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President Donald Trump says he has confidence in new British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to carry out Brexit talks with the European Union. Speaking to reporters during their first meeting since Johnson’s elevation to the post, Trump says of Johnson …
August 25, 2019Read More
The leader of Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah said Sunday that his group will confront and shoot down any Israeli drones that enter Lebanese airspace from now on, raising the potential for conflict amid heightened regional tensions. Hassan Nasrallah a…
August 25, 2019Read More
Iran’s foreign minister flew into the French resort hosting a G7 summit on Sunday, an unexpected twist to a meeting already troubled by differences between U.S. President Donald Trump and Western allies over a raft of issues, including Iran. Mohammad …
August 25, 2019Read More
Instead, Amen made aviation history by scoring the first air-to-air victory in an all jets dogfight when he downed Grachev’s MiG-15.The Korean war, that raged for three years from Jun. 25, 1950 to Jul. 27, 1953, saw the first widespread use of jet engi…
August 25, 2019Read More
Donald Trump has praised Boris Johnson as the “right man for the job” of delivering Brexit.The US president promised a “very big trade deal” as the two leaders held their first meeting. However, the prime minister has warned a deal with the US will not…
August 25, 2019Read More
COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (AP) — Tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees marked the second anniversary of their exodus from Myanmar into Bangladesh by rallying, crying and praying Sunday as they demanded that Myanmar grant them citizenship and other right…
August 25, 2019Read More
The finance chief of Britain’s main opposition Labour Party has said privately that the party should campaign to prevent Brexit, the Sunday Times newspaper reported http://bit.ly/30xzqCv. John McDonnell has argued that Labour’s position should be to r…
August 25, 2019Read More
Israel has a strong military motive to strike such sites.There’s plenty of speculation as to who was behind four explosions at Iran-linked sites in Iraq, but no definitive proof. Authorities have yet to conclude that the explosions were all even intentional, but the evidence suggests that either sabotage or airstrikes were involved — and if so, Israel stands at the top of the list of potential culprits. That is leading to suspicions that Israel might be on the verge of expanding its anti-Iran campaign from Syria to Iraq as part of its regional strategy to check the threat of the Islamic republic. But if Israel is considering bringing the fight closer to Iran by expanding its campaign into Iraq, it could find the country far more combustible than even Syria — a quality that would have grave implications for its stalwart American ally and regional peace as a whole.A Case of WhodunitBut first, the incidents in question. An explosion occurred at a Population Mobilization Unit (PMU) base near Amerli in Salahuddin province north of Baghdad on July 19; some local sources blamed the United States and Israel for the incident. Several days later, reports emerged of explosions occurring at another PMU base at Camp Ashraf nearer to the Iranian border. Then, on Aug. 12, a detonation rocked a PMU-linked ammunition depot south of Baghdad near al-Saqr military base. Most recently, on Aug. 20, explosions struck an arms storage facility near Iraq’s Balad Air Base, 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Baghdad, at sites associated with the PMU. Subsequent satellite photos have indicated that each of these locations suffered significant damage, while some evidence has suggested airstrikes might have caused the destruction. The Iraqi government itself has hesitated in assigning blame, although it said a drone strike caused the Aug. 12 explosion, prompting Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi to threaten to shoot down any plane or aerial vehicle that attempts to conduct another attack.If the evidence proves that the explosions were not accidental, eyes are likely to turn to Israel, in large part because it has a motive, means and opportunity to conduct such operations. Each of the sites has been linked to Iranian ballistic missiles or rockets — whose buildup in Iraq was first reported by Reuters in August 2018. The Aug. 12 incident, for instance, occurred at a stockpile linked to the Sayyid al-Shuhada (League of the Martyrs) militia, closely linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iraq’s Iran-allied Badr Organization.Israel has a strong military motive to strike such sites. Iran is trying to shift some of its assets to Iraq after repeated Israeli strikes against its equipment in Syria. Iran, which is seeking to increase its influence in Iraq, wants to establish a new