The Saudi escalation still seems to be misguided. The US factored a great deal in the Russian decision to ramp production, so a price shock from the Saudis isn’t going to be enough to convince them to come back to an OPEC+ deal. Make the Russian feel pain and they come back doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when the Russians have other goals besides revenue generation and simple market share.
Yeah, something that isn't often talked about in regards to Russia is that there economy is in the shitter already. This is partly an intentional strategy by Putin to ensure that much of the sting from sanctions is taken out because if your people are use to your economy always being fuck awful, they probably aren't likely to revolt. Thing is they have been completely successful at making themselves completely self-reliant. Last I checked, fossil fuels were a big asset in their foreign trade because until recently, needing them was unavoidable and it's only been recently that we've started to see several alternative energy become competitive enough to start supplanting existing fossil fuel energy sources. Given how backasswards Putin is, I wouldn't be surprised if he hasn't quite grasp that demand for fossil fuels is going to continue to go down.
Also the guy is an arrogant little shit, that is probably still high off of helping Trump get elected and having something on Trump to get favors. So he likely overplayed his hand here thinking "no inferior country can beat Russia." Problem for him is that Russia is poorly equipped to deal with any sort of economic war against a nation that has some economic muscle and SA has some serious economic muscle. SA just isn't going to blink before Russia because they are in good enough shape to tank the hits until Russia is forced to concede.
This is an overestimation of the Saudi economy, which has only partly recovered from the last price collapse, and is much more reliant on oil than Russia.
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
So two men with a petrocountry as essentially their personal fiefdoms playing a game of economic chicken to try to out-machismo the other during a pandemic for basically no reason other than testosterone poisoning. Do I have that correct?
So two men with a petrocountry as essentially their personal fiefdoms playing a game of economic chicken to try to out-machismo the other during a pandemic for basically no reason other than testosterone poisoning. Do I have that correct?
Is not only that, is that oil prices are permanently lower since the shale revolution turned the US into an oil exporter. So, there's a smaller share of the pie for everybody else and they are knifing each other over it.
So two men with a petrocountry as essentially their personal fiefdoms playing a game of economic chicken to try to out-machismo the other during a pandemic for basically no reason other than testosterone poisoning. Do I have that correct?
I imagine that the Syrian conflict plays into this as well. Edrogan had to go begging to Putin to prevent a hot war, but it looks like the Saudis decided on another strategy.
So two men with a petrocountry as essentially their personal fiefdoms playing a game of economic chicken to try to out-machismo the other during a pandemic for basically no reason other than testosterone poisoning. Do I have that correct?
Is not only that, is that oil prices are permanently lower since the shale revolution turned the US into an oil exporter. So, there's a smaller share of the pie for everybody else and they are knifing each other over it.
There has also been changes in tech that have reduced the need for oil. Do believe that we still have a fair bit of infrastructure that absolutely needs oil. That said, at least on the fuel front hybrid and electric vehicles have created reduced demand. I'd have tos it down and see what other shit we make out of the awful shit that is oil and how much of that has alternatives that are competitive or cheaper.
So two men with a petrocountry as essentially their personal fiefdoms playing a game of economic chicken to try to out-machismo the other during a pandemic for basically no reason other than testosterone poisoning. Do I have that correct?
I imagine that the Syrian conflict plays into this as well. Edrogan had to go begging to Putin to prevent a hot war, but it looks like the Saudis decided on another strategy.
This could also be a factor in the SA strategy as well. Military expeditions cost money and it wouldn't be the first time that Russia ends up in a poorly planned military adventure and has to run with their tail between their legs because they can't really afford to through money at it. It's really worth remember that the Russian economy is in shambles and is a big reason why sanctions have done little to impact Russia's behavior. Namely, it is a strategy adapted by Putin with the intended goal of making sure they don't feel sanctions and it's been somewhat successful because things economically have been shit in Russia for a very long time before Putin was in charge. Thing is I have some doubt that Russia can weather this for long because of various factors.
BRUSSELS — Turkey has signaled that it is winding down its two-week operation to aid the movement of tens of thousands of people toward Europe, following a tough on-the-ground response from Greek border guards and a tepid diplomatic reaction from European politicians.
Migrants at the Greek-Turkish land border began to be transported back to Istanbul by bus this week, witnesses at the border said, de-escalating a standoff that initially set off fears of another European migration crisis.
The NYT has a story about MBS’ digital spy, and he’s a character.
The next year, he appeared on Hack Forums, an online space for aspiring hackers and cybercriminals — and he was almost immediately hacked. He bought malware from another user and soon realized it had infected his computer. He was shocked that a hacker had hacked him.
“i think he is a very good man and look trusted!!!” he wrote.
He was tricked at least three more times by the hackers whose services he sought, and three times acknowledged posting while drunk, according to a report on his online footprint by the research group Bellingcat.
“im on party and drunk and now im really happy,” he wrote. “will go to drink tackila and dance lol.”
Over his six years on the forum, he made hundreds of posts and donated more than $10,000 to the site, while often inquiring about surveillance technologies, offering high sums for simple services and requesting help with specific targets.
“IS THERE ANY RAT THAT CAN INFECT MAC PC?” he asked in 2014, referring to a Remote Access Trojan, which can commandeer targeted devices.
In January 2015, King Abdullah died. King Salman ascended the throne and gave his 29-year-old son, Mohammed bin Salman, tremendous power he would use to make himself the kingdom’s de facto ruler.
