World roundup: August 19-20 2024

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August 19, 1745: An Iranian army under Nader Shah decisively defeats a much larger Ottoman army at the Battle of Kars. This, combined with the destruction of a second Ottoman army near Mosul by an Iranian army under Nader’s son, effectively brought the Ottoman-Persian war of 1743-1746 to an end by wiping out the Ottoman offensive. Although he began the war with big goals for defeating the Ottomans, Nader—ill and growing more paranoid about internal threats by the day—opted to settle the conflict with a restoration of Ottoman-Iranian borders as they had been at the fall of the Safavid dynasty.

August 19, 1953: Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh is removed from office in a UK/US-backed coup.

August 19, 1991: A group of Soviet leaders calling themselves “the State Committee on the State of Emergency” undertakes a coup and arrests President Mikhail Gorbachev. The whole thing fell apart three days later under pressure from the Soviet public, rallied by Russian President Boris Yeltsin—who, as a result, became effectively the most powerful person in the USSR. This was such a cataclysmic failure that it led to the collapse of the entire Soviet Union.

August 20 (give or take), 636: The Battle of Yarmouk

August 20, 1988: A ceasefire brings the nearly eight year long Iran-Iraq War to an end. The war cost hundreds of thousands of lives and included some of the most appalling war crimes of the 20th century, all to achieve essentially a restoration of the prewar status quo (except for all the casualties, of course).

I have to open today’s newsletter with an apology. As cynical as I feel I’ve become with respect to the Biden administration’s Gaza policy since October 7, I have to admit that I actually believed that it was serious about making a final push toward a ceasefire over the past couple of weeks. That’s not because I think Joe Biden or anyone in his employ really cares about stopping the carnage in Gaza, but I thought at least a basic sense of self-preservation or political instinct would kick in and augur at least a temporary pause that might avert further escalation in the middle of a presidential campaign.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s latest trip to the Middle East has demonstrated that I was wrong. In what I would say is a new low point for US involvement in this crisis, it’s now clear that the administration was not all that interested in achieving a ceasefire. Rather, it was interested in once again running cover for the Israeli government, weaving a narrative that portrays Hamas as the sole obstacle to a deal at a moment in which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s obstructionism is increasingly coming under scrutiny. It was Netanyahu, after all, who responded to Hamas’s acceptance of a ceasefire proposal several weeks ago by abruptly loading that proposal up with an array of new demands, including a permanent Israeli military presence in central Gaza and along the Gaza-Egypt border, a definite resumption of the carnage after the deal’s initial phase, restrictions on the movement of Palestinians within Gaza, and tighter restrictions on the identity of the Palestinians involved in the deal’s prisoner exchange component (including the option to exile freed prisoners out of the region altogether).

Blinken arrived in the region bringing with him a “bridging proposal” that the administration claimed would split the difference between the ceasefire proposal that Hamas accepted—the one Biden insisted the Israelis had already accepted—and Netanyahu’s recent demands. That was, in a word, bullshit. Don’t take my word for it—Axios reporter Barak Ravid, a favorite conduit for both the US and Israeli governments, has outlined the whole affair. Some highlights:

• Netanyahu and Blinken both publicly insist that the Israeli leader is committed to reaching a ceasefire accord, but in private Netanyahu has “refused to budge” from his demands and hasn’t given his negotiators the authority to accept a deal.

• Netanyahu accepted the “bridging proposal” because, far from actually bridging anything, it “incorporated several of his updated demands” and he therefore knew that “Hamas would reject it.”

• Blinken then turned around and announced that Netanyahu had accepted the deal and Hamas was the holdout. According to Ravid, his “statement baffled some Israeli officials who told Axios that Netanyahu’s hard lines are actually making a deal much harder to reach.”

• Last week’s ceasefire talks in Doha, which culminated in Blinken’s “bridging proposal,” focused not on finding a compromise between Israel and Hamas but rather on narrowing “gaps” between the US and Israeli “positions.”

Haaretz is on this beat also, citing “sources involved” in the ceasefire talks who say that Netanyahu is “once again sabotaging” them. US officials are also criticizing Netanyahu off the record, while Blinken acts as his lawyer on the record. It’s a really sophisticated operation.

It would appear that all the “bridging proposal” did was incorporate Netanyahu’s demands into the previous proposal. Hamas unsurprisingly rejected it—as has the Egyptian government, apparently, because Blinken spent Tuesday in Egypt trying to sell it to Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. All of this built up to Biden, coming off of his Democratic convention speech Monday night in which he insisted that he and party nominee Kamala Harris are “working around the clock” to secure a ceasefire, telling reporters that Hamas is “backing away” from a deal. Hamas rejected this framing, accusing the administration (not without cause) of simply “biding time” for Israel to continue pulverizing Gaza, but in effect Blinken’s mission—his real one, not the one the administration presented for public consumption—has been accomplished.

Elsewhere, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv on Sunday night. The bomb seems to have gone off prematurely and the blast killed only the bomber, though one other person was wounded. And Israeli officials say their forces recovered the bodies of six October 7 hostages in an overnight operation in Gaza. Five of the six were already believed to be dead but one was still thought to be alive. Israeli media is reporting that five of the bodies show signs that they were killed in an Israeli airstrike while the sixth was murdered.