front to deter Israeli attacks against its assets. Israel, in turn, has reason to take aggressive action to prevent such a buildup from creating a credible deterrence in a new theater separate from the Lebanese front against Hezbollah.In addition to the military incentives, Israel has a political motive for staging the strikes: Likud, the country’s ruling party, is playing up Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s warnings from September 2018 that Israel would take action in Iraq as part of his bid to win nationalist votes in the Sept. 17 elections. That contest will be narrow, and for Likud, every vote will count. Israel also has the means to stage such strikes. Its intelligence apparatus would be capable of sighting targets or conducting on-the-ground sabotage. The Israeli air force also boasts cutting-edge technology, which it has demonstrated in strikes in Syria against Iranian forces. Finally, the Israelis have the opportunity. The Israelis fly the same aircraft as their U.S. ally, making it harder to track strikes back to Israel directly. This is especially helpful to the Israelis given that the Americans remain active over Iraq in continuing operations against Islamic State remnants. Even if the Iraqis could identify the aircraft as hostile Israeli jets amid the thicket of similar U.S. aircraft, they lack air defenses or an air force capable of stopping many of them — a marked contrast to Syria, where Russian air defenses hamper Israeli operations. Finally, to add to the opportunity, the Iranian buildup in Iraq is still in its early stages: by striking it as it forms, Israel has more chance of hurting Tehran now than it would if it waited until the Iranian presence was firmly established.A Regional Can of WormsIf Israel intends to expand its anti-Iran operations to Iraq, there will be substantial ramifications for Iraq, the United States, Iran and Israel itself. For the Iraqis, Israel’s move to bring the fight to its soil will stir up internal political problems that affect Baghdad’s foreign relationships, particularly as most Iraqis are loath to see their country become even more of a proxy battleground among Iran, Israel and the United States.In such a scenario, Iraqis of differing political stripes — including nationalists like Muqtada al-Sadr to pro-Iranian actors like Hadi al-Ameri of the Badr Brigade to anti-Iranian demonstrators and politicians, like the anti-Tehran elements of the Basra protest movement and Sunni political parties — will unite to pressure Abdul-Mahdi to prevent such violations of national sovereignty.That pressure, of course, will compound the turmoil in the Iraqi political system, creating diplomatic problems for Baghdad with the two capitals it cannot afford to alienate: Washington and Tehran. Some will seek to penalize the United States, since Iraq cannot directly retaliate against Israel itself. That would complicate America’s security relationship with Baghdad and expose U.S. assets in Iraq to retaliation. Such a violent response could come from the PMUs that are targeted in drone or airstrikes, Iranian forces in Iraq or otherwise non-political Iraqi protesters. As a result, U.S.-linked companies and assets could face the ire of anti-U.S. and anti-Israel forces inside Iraq. And while the United States is an obvious target for pro-Iranian forces in Iraq, so too are other countries that are growing closer to Israel, like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. In June, Iraqi demonstrators attacked the Bahrani Embassy in Baghdad after Manama’s foreign minister publicly floated the idea of normalizing relations with Israel, and other embassies and assets linked to these states could also become targets. Such anger could also scuttle projects like Saudi Arabia’s construction of a massive new stadium in Iraq.If the Local Tide Turns on IranOther factions, however, would blame Iran and pressure Baghdad over its relationship with Tehran. Already, Iranian-backed PMUs are irking more nationalist, Sunni and anti-Iran factions. Despite repeated attempts to bring the PMUs into the Iraqi security fold, the forces continue to resist Baghdad’s control, including defiance by most groups of an Aug. 1 order to standardize rules of engagement — upsetting many Iraqis who are wary of their power. Some citizens would likely blame the units’ coziness with Iran and its refusal to fully integrate into the Iraqi army as the reason for any Israeli attack. That would subsequently fuel intra-Iraqi tensions, threatening Baghdad’s ability to conduct operations against the many militant groups (including the Islamic State) that remain in Iraq, in addition to hurting the relationship with Iran.If Israeli forces were to begin a sustained campaign against Iraqi-based Iranian assets, it would create problems for the Islamic republic beyond the mere loss of proxies and materiel in its western neighbor. For one, it would seriously strain the credibility of Iran’s regional strategy to use proxies other than Hezbollah to deter Israel. That, consequently, would have domestic ramifications at home: the expeditionary wing of the IRGC, the Quds Force, would face challenges if it fails to produce results against Israel it has promised. And then there’s the prospect of a greater conflagration with the United States that Iran must worry about. Should Iraqi anger against Israel rise sufficiently to inspire attacks on U.S. forces or assets, U.S. retaliation may even drag Iran into a proxy conflict that could culminate in a wider U.S.