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.