The Syrian government opened a checkpoint between government- and rebel-held parts of Aleppo province over the weekend, only to close it on Tuesday after two days of protests and artillery attacks. The decision to open the checkpoint, which could have allowed commercial shipments into areas under rebel control, proved to be deeply unpopular in those same areas, presumably due to fears that it might be followed by some sort of political encroachment by Damascus.

The Israeli military (IDF) and Hezbollah exchanged several rounds of fire on Monday, leaving at least three people dead in Lebanon and one in Israel. Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon killed two Hezbollah fighters in Houla and one Hezbollah “commander” near Deir Qanoun, while Hezbollah killed an IDF soldier in northern Israel. The IDF bombed Hezbollah targets in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa region in retaliation, wounding several people. Lebanese authorities say at least five more people were killed in IDF strikes on Tuesday and overnight into Wednesday morning, including at least one person in another round of attacks in the Bekaa and four more Hezbollah fighters in the south.

Former Saudi security official Saad al-Jabri, who served as a senior adviser to former Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, has alleged to the BBC that current Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman forged his father King Salman’s signature on a 2015 decree authorizing the use of ground forces in Yemen. That seems to be the most inflammatory accusation in a fairly inflammatory “behind the scenes” look at MBS. I’m not sure it reveals all that much—even if MBS didn’t completely circumvent his elderly and reportedly enfeebled father he presumably bamboozled him into going along with the Yemen war—and Jabri certainly has motivation to paint as grim a picture of the prince as possible, given that he canned Jabri and supplanted (then arrested) his patron, MBN. But it’s an interesting read at least.

So what about the threat of regional escalation if, as now seems likely, there will not be a ceasefire in Gaza? When might we expect Iran to retaliate for the Israeli assassination of former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last month? Even if/when the negotiations fully break down, further action may not be imminent. A spokesperson for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps told Iranian media on Tuesday that “the waiting period” with respect to that retaliation “may be prolonged.” It may be that the Biden administration, which I still assume would rather not get the US involved in a full blown Middle Eastern war in an election year, has viewed its whole ceasefire performance as a delaying tactic in hopes that Iranian leaders would…well, I don’t know, exactly. Forget about the Haniyeh killing? Lose interest? It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, but then I’m not an expert like the folks in the Biden administration.

The Philippine government has agreed to open a consular facility for Afghan nationals who are still waiting for their US visas to be processed a full three years after the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan. The facility will provide housing and other services for a “limited number” of people, thought to be around 300. The US has brought in some 160,000 Afghans since 2021, all of them having worked in some capacity with US military and/or civilian authorities, but thousands more are stuck in various third countries while their cases are being processed.

The Pakistani military says its forces killed at least five militants (presumably Pakistani Taliban) in a gun battle in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Monday. At least three soldiers were also killed. On Tuesday, Pakistani security forces reportedly killed three Baluch Liberation Army militants who were involved in the assassination of a local official in Baluchistan province last week.

Suspected Kashmiri rebels killed a police officer in India’s Jammu region on Monday. The militants apparently attacked a police unit that was in the process of setting up a new security outpost in that increasingly violent region.

In what promises to be a real New Cold War milestone, the Biden administration has updated the US military’s “Nuclear Employment Guidance” plan to account for an increase in perceived threats from China:

The Biden strategy sharpens that focus to reflect the Pentagon’s estimates that China’s nuclear force would expand to 1,000 (warheads) by 2030 and 1,500 by 2035, roughly the numbers that the United States and Russia now deploy. In fact, Beijing now appears ahead of that schedule, officials say, and has begun loading nuclear missiles into new silo fields that were spotted by commercial satellites three years ago.

There is another concern about Beijing: It has now halted a short-lived conversation with the United States about improving nuclear safety and security — for example, by agreeing to warn each other of impending missile tests, or setting up hotlines or other means of communication to assure that incidents or accidents do not escalate into nuclear encounters.

The new strategy also tries to account for the possibility of “coordinated nuclear challenges” by China, North Korea, and Russia, so that’s exciting. This document seems to acknowledge that Joe Biden is leaving the United States less secure than he found it on the nuclear front, though I’m sure that’s not his fault somehow.

Indonesian President-elect Prabowo Subianto is in Australia this week, where he and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese have negotiated what Reuters described as a “treaty-level” defense cooperation agreement. The scope is uncertain but despite the obvious New Cold War implications Prabowo has stressed in the past that he’ll aim to keep cordial relations with both China and the US-led bloc represented by Canberra.

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The Libyan central bank reopened for business on Monday, one day after shutting down due to the abduction of IT director Musaab Muslam. It seems the still “unidentified” faction that kidnapped him quickly released him unharmed. Libyan media is now reporting that the abduction was part of a larger effort to force the removal of bank governor Sadiq Kabir—an effort that may have succeeded, as the Tripoli-based government of Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh sacked Kabir late Sunday night and replaced him with economist Mohamed al-Shukri. The rival parliament based in eastern Libya and the Supreme Council of State in Tripoli have both criticized that move, but Kabir had detractors in both the eastern and western governments and it’s possible that the objection is less with his removal than that Dbeibeh appointed a replacement without consulting either of the legislative bodies.