-Iranian war. Since Iran does not exert total control over all its Iraqi proxies (many of which follow their own domestic agendas), this presents a potent risk going ahead, especially if Israeli strikes kill large numbers of Iraqi civilians or hit particularly sensitive targets belonging to the PMUs. Even in the absence of a regional war, there is a distinct possibility that Iran could find itself in a high-stakes proxy conflict with Israel in Iraq. What It Would Mean for IsraelFinally, for Israel, the successful expansion of its front to Iraq would embolden its anti-Iran strategy — especially as it enjoys the firm backing of the current White House. The country may be encouraged to consider more assertive action against Iran beyond Iraq; one option includes intelligence operations in Yemen, where the Houthis are becoming more integral to Iran’s regional strategy (as evidenced most recently by a Houthi donation to increasingly cash-strapped Hezbollah and a high-profile visit to Iran by the rebel group’s leaders). Israel is concerned about Yemen out of fear that the Houthis could target Israeli shipping passing through the Bab el-Mandeb, the waterway between Yemen and Djibouti. Closer Houthi-Iranian connections, as well as a desire to build relations with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which oppose the Houthis, have also encouraged Israel to expand its intelligence sharing in Yemen with the Saudi-led coalition. Nevertheless, any Israeli action in Iraq comes with high risk given the possibility that it could ignite a regional war. Killing a high-value target, causing large numbers of civilian casualties or simply fomenting a high degree of local anger against itself or the United States are all factors that could lead to attacks against U.S. forces or assets, destabilizing Iraq and potentially causing Washington to respond in a way that drags the region into war. Israel has managed to carry out much of its anti-Iran strategy in Syria without causing that major conflagration, but if it is to launch a similar campaign in Iraq, it will likely encounter many new, uniquely Iraqi, hazards. Editor’s Note: After this assessment was published, reports in The New York Times and Associated Press quoted anonymous U.S. government sources as confirming that Israel was behind strikes targeting Iranian-linked assets in Iraq. Why Iraq Could Be the Next Regional Powder Keg is republished with the permission of Stratfor Worldview, a geopolitical intelligence and advisory firm.Image: Reuters.
August 24, 2019Read More
North Korea said Sunday that leader Kim Jong Un supervised the test-firing of a “newly developed super-large multiple rocket launcher,” another demonstration of the North’s expanding weapons arsenal apparently aimed at increasing its leverage ahead of …
August 24, 2019Read More
US President Donald Trump on Sunday backed British Prime Minister Boris Johnson as the “right man” for Brexit as the two leaders held a warm first meeting at a G7 summit marked by tensions over trade and worries about the Amazon. Johnson and Trump wer…
August 24, 2019Read More
If the CIA is watching India and Pakistan now, it will have to do better than it did in 1998.In 1998, the CIA subjected India to strict surveillance to ensure it was complying with its commitment not to test nuclear weapons. The agency used satellites, communications intercepts and agents to watch the nuclear facility at Pokhran in Rajasthan state. India could not detonate warheads, which would inevitably lead Pakistan to follow suit, without the United States knowing in advance. Or so the United States thought.Washington went into shock on May 11, 1998, when Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced that his country had just detonated not one, but five nuclear warheads at Pokhran. “India is now a nuclear power state,” Vajpayee declared. R. Jeffrey Smith reported two days later in The Washington Post that CIA analysts responsible for monitoring India’s nuclear program “had not expected the tests and were not on alert, several officials said. They were, according to one senior official, asleep at their homes and did not see the (satellite) pictures until they arrived at work in the morning.” U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby called the negligence “the biggest