Disgraced Departure of Benjamin Netanyahu from Israeli Politics

Netanyahu’s argument against postwar plans and operations is that the war isn’t over and “there is no alternative to military victory.

by Kazi Anwarul Masud

 

May 27, 2024

 

6 mins read

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Source: AAP

DISGRACED DEPARTURE OF NETANYAHU COULD SOLVE MIDDLE EAST CRISIS

The world, including many in Israel, is fed up with the behavior of Prime Minister Netanyahu, whose departure from the Israeli political scene now appears to be the only solution for peace in the Middle East. Benjamin Netanyahu must depart in disgrace as he and his wife are charged with selling priceless jewelry, which they received as gifts on their trips abroad but should have been deposited in the state treasury.

DETAILS OF CORRUPTION CASES

The two main corruption scandals involving Netanyahu concern allegations of illicit dealings with rich and powerful men. In one case, Netanyahu is accused of receiving expensive gifts from billionaires and then taking action on their behalf. In another case, he is accused of striking an illicit deal with a newspaper publisher. Netanyahu is alleged to have received tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of gifts. Netanyahu has acknowledged receiving the gifts but denies they were illegal or constituted bribes. He is also involved in two other corruption scandals, and his wife and son are in trouble too.

SARA NETANYAHU IS ISRAEL’S MARIE ANTOINETTE

Meanwhile, Sara Netanyahu is likely to be indicted for misusing public funds at the couple’s official residences. The Israeli first lady is accused of using government money to pay for private chefs at family events, a caregiver for her father, and weekend electrical work at the couple’s home. The allegations have long dogged Sara Netanyahu, who sometimes comes off in the Israeli media as the country’s Marie Antoinette.

NETANYAHU MAY HAVE TO RESIGN IF POLICE RECOMMEND INDICTMENT

Netanyahu could be nearing indictment but might still stay in office. So what does this mean for the prime minister, who has governed Israel since the beginning of the Obama administration? It depends on two factors: whether he is indicted and whether that creates enough pressure to force him to resign. If police recommend an indictment, it could still take several months until the attorney general formally indicts Netanyahu. Even then, he isn’t legally required to resign. This is why the prime minister’s fate may come down to pressure from fellow politicians and the public. A poll found that 66 percent of Israelis believe Netanyahu should resign if indicted. There is intrigue within Netanyahu’s Likud party as well, with some ministers openly backing him while another, speaking anonymously, said he should resign if indicted.

FAREED ZAKARIA IN WASHINGTON POST

Israeli officials and generals are turning on the prime minister, and the country must adjust course. Fareed Zakaria added that on Gaza, Biden is right and Netanyahu is wrong. Something very unusual is happening in Israel. Senior military officials have begun voicing criticism of how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is conducting the war in Gaza. Israeli media has been reporting on a weekend security meeting at which the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Gen. Herzi Halevi, criticized Netanyahu’s lack of a clear strategy. Pointing out that the Israeli military had reentered northern Gaza — an area it had claimed to have cleared in January — Halevi warned that unless there was a plan to set up some kind of non-Hamas government in these areas, the IDF would have to keep repeating these kinds of operations endlessly. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has gone further, publicly criticizing Netanyahu by pointing out that “the day after Hamas will only be achieved by actors who replace Hamas” and declaring that he would not permit Israel to try to govern Gaza directly.

A stunning victory with the shield creates an opening for Israel. The Middle East is on the precipice of a wider war no one wants. Guernica doubles down on retraction of an essay on the Israel-Gaza war. Much has been written about whether the Israeli military is being careful or callous in its concern for civilian casualties when carrying out its attacks in Gaza. But the larger point has to do with its counterinsurgency strategy. In the United States’ only successful counterinsurgency campaign in recent memory — the 2007 surge in Iraq — its strategy was designed to protect the civilian population, isolate the insurgents, and then crush them. To that end, Army Gen. David Petraeus worked tirelessly with Iraq’s Sunnis — the community spawning the insurgency — to win them over, give them a stake in Iraq’s government, and thus isolate the insurgents and militias. He then used lethal force against those militias. This is almost the inverse of Israel’s strategy, which has been first and foremost to go after Hamas, guns blazing, with very little regard for winning the hearts and minds of Gaza’s civilian population.

Netanyahu’s argument against postwar plans and operations is that the war isn’t over and “there is no alternative to military victory. The attempt to bypass it with this or that claim is simply detached from reality.” Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said that he would continue the war until he achieves total victory, by which he presumably means either a surrender by Hamas or its total eradication.

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S POLICY ON ISRAEL

Fareed Zakaria added that from early on in the war, the Biden administration has believed that Netanyahu’s strategy was flawed because there was no way to defeat Hamas militarily without a political strategy to isolate it and offer an alternative that had some credibility and legitimacy. That was why the White House wanted to begin discussions with the Palestinian Authority and a group of Arab states, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, to make plans for reconstruction and governance in a non-Hamas Gaza. Netanyahu will not consider any such plans. Netanyahu refuses to talk about the postwar because he knows that his own postwar future is bleak. Many Israelis continue to hold him responsible for the policies that led to the Oct. 7 attack. Were new elections to be called, he would likely lose office — and then face ongoing prosecution as well as potential inquiries about the failures that led to Oct. 7. All of this can be pushed off as long as the prime minister insists on a Hamas surrender, which he will not get but will keep the war going indefinitely. It is a strategy not designed to secure Israel’s future but rather his own.