Mr. al-Qahtani’s own hacking skills were limited, but they were enough to save him from being purged from the royal court when King Salman came in and Prince Mohammed took over. American officials who tracked Mr. al-Qahtani’s rise say he recognized early on that the crown prince feared plots by a range of rivals; he convinced Prince Mohammed that his knowledge of the dark electronic arts could help the crown prince prevail. Mr. al-Qahtani became an adviser to the royal court with the rank of minister, and since Saudi Arabia lacked domestic hacking talent, he got a massive budget to shop for the best technologies available on the open market.
That camp had a Covid case today too....
It's going to get real bad.
And Greeces current government is very...Trumpian... I how it approaches refugees so expect victim blaming and no help.
That would require Joint List to be part of the government, seems unlikely.
There was a rumor that the government would last just long enough to pass a bill revising the eligibility rules for who can run/be pm to exclude those currently under indictment for a crime that would be disqualifying if convicted, then dissolve.
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Netanyahu just shut down Israel's courts, which is totally about stopping the spread of the coronavirus and not to delay his own corruption trial. His ally Yuli Edelstein, the speaker of the Knesset refuses to convene the house. The legislature and judiciary are effectively shut down, and Netanyahu has in this power grab effectively made himself Israel's dictator, ruling by fiat.
Historian Gershom Goremberg, the author of The Unmaking of Israel on the crisis of Israeli democracy, tweeted that “the only recorded death so far in Israel from this virus was the already aging, highly vulnerable democracy.”
Netanyahu just shut down Israel's courts, which is totally about stopping the spread of the coronavirus and not to delay his own corruption trial. His ally Yuli Edelstein, the speaker of the Knesset refuses to convene the house. The legislature and judiciary are effectively shut down, and Netanyahu has in this power grab effectively made himself Israel's dictator, ruling by fiat.
Historian Gershom Goremberg, the author of The Unmaking of Israel on the crisis of Israeli democracy, tweeted that “the only recorded death so far in Israel from this virus was the already aging, highly vulnerable democracy.”
I wonder if they're far enough gone to unironically run the rest of the playbook.
Enough people voted for Netanyahu that it's been in a deadlock for what seems like months and he was promising to do some pretty heinous shit, so it wouldn't surprise me.
In a dramatic turn of events, the Blue and White Party that served as the alternative to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the March 2 election, broke up on Thursday after party head Benny Gantz decided to enter Netanyahu's government.
The three parties that made up Blue and White - Gantz's Hosen L'Israel, Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid and Moshe Ya'alon's Telem - all went in different directions. Hosen L'Israel is joining the government, Lapid will head the opposition and Telem will split up, with Ya'alon on the outside and MKs Tzvi Hauser and Yoaz Hendel in.
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There will be a rotation in the Prime Minister's Office between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Gantz. Netanyahu's allies will start off as finance minister and Knesset speaker. Gantz will serve as foreign minister, MK Gabi Ashkenzi defense minister and many other MKs from Hosen L'Israel will be ministers.
The split happened after Gantz decided that he would be the candidate for interim speaker of the Knesset after progress in coalition talks with Likud. Appointing Gantz as speaker gives time for the coalition talks
I'm not super up on Israeli politics, but I presume this means that Netanyahu wins.
Is it way too naive to look at that as succession planning for when Netanyahu goes to prison?
If I had to make a complete layman's guess, it's that Gantz talked to people and still couldn't make a majority without the Arabic parties, and some of the other people wouldn't support him WITH those parties, so (with the Covid lockdown and everything else) Gantz struck a deal to try to prevent a dictatorship. That's only through a lens of "reads an article once every couple weeks" though.
Libya was in the headlines again recently, as GNA (Government of National Accord) forces (the UN-recognized alliance in control of Tripoli) took several towns/small cities in an offensive against the LNA (Libyan National Army, Khalifa Haftar's forces based in Tobruk).
Sabratha, Surman, al-Ajaylat, Regdalin, al-Jumayl, Zelten and al-Essa, located northwest to the capital Tripoli, are now under the control of forces loyal to the Government of National Accord (GNA), according to Al Jazeera sources.
The conflict is at this point a nearly incomprehensible clusterfuck with extensive international involvement. Turkey supports the GNA, arming them with drones and other weaponry and deploying its own troops in small numbers as advisers. More recently, Turkey has begun recruiting hundreds of Syrian rebels and transporting them to Libya to fight on the GNA's behalf. On the other side, the UAE and Egypt are strong supporters of Haftar, supplying drones, aircraft, and other support. This is one manifestation of the broader Middle Eastern rivalry between pro and anti-Muslim Brotherhood factions, with Turkey and Qatar generally backing Brotherhood-inspired political Islamic factions in the region and the UAE and Egypt opposing them in favor of dictatorships.
However, there is an odd wrinkle to this that has been surfacing since the Egyptian military overthrew Morsi back in 2013 - one that I do not fully understand. While Islamic reformist parties associated with the Brotherhood or similar in ideology are the sworn foe of the UAE, Egypt's dictatorship, and usually the Saudis, hardline Salafist factions tend to ally with the dictatorships propped up by these powers and against the moderate Islamic factions (who generally support representative democracy). Part of this may be due to Saudi backing for the salafist factions (hence geopolitical alignment), but I don't know if that fully explains it. Back in January, this NYT article described life in Haftar-controlled Libya, where this seemingly contradictory alliance is on display.
His plainclothes security agents loiter and listen in cafes and hotel lobbies. He has handed control of the mosques to extremist preachers. And he has showered patronage on a tribal death squad called the Avengers of Blood, blamed for a long string of disappearances and killings of his political opponents.
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Armed by foreign sponsors, he started by recruiting fighters from local tribes and welcoming the help of former Qaddafi officers and officials.