Congolese Health Minister Roger Kamba told reporters on Tuesday that Kinshasa expects to begin receiving doses of mpox vaccines next week to try to get a handle on an outbreak that’s caused the World Health Organization to declare a global public health emergency. Of the more than 17,000 mpox cases diagnosed worldwide so far this year, some 96 percent of them have been in the DRC. According to Kamba, the US and Japan have offered to supply vaccines. The director of the Africa CDC, Jean Kaseya, echoed Kamba’s comments, telling reporters that vaccine programs could begin “in a few days” barring any logistical mishaps.

The Ukrainian military destroyed a third bridge crossing the Seym River in Russia’s Kursk oblast on Monday, which may leave several hundred Russian soldiers surrounded without easy access to supplies, reinforcements, or a way to retreat. The Russian military is reportedly attempting to set up pontoon bridges to support those forces. However, there are indications that the Ukrainians have already destroyed at least one of those and are continuing to expand the size of the territory they’re occupying. Ukrainian officials say they’ve already captured “hundreds” of Russian soldiers thus far.

The Russian military has captured New York. No, not that one. There is a town in Ukraine’s Donetsk oblast called New York, or “Niu-York” if you prefer, that the Russian military now says it controls. It referred to the settlement’s Soviet-era name, Novgorodskoye, and described it as a “strategically important logistics hub,” which may be overstating things a bit although it does sit on a rail line that runs into the city of Sloviansk. The Russians seized the nearby town of Zalizne on Monday. Elsewhere, thousands of people are fleeing Pokrovsk as the Russian military continues to bear down on that city, which is definitely strategically important. Ukrainian authorities have ordered families with children to leave Pokrovsk ASAP.

The Ukrainian parliament voted on Tuesday to ban the Russian Orthodox Church and any churches tied to it. The target is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which used to be known as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate and is still widely regarded as a subsidiary of the Russian church even though it now claims to be independent. The Ukrainian government favors the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, whose independence from Moscow was recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople back in 2019. There are serious religious freedom issues surrounding this legislation that would probably generate real concern and hand-wringing among the good liberal defenders of the Rules Based International Order under just about any other circumstance. Not in this case, though.

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The Nicaraguan government on Monday proscribed a whopping 1500 nongovernmental organizations, most of them with religious affiliations. President Daniel Ortega has been discarding Nicaraguan NGOs by the handful, having decided that they’re part of the opposition that protested against his government in 2018—an event that he’s characterized as an attempted coup. Monday’s was the largest single banning to date and takes the total number of outlawed organizations over 5100.

According to the AP, a recent spate of murders in northern Mexico’s Sinaloa state points toward infighting within the Sinaloa cartel following the US arrest of two of its senior figures last month. Mexican authorities have publicly appealed to cartel factions, asking them to keep a lid on the violence, but are apparently unwilling to get more directly involved—possibly due to fears that the cartel could release damaging information about prominent Mexican politicians.

The Biden administration on Tuesday blacklisted former Haitian President Michel Martelly over his alleged involvement in drug trafficking. In announcing the designation, which freezes his US-based assets and bars US entities from doing business with him, the Treasury Department said that Martelly “abused his influence to facilitate the trafficking of dangerous drugs, including cocaine, destined for the United States.” The Canadian government had previously blacklisted Martelly for similar reasons.

Finally, with the possibility of another Trump presidency looming Spencer Ackerman explores the Republican Party’s fixation on invading Mexico:

OF ALL THE WEIRD and reckless things Donald Trump has signaled he would do in his restored presidency, a dark-horse contender for the weirdest and most reckless is his proposal to launch a war of aggression against Mexico.

For years, in speeches, interviews, and a self-narrated video on his campaign website, the former and perhaps future president has threatened to send military assets, including “Special Forces, cyber warfare and other overt or covert actions” into Mexico to “inflict maximum damage” on the drug cartels for their importation of lethal fentanyl and other drugs. This oft-repeated pledge comes from the same man who calls himself the only president in recent memory not to have started any new wars.

Mexico naturally rejects and condemns this unambiguous military threat against its sovereignty. Outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO as the leftist leader is known, last year lambasted this “offense against the people of Mexico.” Xóchitl Gálvez, the conservative opposition presidential candidate who recently lost, implored (her) fellow conservatives in the U.S.: “Rather than threats, we should work in a smart way.” AMLO even issued a noteworthy warning to the Republican Party that the popular politician could make it known to the Mexican diaspora in the US to vote against the GOP.

Trump’s attempt to manufacture a war with Mexico pushes on the wide-open door of traditional Republican preferences for treating Latin America as a place to destabilize, plunder, and wall off. The New York Times observed last year that “Mr. Trump’s notion of a military intervention south of the border has swiftly evolved from an Oval Office fantasy to something approaching Republican Party doctrine.” That symbiosis reveals a lot about MAGA’s true relationship to militarism. A contingent that embraces violence against out-groups at home will never produce peace abroad.