CONCLUSION

Given the complexities enmeshed in the world today, where the rise of China along with the limitless friendship between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin is putting the world into two sides — one led by the USA and her colleagues — it is clear that multipolarity has become a fact of life. In the words of Nina Khrushcheva, great-granddaughter of the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who was responsible for destroying the bilateral relationship by denouncing Stalin in 1956: Stalin was never a loyal ally to China. As Khrushcheva recalled, in 1951, when the Korean War had reached a stalemate, the Soviet dictator derided Mao as a talentless guerrilla fighter.

In any case, Putin was not in Beijing just for the show. Since he launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago — and the West responded with unprecedented sanctions — Russia has become highly dependent on China. So, when Putin landed in Beijing, his hand was practically already outstretched. But Xi, like Stalin 75 years ago, has reservations. Yes, Russia has its uses. As Xi noted at the recent summit, he views the bilateral relationship as a “factor in maintaining global strategic stability and democratization of international relations.” That helps to explain why, as Putin pointed out, the two countries have created a “weighty portfolio” of 80 major investment projects.

There are, however, clear limits on what China is willing to sacrifice for Russia. Start with the economy. In recent months, Xi has met with several Western leaders, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. All of them relayed the same message: if China keeps supplying “dual-use” materials and technologies that can bolster Russia’s war effort, its firms will face secondary sanctions. Xi made sure to come across as unmoved. But it is probably no coincidence that Chinese exports to Russia have declined, falling by 14% in March alone. Moreover, since the beginning of this year, China has steadily reduced direct deliveries of machinery, equipment (including electrical equipment), mechanical parts, and accessories to Russia. Given that China is Russia’s largest source of imports — accounting for about 45% of the total last year — this is a major cause for concern in the Kremlin.

In addition, China has been dragging its feet when it comes to the Power of Siberia-2 gas pipeline, which will transport Russian gas to China. Well aware that he has the upper hand, Xi expects Russia to foot the entire bill for the pipeline’s multi-billion-dollar construction, while continuing to offer China steep discounts on energy. This year, China paid just $300 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas pumped through the Power of Siberia-1 pipeline, while Europe and Turkey paid more than $500 per 1,000 cubic meters. Progress on the Power of Siberia-2 pipeline is so important to Putin that he brought Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, who is responsible for energy relations, with him to Beijing. But all Novak could offer after the meeting was a vague assurance that a contract will be signed “in the near future.”

Putin’s Mao-like bid for a full-fledged military alliance, including commitments to mutual defense, also seems to have failed. Though China has held joint military exercises with Russia, it has sought to position itself as a proponent of “win-win cooperation,” in contrast to the “Cold War mentality” that assumes the world’s division into competing blocs. Why would Xi jeopardize his position as a kind of conduit between Russia and the West? Xi is not interested in quarreling, at least not overtly, and Putin’s agenda includes nothing but quarrels. The world, complex as it has become, has to hold its breath to see how things unfold in the future. It is, however, certain that the cost of annihilation of the adventurists, including a nuclear race, is not in the cards.

 

Can the World afford to enter Nuclear Race?

By Kazi Anwarul Masud

Issue:  Net Edition    | Date : 22 May , 2024

Worldwide holding of Nuclear Weapons

Currently about 13080 nuclear warheads exist worldwide, with Russia holding the most (6,257) and the U.S. following (5,550), a reduction from Cold War peaks. Nuclear weapons have been used in warfare twice: the U.S. dropped bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, causing massive destruction and casualties. The Cold War arms race peaked in 1986 with the Soviet Union and U.S. accumulating over 40,000 and 23,000 nuclear warheads, respectively, driven by mutually assured destruction.

Destructive Capacity of Nuclear Weapons

A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, or a combination of the two. Nuclear weapons are alternately called atom bombs, atomic bombs, A-bombs, nuclear bombs, nuclear warheads, or simply nukes. All nuclear weapons fit into one of two broad categories: fission and combination weapons, or the even-more-destructive fusion-based designs, which are technically thermonuclear weapons and may also be referred to as thermonuclear bombs, fusion weapons, hydrogen bombs, or H-bombs. Nuclear weapons unleash enormous amounts of explosive force, which is measured in kilotons (1,000 tons of TNT) and megatons (1,000,000 tons of TNT), as well as heat and radiation. They are easily the most fearsome weapons on Earth, capable of producing more death, destruction, injury, and sickness than any other weapon. Nuclear weapon stockpiles today It is estimated that there are approximately 13,080 nuclear warheads in the world today. While this is far fewer than either the U.S. or Russia possessed during their Cold War peak, it is notable that there are more countries with nuclear weapons than there were 30-40 years ago. At present, Russia maintains the highest number of nuclear weapons, with an estimated 6,257 total warheads. Of these, 1,458 are actively deployed (current START II treaty limits both the U.S. and Russia to 1550 deployed total), 3039 are inactive but available to be made active, and 1,760 are retired and awaiting dismantling. The United States follows closely behind with 5,550 total nuclear weapons: 1,389 active, 2,361 inactive but available, and 1,800 in line to be dismantled.