Then he won the support of Saudi-style Islamist fighters — known as Salafists — who saw a common enemy in the rival schools of Islamists that Mr. Hifter was battling. He has never acknowledged any contradiction between his avowed hostility to political Islam and his brigades of Salafists.
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Mr. Hifter leans heavily on members of the old Qaddafi machine, and a surge of former Qaddafi loyalists have rushed back from Egypt and elsewhere over the previous 10 months.
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The Salafists now boast of their control of Benghazi’s mosques and religious broadcasting.
Salafist brigades under Mr. Hifter have demolished shrines and lodges belonging to Sufis, practitioners of a Muslim mysticism that ultraconservatives consider heresy, including another one leveled last month in the city of Surt.
Salafist fighters shut down a celebration of Earth Day, also deemed heretical. And a general close to the Salafists tried to ban women from traveling without a male guardian, an order later rescinded after an outcry.
NYT describes LNA territory as "an unwieldy authoritarianism that in many ways is both more puritanical and more lawless than Libya was under its last dictator, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi." It sounds absolutely horrifying overall. And Benghazi is still in ruins, years after the LNA's street by street battle with Ansar al-Sharia.
Russia has become increasingly involved in the conflict as well, backing the LNA with hundreds or possibly thousands of mercenaries (many of them Sudanese). Today NYT published a very interesting article about Russia's involvement in the conflict. Russia is presented as being aware the LNA's offensive on Tripoli, launched last April, would be a failure, but regarded this as an opportunity to gain influence over Haftar by offering him assistance when he inevitably started needing it (in the form of the Wagner group's mercenary army).
Days before the call, private Russian operatives in Libya reported to Moscow that Mr. Hifter was a flawed and outmatched military leader sure to fail if he ever tried to conquer the capital, according to secret Russian documents seized in Tripoli and viewed by The New York Times. The operatives saw opportunity in his weakness and suggested that Russia could win leverage over Mr. Hifter if it sent mercenaries to bolster his so-called Libyan National Army.
“Russia will maintain a loyal and strong ally in the structure of the LNA,” the operatives argued, “which Hifter will have to contend with.”
Ominously, the article also mentions Russia hedging its bets by forging ties with Qaddafi's eldest son:
The operatives recommended the Kremlin hedge its bets on Mr. Hifter by allying with Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, the eldest son of the former dictator. The operatives said their “company” had acquired a stake in a pro-Qaddafi satellite network and revitalized its broadcasts.
A longtime partner to Russia under his father, Mr. Qaddafi, now 47, was imprisoned in Libya in 2011 before somehow regaining his freedom. Now he is at large and plotting a comeback, according to Libyans close to him and Western diplomats familiar with intelligence reports on his movements.
So not only do we have essentially a worse version of Qaddafi in Haftar, complete with many Qaddafi-era officials in his little dictatorship, but there's an outside chance that Qaddafi's son will himself succeed Haftar. It would be among the most tragic ironies in history after all these years and layers of civil war we ended up with the dynastic dictatorship the initial revolt was aimed at avoiding.
It also describes how John Bolton, prior to getting fired, gave Haftar a "yellow light" via phone call to launch the surprise assault on Tripoli, despite the rest of the world expecting the two sides to further negotiations toward a peaceful settlement. The US has largely avoided deep involvement in Libya since its bombing campaign against the government in 2011, aside from a brief campaign against ISIS a few years back. Europe doesn't have a unified position :
Europe’s Libya policy has been stymied by division. French special forces have sometimes aided Mr. Hifter as an ally against extremists, while Italy has paid rival militias to help reduce the flow of migrants.
The situation in Libya was fraught and complex without this much foreign involvement. Now that the war has devolved into a geopolitical conflict between various outside powers - who are fielding mercenary armies from still other countries - it seems totally intractable. In Syria we have a recent example of how international alliances backing opposing sides can tear a country to shreds, as each coalition increases support for their proxies by increment when they start losing, causing the other side to do the same when the tide turns. This leads to either stalemate or escalatory spiral. Libya seems to be experiencing a similar phenomenon. If this all sounds like hell for Libyans, that's because it is. As the article I most recently linked begins:
Russia has sent hundreds of mercenaries to back militias laying siege to Libya’s capital. The United Arab Emirates has sent jets and drones, while Egypt has provided logistical support.
To stop them, Turkey has sent dozens of military advisers and is now shipping in hundreds of Syrian militiamen.
“We Libyans don’t want Turkish or Syrian or Russian or any other foreign troops,” said Mr. Khashib, who had taken advantage of a temporary cease-fire to visit the rubble of his bombed-out home in eastern Tripoli. “We just want the issue to be resolved.”
RE Brotherhood and Salafist rift (at least that's how I understand what you're writing): I think it may have to do with MB's turn towards electoralism/parliamentary politics in Egypt starting in the 80's (through proxies of course initially) which, especially likely from the Slafist POV, lead to a "softening". In much the same way you see happen with far left movements which start to engage in electoral politics when they can't or don't want to overthrow a system e.g. Japan and the Japanese far left movement and JRA split, a few periods of time in Portugal following the Carnation Revolution etc.
Basically, in most of the cases I've researched using different primary sources (including declassified US intelligence products), as time goes on and far left movements engage in electoral or parliamentary politics they start to moderate and move towards the center (even if just from the perspective of "true believers") in the long term. This seems to lead to schisms in these movements of course. IIRC the Japanese far left movement split and led to the Japanese Red Army conducting direct action.
There's a surprising amount of parallels (and even direct relationships) between the mid 20th far left movements and contemporary and modern Islamist movements.
