Day: September 24, 2024
Israel has chosen the wider war
Israeli warplanes are today striking more than a thousand targets in Lebanon. This ratcheting up of the conflict comes after Lebanese Hizbollah had launched hundreds of rockets in recent days against Israeli targets, including near Haifa and settlements in the West Bank.
There is always something the enemy did yesterday to justify what you are doing today. Israel is driving the escalation to pre-empt what it expects would be a major Hizbollah missile attack in response to the cell phone and pager explosions that last week killed and maimed thousands of its militants. Lebanese view the warnings to civilians as an effort to get them to flee.
The prospects are grim
Hizbollah has ample reason to try to duck the escalation. It is losing a lot of rockets to Israeli attacks. The President of Iran, Hizbollah’s sponsor, has indicated a willingness to de-escalate. Many non-Hizbollah Lebanese–while resenting Hizbollah–are not pleased with suffering the brunt of the Israeli attacks.* The air attacks have killed about 500 today alone. Many thousands of civilians are fleeing. But there is no sign that Hizbollah is willing to comply with Israeli demands that it move away from the border to north of the Litani River or stop the rocket attacks.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have reportedly not yet deployed sufficient ground forces for an invasion. The 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon did not go well. Israel will try to avoid a repeat. Its stated objective is to enable Israelis who have had to evacuate from near the northern border to return to their homes. A ground invasion would not serve that objective well, but it is still a possibility.
The regional situation
Israel is now at war with Hamas in Gaza, with the Houthis in Yemen, with Hizbollah in Lebanon, and with Syria, which actively supports Hizbollah. Military experts would not have advised opening a multi-front war.
But this serves Prime Minister Netanyahu’s political interests. So long as the country is at war, he can avoid an election. He is hoping that military success will erase resentment of his many defects and enable him to stay in power. Israelis have not forgotten the October 7 intelligence failure, his corrupt practices, or his extremist coalition partners. But so far postponement has worked, even if it is hard to see how it can work forever.
That said, the Arab countries of the region and Turkey object strongly to what Israel has done in Gaza. They will also protest what they are doing in Lebanon. The sympathies of the Arab and Turkish streets remain with the Palestinians. But the governing elites are happy to see Hamas and Hizbollah get their comeuppance. Both are Islamist movements, albeit one Sunna and the other Shia, that serve Iranian interests and are not welcome in most states in the region.
Implications for the US
The wider war means no negotiated end to the war in Gaza before the US election. This is fine with Netanyahu, who supports Trump’s re-election despite President Biden’s full-throated support for Israel.
Trump hasn’t been outspoken on the Middle East. That is because he would lose Arab American votes in Michigan and Wisconsin if he said he wants Israel to win and win quickly and big. But that is precisely what his Netanyahu-aligned advisors and supporters want. He would avoid the handwringing about civilian casualties Biden has evinced or the appreciation for Palestinian rights that Vice President Kamala Harris has voiced.
American restraint on Israel isn’t happening before the November 5 election. Netanyahu knows that. Expect him to use the next six weeks to continue to do as much damage as he can to Hamas and Hizbollah, no matter the harm to Arab civilians.
*Apologies: this sentence did not say what I meant in the original posting.
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This is pandering, not diplomacy
The US and Europe have now teamed up to applaud the mining of lithium–needed mainly for electric vehicle batteries–in Serbia. The enthusiasm is over the top. German Chancellor Scholz was in Belgrade for the July signing of a Serbia/EU “strategic partnership” on sustainable raw materials, battery value chains, and electric vehicles. The US has likewise signed an agreement on US-Serbia strategic cooperation in the field of energy in Serbia.
Brussels and Washington intend these agreements to encourage commercial exploitation of Serbia’s lithium deposits, under a contract with the British-Australian firm, Rio Tinto. Institutional investors (that is mutual funds, banks, pension and hedge funds) control 58% of Rio Tinto. The single biggest shareholder (11% Google AI tells me) is the Aluminum Corporation of China.
Not quite right
That is the first hint that something is not right. Washington and Brussels do not usually support British or Australian firms, or firms whose single largest shareholder is Chinese. But both the EU and US appear to have decided that Serbia’s lithium deposits are a top priority for electric car batteries.
But are they? Here is one picture of known lithium resources around the world:
Serbia’s lithium deposits amount to 1.3% of the global total. The resources are distributed widely around the world, most in the Western Hemisphere. Lithium is a commodity traded in a worldwide market, like oil. Serbia’s production has no great significance in this global picture.
Nor is the future market for lithium a sure thing. Other technologies are in the research and development pipeline. Five or ten years from now lithium is unlikely to be the only economically viable technology.
Why then?
Why then are European and American officials tripping over themselves to encourage the development of the Serbian lithium deposits? Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kasanof has even suggested the lithium project could block the rise of ethnic nationalism in the Balkans. Meanwhile,
Here is a hint of what is really going on: US Ambassador Chris Hill told a debate in Belgrade on political options for the Western Balkans that many of the people protesting against plans to mine lithium in western Serbia support Russia.
Those protests are the most serious opposition movement still extant in Serbia today. Red-baiting (if we can still label Moscow as “red”) the demonstrators aims to undermine their impact. That is not the usual US position on environmental concerns. But the Rio Tinto project is a top priority for President Vucic. We can only imagine why. He has no doubt told the local diplomats that he will greatly appreciate their help in squelching the protests.
Let me be clear: I have no objection in principle to economic cooperation with Serbia, or to environmentally and financially sound production of lithium in Serbia or elsewhere. But I do object to European and American officials trying to squelch environmental and financial concerns to please an increasingly autocratic president.
Appeasement is the policy
The diplomatic pandering is part of a broader effort to appease Serbia, provide it with economic goodies, and convince it to turn westward. Let’s skip whether redbaiting legitimate environmental criticism reflects Western ideals. The bigger issue is whether this approach has any chance of working.
It is notable that in neither the European nor in the American agreements cited above does Serbia undertake to conduct its mining in an environmentally sound or financially transparent way. The State Department made it clear the US wants financial probity. The European agreement does likewise. But Belgrade didn’t commit to it in either agreement.
Serbia has aligned itself militarily and politically with Russia and China since Vucic became President, the recent purchase of French Rafale warplanes notwithstanding. Belgrade has also undertaken repeated efforts to destabilize northern Kosovo and to undermine the independence of Montenegro as well as the territorial integrity of Bosnia. The idea that Belgrade can be convinced to embrace the West is dumb. Vucic will take EU money and American political pressure on his environmental opponents, but neither will make him give up his affection for like-minded autocrats with irredentist ambitions.
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