Nuclear Bombs dropped during World War II

To date, nuclear weapons have been used in war only twice. At the end of World War II, the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945, and a second bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. One detonated with an explosive force of approximately 15 kilotons, which leveled most buildings within a 1-mile radius. The shock wave was followed by a blast of heat at 6,000°C (10,830°F), which ignited or incinerated anything flammable and turned the blast zone into a firestorm. Finally, the explosion produced lethal ionizing radiation and lingering radioactive fallout, in which debris blasted into the stratosphere by the initial explosion is held aloft by atmospheric winds and settles back to Earth over the next several days. All told, the bombing of Hiroshima was estimated by a 1945 government report to have resulted in 66,000 deaths and another 69,000 injuries. Nagasaki’s totals were a lesser, but still devastating 39,000 deaths and 25,000 injuries.

Nuclear Escalation during the Cold War

Recently war, kicked off an arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. A major component of the “Cold War,” in which the U.S. and U.S.S.R. openly competed without actually declaring war on one another, the stockpiling of nuclear weapons continued into the late 1980s. According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the nuclear arms race reached its peak in 1986. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki established nuclear weapons as the ultimate weapons which time the Soviet Union possessed more than 40,000 nuclear warheads and the United States had 23,000 (down from more than 31,000 in 1967). Much of this proliferation was based around the idea of “mutually assured destruction,” in which both sides believed that the best way to avoid nuclear war was to have so many nukes that the opponent would not launch an attack because they feared they could not destroy enough of the target country’s arsenal to avoid being devastated themselves by a retaliatory attack. After the Soviet Union dissolved Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1991, thousands of nuclear weapons on both sides were dismantled.

Treaties that limit Nuclear Weapons

Because of the broad lethality and destructive potential of nuclear weapons, governments have negotiated arms control agreements such as the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the 1972 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT), and the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). The NPT’s purpose is to inhibit the spread of nuclear weapons. It designates five countries as nuclear-weapon states (NWS)—the United States, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom—and classifies the rest as non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS). Under the treaty, NWS agree not to help NNWS develop or obtain nuclear weapons, and NNWS agree not to attempt to develop or obtain nuclear weapons on their own. Countries of both classifications further agree to help one another develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and to negotiate nuclear disarmament in good faith. Nearly every country in the world had accepted the NPT as of 2022, though North Korea withdrew from the Treaty in 2003.

Cuban Crisis Wikipedia

Reports that throughout the 1950s and the early 1960s the U.S. and the USSR both endeavored, in a tit-for-tat approach, to prevent the other power from acquiring nuclear supremacy. This had massive political and cultural effects during the Cold War. As one instance of this mindset, in the early 1950s it was proposed bomb on the Moon as a globally visible demonstration of American weaponry. As a show of political strength, the Soviet Union tested the largest-ever nuclear weapon in October 1961 which was tested in a reduced state with a yield of around 50 megatons—in its full state it was estimated to have been around 100 Mt. In its full, dirty, design it would have increased the amount of worldwide fallout since 1945 by 25%. In 1963, all nuclear and many non-nuclear states signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty pledging to refrain from testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, underwater, or in outer space. President Dwight D Eisenhower’s doctrine of “massive retaliation” in the early years of the Cold War was a message to the USSR, saying that if the Red Army attempted to invade the parts of Europe not given to the Eastern bloc during the Potsdam Conference (such as West Germany), nuclear weapons would be used against the Soviet troops and potentially the Soviet leaders. The Cuban Crisis during the Presidency of John Kennedy was seen as the closest the U.S. and the USSR ever came to nuclear war and had been narrowly averted by last-minute compromise by both superpowers. Fears of communication difficulties led to the installment of the first hotline, a direct link between the superpowers that allowed them to more easily discuss future military activities and political maneuverings. It had been made clear that missiles, bombers, submarines, and computerized firing systems made escalating any situation to Armageddon far easier than anybody desired.

The Second Nuclear Age

The second nuclear age can be regarded as proliferation of nuclear weapons among lesser powers and for reasons other than the American-Soviet-Chinese rivalry. India embarked relatively early on a program aimed at nuclear weapons capability, but apparently accelerated after the 1962 Sino-Indian war. After the disintegration of Pakistan Pakistan’s Prime Minister Bhutto launched research on nuclear weapons. The Indian test caused Pakistan to spur its programme. India tested fission in 1998, and Pakistan did the same year, raising concerns they would use nuclear weapons on each other. All the non-Russian former Soviet bloc countries with nuclear weapons – Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan – transferred their warheads to Russia by 1996. Israel is widely believed to possess an arsenal of up to several hundred nuclear warheads, but this has never been officially confirmed or denied. Key US scientists involved in the American bomb program, clandestinely helped the Israelis and thus played an important role in nuclear proliferation. North Korea announced in 2003 that it had several nuclear explosives.

Conclusion

All nuclear weapons holders are aware that possession of weapons has a price because it will have no survivors including the one foolish enough to undertake such a venture. The world will not permit such an adventure to be undertaken that will wipe out billions of years of human history.

 

Did America’s Misreading of Saddam Hussein Lead to the Iraq War?

Once Saddam survived the Gulf War, it was reasonable for the United States to try to contain him without getting sucked into another full-scale conflict.

by Kazi Anwarul Masud

 

May 19, 2024

 

7 mins read

 

Vintage photo of Saddam Hussein during a press conference with his daughter Hala

FATEFUL MISREADING OF SADDAM

Gideon Rose, a Senior Fellow and deputy director of National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations from 1995 to 2000, was appointed managing editor of Foreign Affairs to replace Fareed Zakaria. On June 3, 2010, it was announced that Rose would succeed James F. Hoge Jr. as editor of Foreign Affairs, a position he took up on October 1, 2010. In an article, Rose wrote about the importance of technology in the modern world, given the complex situation today.