RE Brotherhood and Salafist rift (at least that's how I understand what you're writing): I think it may have to do with MB's turn towards electoralism/parliamentary politics in Egypt starting in the 80's (through proxies of course initially) which, especially likely from the Slafist POV, lead to a "softening". In much the same way you see happen with far left movements which start to engage in electoral politics when they can't or don't want to overthrow a system e.g. Japan and the Japanese far left movement and JRA split, a few periods of time in Portugal following the Carnation Revolution etc.
Basically, in most of the cases I've researched using different primary sources (including declassified US intelligence products), as time goes on and far left movements engage in electoral or parliamentary politics they start to moderate and move towards the center (even if just from the perspective of "true believers") in the long term. This seems to lead to schisms in these movements of course. IIRC the Japanese far left movement split and led to the Japanese Red Army conducting direct action.
There's a surprising amount of parallels (and even direct relationships) between the mid 20th far left movements and contemporary and modern Islamist movements.
This makes sense with regard to divisions between Brotherhood-aligned factions and salafi-jihadist factions like al-Qaeda. I've seen Zawahiri blatantly criticise the Brotherhood and its allies for attempting to gain power via elections, rather than violent revolution. As far as that division goes I agree with the comparison with the divide between revolutionary far left groups and those willing to engage with the state/electoral politics.
What I still find somewhat mystifying are the non-jihadist salafist factions like al-Nour in Egypt, who backed the military coup against Morsi, and UAE-backed salafist factions in Libya and Yemen. We see that the UAE and Egypt regard the more moderate Islamic factions as a dire threat and will take great pains to stamp them out, not only in their own countries but also abroad. Yet the Egyptian military dictatorship is fine with the main salafist party in its country, the UAE backs salafist militias in Yemen (who sometimes fight al-Islah, that country's Brotherhood spinoff), and the LNA - ostensibly a vicious opponent of political Islam, who fought the salafi-jihadist Ansar al-Sharia for Benghazi - is handing control of Islamic institutions in its territory to salafists (just not the jihadist kind).
RE Brotherhood and Salafist rift (at least that's how I understand what you're writing): I think it may have to do with MB's turn towards electoralism/parliamentary politics in Egypt starting in the 80's (through proxies of course initially) which, especially likely from the Slafist POV, lead to a "softening". In much the same way you see happen with far left movements which start to engage in electoral politics when they can't or don't want to overthrow a system e.g. Japan and the Japanese far left movement and JRA split, a few periods of time in Portugal following the Carnation Revolution etc.
Basically, in most of the cases I've researched using different primary sources (including declassified US intelligence products), as time goes on and far left movements engage in electoral or parliamentary politics they start to moderate and move towards the center (even if just from the perspective of "true believers") in the long term. This seems to lead to schisms in these movements of course. IIRC the Japanese far left movement split and led to the Japanese Red Army conducting direct action.
There's a surprising amount of parallels (and even direct relationships) between the mid 20th far left movements and contemporary and modern Islamist movements.
This makes sense with regard to divisions between Brotherhood-aligned factions and salafi-jihadist factions like al-Qaeda. I've seen Zawahiri blatantly criticise the Brotherhood and its allies for attempting to gain power via elections, rather than violent revolution. As far as that division goes I agree with the comparison between revolutionary far left groups and those willing to engage with the state/electoral politics.
What I still find somewhat mystifying are the non-jihadist salafist factions like al-Nour in Egypt, who backed the military coup against Morsi, and UAE-backed salafist factions in Libya and Yemen. We see that the UAE and Egypt regard the more moderate Islamic factions as a dire threat and will take great pains to stamp them out, not only in their own countries but also abroad. Yet the Egyptian military dictatorship is fine with the main salafist party in its country, the UAE backs salafist militias in Yemen (who sometimes fight al-Islah, that country's Brotherhood spinoff), and the LNA - ostensibly a vicious opponent of political Islam, who fought the salafi-jihadist Ansar al-Sharia for Benghazi - is handing control of Islamic institutions in its territory to salafists (just not the jihadist kind).
It could be an issue of local context taking precedence over larger, regional political conflict. i.e. in the local context and current time, objectives line up between the states and the Salafist groups and the states see the Salafists as easier to control because they don't want to engage in electoralism. Or for some other reason, the states think they can quietly dispose of the Salafist groups once their objectives become disparate like Nasser tried to do to the Brotherhood after the 52 coup.
What even were their ambitions there? Take land? Oust Assad?
They seemed to have taken a page for our playbook and pulled the ole classic "get involved in a quagmire of a war for vague reasons with I'll defined objectivesbecause you dont like who's currently running the place"
What even were their ambitions there? Take land? Oust Assad?
They seemed to have taken a page for our playbook and pulled the ole classic "get involved in a quagmire of a war for vague reasons with I'll defined objectivesbecause you dont like who's currently running the place"
To fuck over Syrian Kurds enough to intimidate their own Kurdish population into staying in line, I think?
Turkey's interest is primarily the Syrian Kurds. What they didn't want was any kind of geographical continuity between an independent/autonomous Syrian Kurdistan and their own territory where Turkish Kurds live. They have stated since the beginning that there is communication and cooperation between the PKK in Turkey and the Syrian Kurds in order to paint the Syrian Kurds as terrorists (Turkey isn't wrong necessarily, there is cross border cooperation in the form of advisers and trainers early on and I imagine some material cooperation as well) because the PKK is considered a terrorist organization. Their initial push in Euphrates Shield happened where it did in order to prevent a contiguous autonomous Kurdish territory in northern Syria by cutting off Afrin from the rest of "Rojava".