failure of our intelligence-gathering agencies in the past 10 years or more.” Pakistan responded by testing five of its nuclear bombs on May 28. Pandora’s box was wide open, threatening mass destruction to the Asian subcontinent if the Pakistani and Indian armies squared off along the Line of Control that separated their forces in the disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir. That happened a year later when Pakistani paramilitaries masquerading as indigenous Kashmiri rebel jihadists penetrated the Line of Control in Kashmir’s Kargil region. The Indian army confronted them, and U.S. intelligence detected Pakistan moving tactical nuclear weapons onto the battlefield. American diplomat Bruce Reidel wrote in his informative book, Avoiding Armageddon: America, India, and Pakistan to the Brink and Back, “The last war that India and Pakistan fought, over Kargil, threated to expand to a nuclear conflict.” It didn’t go nuclear, following U.S. President Bill Clinton’s demand that Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif withdraw his forces. It was a close call.A Matter of International ConcernIf the CIA is watching India and Pakistan now, it will have to do better than it did in 1998. In 2019, with passions high over India’s abrogation of Kashmir’s legal, if fictitious, autonomy, the outcome would not be waking up to discover one side or the other had tested weapons. It would be the sight of nuclear war taking millions of lives. Although the stakes in Kashmir could not be higher, the United States and much of the international community call the dispute India’s “internal affair” or a “bilateral” issue between India and Pakistan. It isn’t. A potential nuclear conflagration cannot be anything other than a matter of international peace and security. The Indian and Pakistani armed forces possess both strategic and tactical nuclear weapons, which local commanders could use on the battlefield in populated areas. This would be the first use in war of atomic weapons since the U.S. destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.The possibility of the conflict going nuclear may have increased on Aug. 16 when Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh seemed to abandon India’s “no first use” doctrine when he tweeted that “India has strictly adhered to this doctrine. What happens in the future depends on the circumstances.” The circumstances are not hopeful. Correspondents for The New York Times in Kashmir reported meeting a herdsman beside his flock in the Kashmiri capital, Srinigar:As a car carrying a reporter slowed down to approach him, he sprang up and jogged to the window.”We are ready to pick up guns,” he said, unprompted.If the decadeslong armed rebellion in Kashmir grows more intense in response to India’s revocation of the region’s autonomy and its imposition of a total security lockdown, India will blame Pakistan, which in years past supported Kashmiri insurgents. Imran Khan, who became Pakistan’s prime minister in August 2018, was not involved in his predecessors’ interference in Indian-controlled Kashmir.Seeking a Moderating VoiceFollowing Modi’s clampdown in Kashmir, Khan has sought mediation support from U.S. President Donald Trump (who had offered to mediate when he met Khan at the White House in July), the United Nations, fellow Muslim leaders and countries that might influence Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. His pleas, he recently told me over the telephone, fell on deaf ears. His problem is how to avoid war while defending the people of Kashmir, who are overwhelmingly Muslim in India’s only Muslim-majority state. Muslims throughout India, who have been subjected to new tests to prove their right to citizenship, are living in fear of Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.India and Pakistan came to blows last February, following an insurgent attack on Indian troops in Kashmir. The Pakistanis downed an Indian fighter jet and captured its pilot, Abhinandan Varthaman. When Khan returned the Indian pilot on March 1, Modi did not acknowledge his conciliatory gesture. Nor has his government been willing to discuss Kashmir, whose people were promised a plebiscite on their future by India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, in 1947. The vote never took place, but several wars have. The question is, what do the people of Kashmir — those in the Indian-held two-thirds of the region, the Pakistani-held western third and the Hindu Kashmiris who were expelled from their homes in 1947 and are still officially displaced — want? No one is asking them, but that may be the only way to save them, and the world, from nuclear war.The Question That Never Gets Asked About Kashmir is republished with the permission of Stratfor Worldview, a geopolitical intelligence and advisory firm.Image: Reuters.
August 24, 2019Read More
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