The rise of China and its ambition for a seat at the table that dictates the ‘rules-based’ world, previously the sole prerogative of the US for almost fifty years, has ended. The US, having replaced the United Kingdom as the dominant power, outsourced regional security to local contractors. This strategy collapsed in 1990 when Iraq seized Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia. At this point, the George H. W. Bush administration stepped in to manage the situation directly, leading an international coalition to reverse Iraq’s aggression and restore Kuwait’s sovereignty. But Iraq’s leader, Saddam Hussein, managed to survive the war and regain control of most of his country. Thus, the administration adopted a policy of sanctions and containment, continued by its successors for a decade.

9/11 ATTACKS ON AMERICAN SOIL

Then came the 9/11 attacks. In their wake, the George W. Bush administration decided to address not only the terrorism problem but also the Iraq problem by conquering the country and forcibly eliminating Saddam’s regime. The conquering part went largely as planned, but the aftermath proved chaotic. Liberation turned into occupation; local uncertainty turned into insurgency and then civil war. U.S. troops ended up staying in Iraq, fighting various foes for almost two decades. The Iraq war was disastrous, costly, and an unforced error. In retrospect, it seems to be the hinge of the entire post–Cold War era, the moment when American hegemony shifted from successful to problematic, from welcomed to resisted.

VANISHING AMERICAN APPETITE FOR ACTIVE INTERNATIONAL ENGAGEMENT AND RISE OF UNIPOLAR MOMENT

Two decades on, the unipolar moment has faded, along with dreams of a better Middle East and the American appetite for active international engagement. Recent historiography shows that Bush administration officials believed containment was falling apart and feared what Iraq might do afterward. What they did not know, and would not have believed, was that Saddam’s regime had destroyed almost all its WMD programs in the early 1990s but continued for a decade to give every indication of having kept much of them. Based largely on captured Iraqi records and interviews with former officials, Saddam’s behavior after the Gulf War was dangerously provocative and irrational. After 9/11, a new administration in Washington brought its own confusion to decision-making.

RASHOMON IN THE DESERT

Saddam Hussein himself was a hitman in his 20s and a prolific novelist in his 60s. He thought people’s loyalty could be judged by eavesdropping on their children and checking where his picture was displayed in their homes. His sons, Uday and Qusay, were monsters. In the 1990s, Saddam bribed Russian, French, Chinese, and UN officials to gain their support, and his foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, could not understand why the UN’s chief weapons inspector, the Swedish diplomat Rolf Ekeus, would not get with the program.

The result was a dialogue of the deaf, with little comprehension by either side. In the 1980s, for example, the Reagan administration worked with Israel to provide military support to Iran in hopes of gaining the release of American hostages held by Hezbollah in Lebanon, using the proceeds of the arms sales to support anticommunist rebels in Nicaragua. When this intrigue came to light, Saddam was bitter but not surprised, telling his team that the Iran-contra affair was an Israeli-sponsored conspiracy to destroy him.

THE MISSING WEAPONS

The Achilles Trap spends a lot of time on covert operations but little on the debates that went on inside each administration over how to handle Iraq. Saddam Hussein emerged as a paranoid, self-deluded megalomaniac, someone almost impossible to deal with constructively. These traits emerged in the actions the Iraqi government took during the 1990s, which are even more astonishing now that the full story is known. Having largely reconstituted his domestic position following the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein had no regrets about anything and was determined to wait out his enemies, regain his military strength and full freedom of action, and continue taking on the world. He recognized that being caught with WMD would be problematic, so in mid-1991, he got rid of most of his programs—but without telling anybody or keeping records of what had been done. Having thus guaranteed utter confusion, and while continuing to deny any charges against him that had not already been proven, Saddam then acted as if everybody should have understood what had happened. He assumed that an all-powerful CIA already knew that he had no nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons.

CONTAINMENT TO ROLLBACK

The Achilles Trap paints the Iraqi leader as an unrepentant serial aggressor determined to rebuild his military power. Several of those in the West who advocated for lifting sanctions, meanwhile, were on his payroll, making their arguments suspect. Even without the faked evidence peddled by charlatans such as the Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi, there were ample grounds for believing that someday Saddam Hussein would once again plunge his strategically critical region into conflict.

WHAT CAUSED THE WAR IN IRAQ

Nor did 9/11 have to lead to such an outcome, since what happened that day had nothing to do with Iraq. What produced the war was the underlying challenge of maintaining Gulf security, combined with Saddam’s bizarre behavior, and the psychological impact of 9/11 on a handful of idiosyncratic, unconstrained American officials. The Clinton administration did not like the messy containment policy it inherited from its predecessor, but it could never find a better alternative. As vice president, Gore was on the hawkish side of the Clinton administration’s Iraq debates, but he never came close to advocating an unprovoked invasion, and there is no reason to think he would have launched one as president.

Iraq was strong enough to pose a threat but weak enough to be conquerable. A similar scenario might have played out had George W. Bush appointed different Republican national security grandees to key positions in his administration, such as Brent Scowcroft and Robert Gates instead of Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, or had chosen to empower different ones among those he did appoint, such as Secretary of State Colin Powell. Yet even with Bush elected and his administration stocked with hard-liners, there was no move to attack until 9/11, which set the administration on a path to war not just in Afghanistan but in Iraq as well.