Turkey is moving rebels out of Syria? That surprises me, have they lowered their ambitions there?
I think it's a combination of having largely achieved their more important goal (weakening the Syrian Kurdish YPG and putting friendly proxies in control of much of the border) while mostly giving up on their less important goal (aiding the rebels against the Syrian government). Idlib Province has seen plenty of fighting over the past couple of years between Turkish-backed rebels and the Syrian army. Turkish troops man outposts in the province and have been involved in some of the combat. But with the Russian air force backing the SAA, the most Turkey is able to do is slow down the Syrian advance, largely through diplomatic efforts (i.e. getting Putin to tell Assad to hold off).
In Libya, the situation is much more fluid, and the warring sides closer to parity. So a few hundred Turkish-backed fighters there are probably going to accomplish a lot more than they would on either of the Syrian fronts. In other words, Turkey knows that the rebels can't beat Assad and that the Syrian Kurds can't beat Turkey, but the GNA might be able to beat the LNA (or at least gain the upper hand) with a bit of Turkish backing, so Ankara is putting its resources where they'll have the most effect.
And it seems to be working, at least to some degree. While Haftar's assault on Tripoli had already bogged down prior to Turkey's expanded involvement, it's only recently that the GNA has been able to turn things around and go on the offensive, and I suspect Turkish assistance has a lot to do with that.
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Yemen's Southern Transitional Council, the UAE-backed separatist faction which has steadily grown in power over the last few years, has withdrawn from the Riyadh Agreement, the power sharing deal the STC had reached with other southern factions ostensibly under the umbrella of President Hadi's government. They have declared self-government and have control over Aden, although some other southern towns and cities appear to be resisting their declaration.
The war in Yemen had already heated up again this year, with heavy fighting in northern provinces like al-Jawf and Marib. The Houthis have made some significant gains, and the Saudis appear increasingly eager to find a way out of their seemingly unwinnable war. The Saudis have always prioritized the fight against the Iran-backed Houthis over divisions between factions in the south, but the UAE has been more interested in building up a proxy force of its own and indirectly controlling Yemeni ports. I suspect the UAE also sees al-Islah (Yemen's Muslim Brotherhood spin-off) as its main enemy in Yemen, rather than the Houthis. Al-Islah is the strongest faction in the south aside from the STC, but is also the main military force opposing the Houthis in northern and central Yemen. In other words, a war between al-Islah and the STC would be a massive opportunity for the Houthis, which is why the Saudis were keen to get all factions present in the south to stop shooting each other last year. These efforts now appear to have fallen through. The threat of COVID spreading in a country whose healthcare system has been bombed out of existence and that already deals with waves of cholera outbreaks adds another layer to Yemen's woes, and the southern capital was recently ravaged by flooding, which, while perhaps not as significant as the above events, caused significant damage and seems to have galvanized anti-government anger among people in Aden.
In other UAE-related news, Abu Dhabi is apparently attempting to gain control of a major Sudanese port, through a contract with its DP World corporation. This is the latest (potential) addition to the list of regional ports controlled by the UAE, including those in Aden and Socotra in Yemen, a breakaway region of Somalia (much to Mogadishu's dismay), and Djibouti.
This thread has been pretty dead, but a lot has been happening in Libya lately, so I figured I'd make a post about it, partially to organize my own thoughts and partially in the hopes that others might find it interesting.
I posted a couple months ago about how the ongoing conflict in the country has become increasingly internationalized over the last year. Increased Turkish intervention has dramatically altered the balance of power on the battlefield, enabling the GNA (UN recognized government in Tripoli) to inflict major defeats on General Haftar's LNA, essentially pushing the latter out of most of the Libyan west. Six months ago, GNA territory had been whittled down to Tripoli and Misrata, and Tripoli itself was besieged, with LNA forces pushing through the suburbs into the outskirts of the city proper. Most recently, the GNA has advanced on the city of Sirte, which has changed hands several times over the last decade, most recently falling to the LNA some months ago. While the LNA is still firmly in control of the eastern half of the country, the Turkish-backed GNA advance has alarmed Haftar's foreign backers - particularly Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, but also France and Russia. Recently, the French navy attempted to stop and search a Turkish naval vessel in the Mediterranean, under the auspices of Operation IRINI, a European effort to enforce the UN arms embargo on Libya. The Turks weren't having it, however, and they "flashed radar lights" while soldiers onboard manned weapons, forcing the French to withdraw. This resulted in the French government throwing a public tantrum about Turkish aggression in Libya/the Mediterranean.
France portrays its actions as neutral enforcement of the arms embargo, but other observers have noted that this is in effect a policy of blockading the GNA in order to aid Haftar, as the LNA's armaments are shipped overland via Egypt. Notably absent from France's statements are any criticisms of Haftar's backers violating the same embargo, despite plenty of documentation of UAE and Egyptian support. France backed Haftar in previous phases of the Libyan conflict, when the LNA was fighting hardline Islamic factions in the east, and seems to have continued preferring Tobruk over Tripoli. Greece, while less directly involved, also opposes Turkey's involvement in Libya. Much of this is due to tensions over Mediterranean gas deposits: Turkey has signed maritime exploration and demarcation agreements with Tripoli (thus making Tripoli's fall to Haftar unacceptable for Ankara), while Greece fears that these deals could interfere with its own exploitation of Mediterranean gas.
