanting to get out of Syria, and has also told Putin that Israel will not allow Iran to use Syria as a base against Israel. Erdogan has said that Russia is in the wrong for supporting Assad, but America is in the wrong for supporting Syrian Kurds.

The Saudi crown prince has been touring America and Europe, and has their support in his war against Iranian-backed forces in Yemen.

Russia and China

One of Trump's early advisors was a fellow called Carter Page who gave a talk about how Russia, China, and America have complementary economic strengths and could work together. He was one of the early victims of the "Russiagate" witch-hunt.

It seems to me that Russia has abandoned any hope for economic synergy with America for now, in favor of negotiation over more elemental strategic matters.

First, Putin gave a state-of-the-nation speech in which he announced new nuclear weapon delivery systems meant to nullify missile defense (like a nuke torpedo and a nuke-bearing cruise missile), and explicitly said that this is meant to make the west negotiate.

Then, a few days later, a Russian traitor - a military-intelligence officer who had spied for the British - was nerve-gassed in the UK. This was an audacious and extreme step to take, and I now interpret it as deterrence. Britain is where the biggest concentration of Russian defectors, double agents, and oligarch oppositionists is found. Russia is saying, do not work for the enemy, now more than ever, or we will kill you.

Meanwhile, ExxonMobil abandoned a trillion-dollar oil deal with Rosneft, and now Trump has replaced Secretary of State Tillerson, the former ExxonMobil CEO, with Pompeo, who had been heading up the CIA.

Tillerson, with his business background, would have been a good chief diplomat to make an economic grand bargain with Russia. But it seems that the resistance from the American security establishment, and their allies in the media, has finally rendered that impossible. So instead, we're going to have strategic hardball, over North Korea, Iran, and perhaps NATO.

There has also been reporting in western media that Xi Jinping is now "president for life". I wish to present my own interpretation of this, which owes a lot to history as presented by "spandrell".

In China since the 1990s, it has been a political principle that the same person should hold the three offices of power, head of state, head of party, head of the military. First that was Jiang Zemin (but Deng Xiaoping was the power behind the throne), then it was Hu Jintao (but Jiang remained the real power), now it is Xi Jinping.

But Xi is a more transformational leader than Jiang or Hu. He is now officially regarded as a paramount leader, the first since Mao and Deng. He is overseeing China's shift from building up its strength and playing along with the American world order, to using that strength in order to assert a different ideology and build an alternative order.

"spandrell" says that the abolition of term limits on head of state (this is what western media has called "president-for-life") is meant to tell corrupt officials that they can't just wait for Xi to pass from the scene; the campaign against corruption (part of the larger plan) is here to stay. But I would also emphasize that it's just one element of that larger political transformation.

Syria 2018

A Dawn editorial remarks that there has been fighting on three fronts in Syria: the Syrian armed forces are attempting to capture one of the last rebel strongholds, Turkey is besieging Syrian Kurds, and Israel and Syria exchanged hostilities after an Iranian drone entered Israel. I don't know what it adds up to, but my feeling is that increasingly, the Middle East is Russia's problem - that a slow American retreat in the region connects Obama and Trump, perhaps motivated by the success of fracking within America.