RISE OF AL QAEDA AND BOMBING ON US SOIL

During the Clinton administration, independent radical Islamist terrorist groups had emerged as an increasingly worrisome threat. They bombed the World Trade Center in New York in 1993, the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998, and the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000. During the presidential transition, outgoing Clinton officials told their incoming Bush counterparts that such groups constituted the most urgent threat the country faced, but the Bush team discounted such warnings—along with those of its own increasingly frantic intelligence officials—because it believed that rogue states posed much greater dangers.

When al Qaeda struck New York and Washington on 9/11, therefore, the administration’s senior figures were devastated by grief, anger, and guilt. Rather than trying to learn why they had been wrong about this attack, they looked for future ones they could prevent and in so doing recast themselves as prescient heroes. “Your response isn’t to go back and beat yourself up about 9/11,” National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice would put it. “It’s to try to never let it happen again.” From this perspective, Iraq represented not only a danger but also an opportunity. Two weeks after the catastrophe, Bush asked Rumsfeld to review war planning for Iraq. By the end of 2001, Tommy Franks, the head of the U.S. military’s Central Command, had delivered a blueprint for an invasion. And by mid-2002, Bush had decided to strike unless Saddam Hussein indisputably confirmed his disarmament.

TO BAGHDAD AND BEYOND

Other administrations had dreamed of being rid of Saddam, but none had gone to war for it, because none wanted the responsibility of managing his country afterward. The George W. Bush administration got around that problem by ignoring it. Its war plan lacked an ending—and so, unsurprisingly, the war never really ended, with the conflict lurching from one battle to another for years to come. It is now clear that several people were responsible for that glaring omission. But the buck has to stop at the incurious commander in chief, who didn’t think through the foreseeable consequences of the decisions he was making. Last year, in his book Confronting Saddam Hussein, the diplomatic historian Melvyn Leffler revisited this ground. “Bush disliked heated arguments, and, therefore, did not invite systematic scrutiny of the policies he was inclined to pursue,” Leffler wrote, adding, “He was unable to grasp the magnitude of the enterprise he was embracing, the risks that inhered in it, and the costs that would be incurred.”

When that kind of thing happens in dictatorships like Saddam’s Iraq or Vladimir Putin’s Russia, observers naturally assume it is because of the terrible costs of dissent. The American invasion of Iraq shows that no such coercion is necessary. Two sets of lessons emerge from this sorry spectacle, one about process and the other about policy. At no time did the administration force itself to officially state the war’s objectives and the strategy for achieving them—a failure that allowed the huge gaps in its planning to remain unnoticed and unchallenged.

EXECUTION OF SADDAM HUSSEIN

Good process does not necessarily lead to good policies, but it can help weed out obviously bad ones, which is something. Even Zen masters following best management practices, however, would have found it challenging to deal with Saddam. In December 2003, Saddam Hussein was captured in a hole on a farm near Tikrit, and he died on a scaffold three years later. President Bill Clinton once told his staff that he found Iraq “the most difficult of problems because it is devoid of a sensible policy response.”

Once Saddam survived the Gulf War, it was reasonable for the United States to try to contain him without getting sucked into another full-scale conflict. But that approach was costly, risky, and hard to sustain. The George W. Bush administration refused to accept that such an unsatisfying course was the least bad option available and blindly plunged into the abyss. Had leaders in either Baghdad or Washington behaved less recklessly, the war would not have happened. But the challenge of protecting the global economy from Baghdad’s own Tony Montana would have remained.

(The author of this article is indebted to Gideon Rose, editor of Foreign Affairs magazine, an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the author of How Wars End.)

 

France's President Emmanuel Macron. Photo Credit: Tasnim News Agency

Macron’s Warning To Europe Against Falling Into Thucydides Trap – OpEd

 May 10, 2024  0 Comments

By Ambassador Kazi Anwarul Masud

The famous British magazine The Economist cited French President Emmanuel Macron as a Jupetarian president thinking about his legacy.

World History Encyclopedia has termed Jupiter, the supreme god. He was Jupiter Elicius – one who brings forth. By the rise of the Republic, Jupiter’s identity as the greatest of all the gods was firmly established, but two members of the old triad were replaced with Juno (his sister and wife) and Minerva (his daughter). Jupiter’s most important title was Jupiter Optimus Maximus, meaning the Best and Greatest and signifying his role as father of the gods. Jupiter, however, had his detractors and challenges. After the death of Julius Ceaser, who at one time served as a flamen dialis or Jupiter’s personal priestly officer, Emperor Augustus’s followers initiated an imperial cult: the worship of the emperor as a god.

President Macron, writes The Economist, is adamant that, whoever is in the White House in 2025, Europe must shake off its decades-long military dependence on America and with it the head-in-the-sand reluctance to take hard power seriously. “My responsibility,” he says, “is never to put [America] in a strategic dilemma that would mean choosing between Europeans and [its] own interests in the face of China.” He calls for an “existential” debate to take place within months. 

Bringing in non-EU countries like Britain and Norway, this would create a new framework for European defense that puts less of a burden on America. Macron is willing to discuss extending the protection afforded by France’s nuclear weapons, which would dramatically break from Gaullist orthodoxy and transform France’s relations with the rest of Europe. 