Within Libya itself, the war took a particularly horrifying turn recently, as GNA forces have discovered numerous mass graves in the territory previously controlled by Haftar's forces. I linked an NYT article about life in LNA controlled Libya some time ago, which made Haftar's dictatorship sound pretty horrifying; judging by recent reports it is worse than anyone thought. While the UN has issued disapproving statements, Haftar's friends (including France) are notably silent about the discovery of these mass graves in Tarhouna and elsewhere.
And now Egypt is threatening a direct invasion in support of Haftar, declaring Sirte - the current frontline - a "red line" that if crossed by the Turkish-backed GNA would lead to confrontation with the Egyptian army. Egypt's dictatorship regards the Muslim Brotherhood and its spinoffs, which held power in Egypt prior to the 2013 coup and were on the receiving end of a particularly brutal massacre at the hands of the Egyptian military - as the greatest threat to its power, and the Libyan government backed by Turkey includes some Brotherhood-aligned factions (plus, Ankara is MB-friendly in its foreign policy generally). They appear to see Haftar's losses and the prospect of a GNA victory in the Libyan Civil War as unacceptable, and appear willing to directly confront Turkey to stop it.
In the background are Russia, which has supported the LNA through the Wagner mercenary organization but maintains communications with both Libyan governments and doesn't appear deeply committed to Haftar, and the US, which has been remarkably uninvolved in the civil war, but which recently issued statements expressing concern about the Russian presence in North Africa and promised expanded military cooperation with neighboring Tunisia in response. Direct warfare between Turkey and Egypt on Libyan soil would be a major escalation with the potential for broader regional destabilization; I suspect that Moscow and Washington share an interest in avoiding that outcome and that they will probably put diplomatic pressure on the two sides to step back from the brink.
All of this is pretty awful from the perspective of the Libyans themselves, who certainly never wanted their country to become the site of an international struggle for geopolitical positioning and energy resources. But it strikes me that this is a sort of predictable outcome after 2011; after the destruction of a centralized state, you end up with fragmentation between factions struggling for power, and that environment provides an opportunity for outside actors to attempt to capitalize by choosing sides, who then become dependent on their foreign benefactor and grant them more influence in the country.
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Well, guess who is winning:
Anasal Hajji is an energy analyst.
Also the guy is an arrogant little shit, that is probably still high off of helping Trump get elected and having something on Trump to get favors. So he likely overplayed his hand here thinking "no inferior country can beat Russia." Problem for him is that Russia is poorly equipped to deal with any sort of economic war against a nation that has some economic muscle and SA has some serious economic muscle. SA just isn't going to blink before Russia because they are in good enough shape to tank the hits until Russia is forced to concede.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Is not only that, is that oil prices are permanently lower since the shale revolution turned the US into an oil exporter. So, there's a smaller share of the pie for everybody else and they are knifing each other over it.
I imagine that the Syrian conflict plays into this as well. Edrogan had to go begging to Putin to prevent a hot war, but it looks like the Saudis decided on another strategy.
There has also been changes in tech that have reduced the need for oil. Do believe that we still have a fair bit of infrastructure that absolutely needs oil. That said, at least on the fuel front hybrid and electric vehicles have created reduced demand. I'd have tos it down and see what other shit we make out of the awful shit that is oil and how much of that has alternatives that are competitive or cheaper.
This could also be a factor in the SA strategy as well. Military expeditions cost money and it wouldn't be the first time that Russia ends up in a poorly planned military adventure and has to run with their tail between their legs because they can't really afford to through money at it. It's really worth remember that the Russian economy is in shambles and is a big reason why sanctions have done little to impact Russia's behavior. Namely, it is a strategy adapted by Putin with the intended goal of making sure they don't feel sanctions and it's been somewhat successful because things economically have been shit in Russia for a very long time before Putin was in charge. Thing is I have some doubt that Russia can weather this for long because of various factors.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Maybe no election number 4?
E: Senior Diplomatic correspondent, Channel 13 News
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/sunday-review/mbs-hacking.html
Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t be a government minister. You also posted forum at some point, possibly drunk.
https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/child-dies-in-fire-in-greek-migrant-camp-1.8679732
I feel so tired.
It's going to get real bad.
And Greeces current government is very...Trumpian... I how it approaches refugees so expect victim blaming and no help.
That would require Joint List to be part of the government, seems unlikely.
There was a rumor that the government would last just long enough to pass a bill revising the eligibility rules for who can run/be pm to exclude those currently under indictment for a crime that would be disqualifying if convicted, then dissolve.
cool cool cool.
Enough people voted for Netanyahu that it's been in a deadlock for what seems like months and he was promising to do some pretty heinous shit, so it wouldn't surprise me.
Well so much for fucking THAT.
I'm not super up on Israeli politics, but I presume this means that Netanyahu wins.
Steam: CavilatRest
If I had to make a complete layman's guess, it's that Gantz talked to people and still couldn't make a majority without the Arabic parties, and some of the other people wouldn't support him WITH those parties, so (with the Covid lockdown and everything else) Gantz struck a deal to try to prevent a dictatorship. That's only through a lens of "reads an article once every couple weeks" though.
Is that enough to get around the statute of limitations?
He's been indicted already, what he needs is either a bill giving him amnesty or for the courts to stay closed.
The conflict is at this point a nearly incomprehensible clusterfuck with extensive international involvement. Turkey supports the GNA, arming them with drones and other weaponry and deploying its own troops in small numbers as advisers. More recently, Turkey has begun recruiting hundreds of Syrian rebels and transporting them to Libya to fight on the GNA's behalf. On the other side, the UAE and Egypt are strong supporters of Haftar, supplying drones, aircraft, and other support. This is one manifestation of the broader Middle Eastern rivalry between pro and anti-Muslim Brotherhood factions, with Turkey and Qatar generally backing Brotherhood-inspired political Islamic factions in the region and the UAE and Egypt opposing them in favor of dictatorships.