Macron’s second theme is that an alarming industrial gap has opened up as Europe has fallen behind America and China. For Macron, this is part of a broader dependence in energy and technology, especially in renewables and artificial intelligence. Europe must respond now, or it may never catch up. He says the Americans “have stopped trying to get the Chinese to conform to the rules of international trade”. Calling the Inflation Reduction Act “a conceptual revolution”, he accuses America of being like China by subsidizing its critical industries. “You can’t carry on as if this isn’t happening,” he says.  Macron’s solution is more radical than simply asking for Europe to match American and Chinese subsidies and protection. He also wants a profound change to the way Europe works.  

But one wonders whether Emmanuel Macron’s call to Europe does not repeat Cassandra prophecy who was loved by the god Apollo and promised to  bestow upon her the gift of prophecy if she would comply with his desires. Cassandra accepted the proposal, received the gift, and then refused the god her favors. Apollo revenged himself by ordaining that her prophecies should never be believed. She accurately predicted such events as the fall of Troy and the death of Agamemnon but her warnings went unheeded. During the sack of Troy, Ajax the Lesser dragged Cassandra from the altar of Athena and raped her. For this impiety, Athena sent a storm that sank most of the Greek fleet as it returned home. In the distribution of the spoils after the capture of Troy, Cassandra fell to Agamemnon and was later murdered with him.

Leaving aside Greek mythology it would be useful to discuss current affairs. President Macron’s message to Europe relates to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the rise of China aspiring for a seat at the table that sets “rule based” world. which the real super power – the USA- has been the driving force for fifty years: setting rules to its advantage, more often than not breaking the so-called rules, dealing with Joseph Stalin, the division of defeated Germany, setting up the Nuremberg Trials, in short running the world as the US pleased till the rise of multipolar world when it is now forced to take along European powers as partners and also newly independent countries that gained freedom from British rule. 

The world today has become too complex, particularly with the rise of China which is now considered as the greatest enemy of the US depicted by both President Donald Trump and now the Biden administration. In a recent article in Foreign Affairs  (Matt Pottinger and Mike Gallagher. May/June 2024) affirmed that there can be no Substitute for Victory. America’s Competition With China Must Be Won, Not Managed. The authors added that amid a presidency beset by failures of deterrence—in Afghanistan, Ukraine, and the Middle East—the Biden administration’s China policy has stood out as a relative bright spot. The administration has strengthened U.S. alliances in Asia, restricted Chinese access to critical U.S. technologies, and endorsed the bipartisan mood for competition. Yet the administration is squandering these early gains by falling into a familiar trap: prioritizing a short-term thaw with China’s leaders at the expense of a long-term victory over their malevolent strategy. The Biden team’s policy of “managing competition” with Beijing risks emphasizing processes over outcomes, bilateral stability at the expense of global security, and diplomatic initiatives that aim for cooperation but generate only complacency. The United States shouldn’t manage the competition with China; it should win it. 

Beijing is pursuing a raft of global initiatives designed to disintegrate the West and Beijing usher in an antidemocratic order. It is underwriting expansionist dictatorships in Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela. It has more than doubled its nuclear arsenal since 2020 and is building up its conventional forces faster than any country has since World War II. These actions show that China isn’t aiming for a stalemate. Neither should America. The authors in the aforementioned article added that Washington will need to adopt rhetoric and policies that may feel uncomfortably confrontational but in fact are necessary to reestablish boundaries that Beijing and its acolytes are violating. That means imposing costs on Chinese leader Xi Jinping for his policy of fostering global chaos. It means speaking with candor about the ways China is hurting U.S. interests. It means rapidly increasing U.S. defense capabilities to achieve unmistakable qualitative advantages over Beijing. It means severing China’s access to Western technology and frustrating Xi-Jinping’s efforts to convert his country’s wealth into military power. And it means pursuing intensive diplomacy with Beijing only from a position of American strength, as perceived by both Washington and Beijing. 

No country should relish waging another cold war. Yet a cold war is already being waged against the United States by China’s leaders. Rather than denying the existence of this struggle, Washington should own it and win it. Lukewarm statements that pretend as if there is no cold war perversely court a hot war; they signal complacency to the American people and conciliation to Chinese leaders. Like the original Cold War, the new cold war will not be won through half measures or timid rhetoric. Victory requires openly admitting that a totalitarian regime that commits genocide, fuels conflict, and threatens war will never be a reliable partner. Like the discredited détente policies that Washington adopted in the 1970s to deal with the Soviet Union, the current approach will yield little cooperation from Chinese leaders while fortifying their conviction that they can destabilize the world with impunity. 

The duo added that Security Dialogue, bringing together the leaders of Australia, India, Japan, and the United States, and convened high-profile trilateral summits with the leaders of Japan and South Korea. Biden also unveiled AUKUS, a defense pact among Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. As it turned out, however, aggression would come from the opposite direction, in Europe. Less than three weeks before invading Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin had signed a “no limits” security pact with Xi-Jinping. 

Across Asia, Biden’s diplomats pulled longtime allies and newer partners closer together. They organized the first summits of the Quad, or Quadrilateral Jinping in Beijing. In a prudent step after the invasion, Biden drew a redline by warning Xi-Jinping in a video call that the U.S. government would impose sweeping sanctions if China provided “material support” to Moscow. Xi-Jinping nonetheless found plenty of ways to support the Russian war machine, sending semiconductors, unarmed drones, gunpowder, and other wares. China also supplied Moscow with badly needed money in exchange for major shipments of Russian oil.