However, there is an odd wrinkle to this that has been surfacing since the Egyptian military overthrew Morsi back in 2013 - one that I do not fully understand. While Islamic reformist parties associated with the Brotherhood or similar in ideology are the sworn foe of the UAE, Egypt's dictatorship, and usually the Saudis, hardline Salafist factions tend to ally with the dictatorships propped up by these powers and against the moderate Islamic factions (who generally support representative democracy). Part of this may be due to Saudi backing for the salafist factions (hence geopolitical alignment), but I don't know if that fully explains it. Back in January, this NYT article described life in Haftar-controlled Libya, where this seemingly contradictory alliance is on display.
NYT describes LNA territory as "an unwieldy authoritarianism that in many ways is both more puritanical and more lawless than Libya was under its last dictator, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi." It sounds absolutely horrifying overall. And Benghazi is still in ruins, years after the LNA's street by street battle with Ansar al-Sharia.
Russia has become increasingly involved in the conflict as well, backing the LNA with hundreds or possibly thousands of mercenaries (many of them Sudanese). Today NYT published a very interesting article about Russia's involvement in the conflict. Russia is presented as being aware the LNA's offensive on Tripoli, launched last April, would be a failure, but regarded this as an opportunity to gain influence over Haftar by offering him assistance when he inevitably started needing it (in the form of the Wagner group's mercenary army).
Ominously, the article also mentions Russia hedging its bets by forging ties with Qaddafi's eldest son:
So not only do we have essentially a worse version of Qaddafi in Haftar, complete with many Qaddafi-era officials in his little dictatorship, but there's an outside chance that Qaddafi's son will himself succeed Haftar. It would be among the most tragic ironies in history after all these years and layers of civil war we ended up with the dynastic dictatorship the initial revolt was aimed at avoiding.
It also describes how John Bolton, prior to getting fired, gave Haftar a "yellow light" via phone call to launch the surprise assault on Tripoli, despite the rest of the world expecting the two sides to further negotiations toward a peaceful settlement. The US has largely avoided deep involvement in Libya since its bombing campaign against the government in 2011, aside from a brief campaign against ISIS a few years back. Europe doesn't have a unified position :
The situation in Libya was fraught and complex without this much foreign involvement. Now that the war has devolved into a geopolitical conflict between various outside powers - who are fielding mercenary armies from still other countries - it seems totally intractable. In Syria we have a recent example of how international alliances backing opposing sides can tear a country to shreds, as each coalition increases support for their proxies by increment when they start losing, causing the other side to do the same when the tide turns. This leads to either stalemate or escalatory spiral. Libya seems to be experiencing a similar phenomenon. If this all sounds like hell for Libyans, that's because it is. As the article I most recently linked begins:
Basically, in most of the cases I've researched using different primary sources (including declassified US intelligence products), as time goes on and far left movements engage in electoral or parliamentary politics they start to moderate and move towards the center (even if just from the perspective of "true believers") in the long term. This seems to lead to schisms in these movements of course. IIRC the Japanese far left movement split and led to the Japanese Red Army conducting direct action.
There's a surprising amount of parallels (and even direct relationships) between the mid 20th far left movements and contemporary and modern Islamist movements.
What I still find somewhat mystifying are the non-jihadist salafist factions like al-Nour in Egypt, who backed the military coup against Morsi, and UAE-backed salafist factions in Libya and Yemen. We see that the UAE and Egypt regard the more moderate Islamic factions as a dire threat and will take great pains to stamp them out, not only in their own countries but also abroad. Yet the Egyptian military dictatorship is fine with the main salafist party in its country, the UAE backs salafist militias in Yemen (who sometimes fight al-Islah, that country's Brotherhood spinoff), and the LNA - ostensibly a vicious opponent of political Islam, who fought the salafi-jihadist Ansar al-Sharia for Benghazi - is handing control of Islamic institutions in its territory to salafists (just not the jihadist kind).
It could be an issue of local context taking precedence over larger, regional political conflict. i.e. in the local context and current time, objectives line up between the states and the Salafist groups and the states see the Salafists as easier to control because they don't want to engage in electoralism. Or for some other reason, the states think they can quietly dispose of the Salafist groups once their objectives become disparate like Nasser tried to do to the Brotherhood after the 52 coup.
They seemed to have taken a page for our playbook and pulled the ole classic "get involved in a quagmire of a war for vague reasons with I'll defined objectivesbecause you dont like who's currently running the place"
To fuck over Syrian Kurds enough to intimidate their own Kurdish population into staying in line, I think?
Question is will Assad push em out?
In Libya, the situation is much more fluid, and the warring sides closer to parity. So a few hundred Turkish-backed fighters there are probably going to accomplish a lot more than they would on either of the Syrian fronts. In other words, Turkey knows that the rebels can't beat Assad and that the Syrian Kurds can't beat Turkey, but the GNA might be able to beat the LNA (or at least gain the upper hand) with a bit of Turkish backing, so Ankara is putting its resources where they'll have the most effect.
And it seems to be working, at least to some degree. While Haftar's assault on Tripoli had already bogged down prior to Turkey's expanded involvement, it's only recently that the GNA has been able to turn things around and go on the offensive, and I suspect Turkish assistance has a lot to do with that.
Spoiled for large image:
Almost all wearing masks too. Keeps people safer from viruses AND surveillance.