Chinese officials, according to the U.S. State Department, even spent more money on pro-Russian propaganda worldwide than Russia itself was spending. Beijing was also coordinating more closely with Iran and North Korea, even as those regimes sent weapons to help Moscow wage war in Europe. Yet Washington was pursuing siloed policies—simultaneously resisting Russia, appeasing Iran, containing North Korea, and pursuing a mix of rivalry and engagement with China—that added up to something manifestly incoherent. Indeed, the situation that Xi had forecast at the start of the Biden administration was becoming a reality: “The most important characteristic of the world is, in a word, ‘chaos,’ and this trend appears likely to continue,” Xi-Jinping told a seminar of high-level Communist Party officials in January 2021. Xi-Jinping made clear that this was a useful development for China. “The times and trends are on our side,” he said, adding, “Overall, the opportunities outweigh the challenges.” 

By March 2023, Xi Jinping revealed that he saw himself not just as a beneficiary of worldwide turmoil, but also as one of its architects. “Right now, there are changes, the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years,” he said to Vladimir Putin on camera while wrapping up a visit to the Kremlin. “And we are the ones driving these changes together.”

The entire world would be well advised to listen to the implied threat that China-Russia “limitless” friendship carries and not let emerging powers to fall into the Thucydides Trap, reminding us of the perils inherent in power transitions between states. While history may not repeat itself exactly, the underlying dynamics highlighted by Thucydides remain relevant in understanding contemporary geopolitical challenges. By heeding these lessons, policymakers can strive to navigate power shifts with wisdom and foresight, ultimately working towards a more stable and peaceful international order.

 

French President’s warning to Europe against falling Into Thucidydes Trap

By Kazi Anwarul Masud

Date : 14 May , 2024

Is Emmanuel Macron a Juperatian President

Famous British magazine The Economist cited French President Emmanuel Macron as a Jupetarian President thinking about his legacy. World History Encyclopedia has termed Jupiter, the supreme god. He was Jupiter Elicius – one who brings forth. By the rise of the Republic, Jupiter’s identity as the greatest of all the gods was firmly established, but two members of the old triad were replaced with Juno (his sister and wife) and Minerva (his daughter). Jupiter’s most important title was Jupiter Optimus Maximus, meaning the Best and Greatest and signifying his role as father of the gods. Jupiter, however, had his detractors and challenges. After the death of Julius Ceaser, who at one time served as a flamen dialis or Jupiter’s personal priestly officer, Emperor Augustus ‘s followers initiated an imperial cult: the worship of the emperor as a god. President Macron, writes The Economist, is adamant that, whoever is in the White House in 2025, Europe must shake off its decades-long military dependence on America and with it the head-in-the-sand reluctance to take hard power seriously. “My responsibility,” he says, “is never to put [America] in a strategic dilemma that would mean choosing between Europeans and [its] own interests in the face of China.” He calls for an “existential” debate to take place within months.

Emmanuel Macron advocates inclusion of Non-European Countries to Lessen Burden on the USA

Bringing in non-EU countries like Britain and Norway, this would create a new framework for European defense that puts less of a burden on America. He is willing to discuss extending the protection afforded by France’s nuclear weapons, which would dramatically break from Gaullist orthodoxy and transform France’s relations with the rest of Europe.  Macron’s second theme is that an alarming industrial gap has opened up as Europe has fallen behind America and China. For Macron, this is part of a broader dependence in energy and technology, especially in renewables and artificial intelligence. Europe must respond now, or it may never catch up. He says the Americans “have stopped trying to get the Chinese to conform to the rules of international trade”. Calling the Inflation Reduction Act “a conceptual revolution”, he accuses America of being like China by subsidizing its critical industries. “You can’t carry on as if this isn’t happening,” he says.  Macron’s solution is more radical than simply asking for Europe to match American and Chinese subsidies and protection. He also wants a profound change to the way Europe works. 

Will Macron’s call will turn into Cassandra Prophecy

But one wonders whether Emmanuel Macron’s call to Europe does not repeat Cassandra prophecy who was loved by the god Apollo and promised to  bestow upon her the gift of prophecy if she would comply with his desires. Cassandra accepted the proposal, received the gift, and then refused the god her favors. Apollo revenged himself by ordaining that her prophecies should never be believed. She accurately predicted such events as the fall of Troy and the death of Agamemnon but her warnings went unheeded. During the sack of Troy, Ajax the Lesser dragged Cassandra from the altar of Athena and raped her. For this impiety, Athena sent a storm that sank most of the Greek fleet as it returned home. In the distribution of the spoils after the capture of Troy, Cassandra fell to Agamemnon and was later murdered with him. Leaving aside Greek mythology it would be useful to discuss current affairs. President Macron’s message to Europe relates to Russian invasion of Ukraine and the rise of China aspiring for a seat at the table that sets “rule based” world which the real super power- the USA- has been the driving force for fifty years, setting rules to its advantage, more often than not breaking the so-called rules, dealing with Josef Stalin, division of defeated Germany, setting up the Nuremberg Trial, in short running the world as the US pleased till the rise of multipolar world when the US is now forced to take along European powers as partners and also newly independent countries which gained freedom from British rule.

US Considers China as the Greatest Enemy

The world today has become too complex particularly with the rise of China which is now considered as the greatest enemy of the US depicted by both President Donald Trump and now Biden administration. In a recent article in Foreign Affairs magazine  (Matt Pottinger and Mike Gallagher. May/June 2024) affirmed that there can be no substitute for  victory. America’s Competition With China Must Be Won, Not Managed. They added that amid a presidency beset by failures of deterrence—in Afghanistan, Ukraine, and the Middle East—the Biden administration’s China policy has stood out as a relative bright spot. The administration has strengthened U.S. alliances in Asia, restricted Chinese access to critical U.S. technologies, and endorsed the bipartisan mood for competition. Yet the administration is squandering these early gains by falling into a familiar trap: prioritizing a short-term thaw with China’s leaders at the expense of a long-term victory over their malevolent strategy. The Biden team’s policy of “managing competition” with Beijing risks emphasizing processes over outcomes, bilateral stability at the expense of global security, and diplomatic initiatives that aim for cooperation but generate only complacency. The United States shouldn’t manage the competition with China; it should win it.

China-Russia “Limitless” Freindship

Beijing is pursuing a raft of global initiatives designed to disintegrate the West and usher in an antidemocratic order. It is underwriting expansionist dictatorships in Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela. It has more than doubled its nuclear arsenal since 2020 and is building up its conventional forces faster than any country has since World War II. These actions show that China isn’t aiming for a stalemate. Neither should America. They added that Washington will need to adopt rhetoric and policies that may feel uncomfortably confrontational but in fact are necessary to reestablish boundaries that Beijing and its acolytes are violating. That means imposing costs on Chinese leader Xi Jinping for his policy of fostering global chaos. It means speaking with candor about the way China is hurting U.S. interests. It means rapidly increasing U.S. defense capabilities to achieve unmistakable qualitative advantages over Beijing. It means severing China’s access to Western technology and frustrating Xi-Jinping’s efforts to convert his country’s wealth into military power. And it means pursuing intensive diplomacy with Beijing only from a position of American strength, as perceived by both Washington and Beijing.

Is another Cold War in the Offing?

No country should relish waging another cold war. Yet a cold war is already being waged against the United States by China’s leaders. Rather than denying the existence of this struggle, Washington should own it and win it. Lukewarm statements that pretend as if there is no cold war perversely court a hot war; they signal complacency to the American people and conciliation to Chinese leaders. Like the original Cold War, the new cold war will not be won through half measures or timid rhetoric. Victory requires openly admitting that a totalitarian regime that commits genocide, fuels conflict, and threatens war will never be a reliable partner. Like the discredited détente policies that Washington adopted in the 1970s to deal with the Soviet Union, the current approach will yield little cooperation from Chinese leaders while fortifying their conviction that they can destabilize the world with impunity.

Non-European Countries Encouraged for Security Dialogue

The duo added that Security Dialogue, bringing together the leaders of Australia, India, Japan, and the United States, and convened high-profile trilateral summits with the leaders of Japan and South Korea. Biden also unveiled AUKUS, a defense pact among Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. As it turned out, however, aggression would come from the opposite direction, in Europe. Less than three weeks before invading Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin had signed a “no limits” security pact with Xi-Jinping.  Across Asia, Biden’s diplomats pulled longtime allies and newer partners closer together. They organized the first summits of the Quad, or Quadrilateral. In a prudent step after the invasion, Biden drew a redline by warning Xi-Jinping in a video call that the U.S. government would impose sweeping sanctions if China provided “material support” to Moscow. Xi-Jinping nonetheless found plenty of ways to support the Russian war machine, sending semiconductors, unarmed drones, gunpowder, and other wares. China also supplied Moscow with badly needed money in exchange for major shipments of Russian oil. Chinese officials, according to the U.S. State Department, even spent more money on pro-Russian propaganda worldwide than Russia itself was spending. Beijing was also coordinating more closely with Iran and North Korea, even as those regimes sent weapons to help Moscow wage war in Europe. Yet Washington was pursuing siloed policies—simultaneously resisting Russia, appeasing Iran, containing North Korea, and pursuing a mix of rivalry and engagement with China—that added up to something manifestly incoherent. Indeed, the situation that Xi had forecast at the start of the Biden administration was becoming a reality: “The most important characteristic of the world is, in a word, ‘chaos,’ and this trend appears likely to continue,” Xi-Jinping told a seminar of high-level Communist Party officials in January 2021. Xi-Jinping made clear that this was a useful development for China. “The times and trends are on our side,” he said, adding, “Overall, the opportunities outweigh the challenges.”

China sees itself as Beneficiary of Global Turmoil

By March 2023, Xi-Jinping had revealed that he saw himself not just as a beneficiary of worldwide turmoil but also as one of its architects. “Right now, there are changes, the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years,” he said to Vladimir Putin on camera while wrapping up a visit to the Kremlin. “And we are the ones driving these changes together.”The entire world would be well advised to listen to the implied threat that China-Russia “limitless” friendship carries and not let emerging powers to fall into the Thucydides Trap, reminding us of the perils inherent in power transitions between states. While history may not repeat itself exactly, the underlying dynamics highlighted by Thucydides remain relevant in understanding contemporary geopolitical challenges. By heeding these lessons, policymakers can strive to navigate power shifts with wisdom and foresight, ultimately working towards a more stable and peaceful international order.