The war in Yemen had already heated up again this year, with heavy fighting in northern provinces like al-Jawf and Marib. The Houthis have made some significant gains, and the Saudis appear increasingly eager to find a way out of their seemingly unwinnable war. The Saudis have always prioritized the fight against the Iran-backed Houthis over divisions between factions in the south, but the UAE has been more interested in building up a proxy force of its own and indirectly controlling Yemeni ports. I suspect the UAE also sees al-Islah (Yemen's Muslim Brotherhood spin-off) as its main enemy in Yemen, rather than the Houthis. Al-Islah is the strongest faction in the south aside from the STC, but is also the main military force opposing the Houthis in northern and central Yemen. In other words, a war between al-Islah and the STC would be a massive opportunity for the Houthis, which is why the Saudis were keen to get all factions present in the south to stop shooting each other last year. These efforts now appear to have fallen through. The threat of COVID spreading in a country whose healthcare system has been bombed out of existence and that already deals with waves of cholera outbreaks adds another layer to Yemen's woes, and the southern capital was recently ravaged by flooding, which, while perhaps not as significant as the above events, caused significant damage and seems to have galvanized anti-government anger among people in Aden.
In other UAE-related news, Abu Dhabi is apparently attempting to gain control of a major Sudanese port, through a contract with its DP World corporation. This is the latest (potential) addition to the list of regional ports controlled by the UAE, including those in Aden and Socotra in Yemen, a breakaway region of Somalia (much to Mogadishu's dismay), and Djibouti.
I posted a couple months ago about how the ongoing conflict in the country has become increasingly internationalized over the last year. Increased Turkish intervention has dramatically altered the balance of power on the battlefield, enabling the GNA (UN recognized government in Tripoli) to inflict major defeats on General Haftar's LNA, essentially pushing the latter out of most of the Libyan west. Six months ago, GNA territory had been whittled down to Tripoli and Misrata, and Tripoli itself was besieged, with LNA forces pushing through the suburbs into the outskirts of the city proper. Most recently, the GNA has advanced on the city of Sirte, which has changed hands several times over the last decade, most recently falling to the LNA some months ago. While the LNA is still firmly in control of the eastern half of the country, the Turkish-backed GNA advance has alarmed Haftar's foreign backers - particularly Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, but also France and Russia. Recently, the French navy attempted to stop and search a Turkish naval vessel in the Mediterranean, under the auspices of Operation IRINI, a European effort to enforce the UN arms embargo on Libya. The Turks weren't having it, however, and they "flashed radar lights" while soldiers onboard manned weapons, forcing the French to withdraw. This resulted in the French government throwing a public tantrum about Turkish aggression in Libya/the Mediterranean.
France portrays its actions as neutral enforcement of the arms embargo, but other observers have noted that this is in effect a policy of blockading the GNA in order to aid Haftar, as the LNA's armaments are shipped overland via Egypt. Notably absent from France's statements are any criticisms of Haftar's backers violating the same embargo, despite plenty of documentation of UAE and Egyptian support. France backed Haftar in previous phases of the Libyan conflict, when the LNA was fighting hardline Islamic factions in the east, and seems to have continued preferring Tobruk over Tripoli. Greece, while less directly involved, also opposes Turkey's involvement in Libya. Much of this is due to tensions over Mediterranean gas deposits: Turkey has signed maritime exploration and demarcation agreements with Tripoli (thus making Tripoli's fall to Haftar unacceptable for Ankara), while Greece fears that these deals could interfere with its own exploitation of Mediterranean gas.
Within Libya itself, the war took a particularly horrifying turn recently, as GNA forces have discovered numerous mass graves in the territory previously controlled by Haftar's forces. I linked an NYT article about life in LNA controlled Libya some time ago, which made Haftar's dictatorship sound pretty horrifying; judging by recent reports it is worse than anyone thought. While the UN has issued disapproving statements, Haftar's friends (including France) are notably silent about the discovery of these mass graves in Tarhouna and elsewhere.
And now Egypt is threatening a direct invasion in support of Haftar, declaring Sirte - the current frontline - a "red line" that if crossed by the Turkish-backed GNA would lead to confrontation with the Egyptian army. Egypt's dictatorship regards the Muslim Brotherhood and its spinoffs, which held power in Egypt prior to the 2013 coup and were on the receiving end of a particularly brutal massacre at the hands of the Egyptian military - as the greatest threat to its power, and the Libyan government backed by Turkey includes some Brotherhood-aligned factions (plus, Ankara is MB-friendly in its foreign policy generally). They appear to see Haftar's losses and the prospect of a GNA victory in the Libyan Civil War as unacceptable, and appear willing to directly confront Turkey to stop it.
In the background are Russia, which has supported the LNA through the Wagner mercenary organization but maintains communications with both Libyan governments and doesn't appear deeply committed to Haftar, and the US, which has been remarkably uninvolved in the civil war, but which recently issued statements expressing concern about the Russian presence in North Africa and promised expanded military cooperation with neighboring Tunisia in response. Direct warfare between Turkey and Egypt on Libyan soil would be a major escalation with the potential for broader regional destabilization; I suspect that Moscow and Washington share an interest in avoiding that outcome and that they will probably put diplomatic pressure on the two sides to step back from the brink.
All of this is pretty awful from the perspective of the Libyans themselves, who certainly never wanted their country to become the site of an international struggle for geopolitical positioning and energy resources. But it strikes me that this is a sort of predictable outcome after 2011; after the destruction of a centralized state, you end up with fragmentation between factions struggling for power, and that environment provides an opportunity for outside actors to attempt to capitalize by choosing sides, who then become dependent on their foreign benefactor and grant them more influence in the country.