Category: Daniel Serwer
Coalition as the Syrian Kurds’ air force
My friends at peopledemandchange.org have put together the data to show it (and I’ve made a few minor editorial changes):
The international coalition members conducting airstrikes in Syria include the United States, Bahrain, Canada, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. According to information provided by the Pentagon in daily briefing a total of 1077 airstrikes were conducted in Syria in the first six months of 2015. More than half of the airstrikes targeted the ISIS targets in the area around Kobani.
The attacks were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve which has as its mission “to eliminate the ISIL terrorist group and the threat they pose to Iraq, Syria, the region, and the wider international community.” In September 2014 the campaign of airstrikes started with the US taking out multiple Khorassan Unit targets in the wider Aleppo area, a place where al-Qa’ida had been operating a series of safe houses since 2003. The airstrikes conducted by the coalition in 2015 did not target the Syrian army, Jabhat al-Nusra or the Khorassan unit.
This analysis is based on the daily Department of Defense statements about the airstrikes:
In total 924 airstrikes where in support of the Kurdish YPG militia in Northern Syria. Around Kobani 603 airstrikes took place and in Hasakah 284. In June 2015, 37 strikes took place near the border town Tel Abyad, where the YPG started an offensive, with support of the FSA, to push back ISIS in their main province Raqqah. Also in June the Coalition air forces bombed 35 targets near Raqqah, the same amount of air raids as the five months before.
Most of the targets are ISIS assets like tanks, armored vehicles, AAA guns and ISIS tactical units. Other targets include ISIS fighting position and headquarters.
Deir Ez-Zur
As most of the targets are in direct support of defending or supporting YPG forces, there is a real difference with airstrikes by Coalition forces in the eastern province of Deir Ez-Zur. In the first six months of 2015 the province of Deir ez-Zur, including the border town Abu Kamal, got 57 coalition airstrikes. Most of the airstrikes took place in the months of January (17 airstrikes) and June, with 18 airstrikes. The airstrikes in the Deir ez-Zur province are different from other areas where the air strikes are directly linked to ongoing fighting. More than half of the airstrikes in Deir ez-Zur are linked to economic infrastructure. The Coalition targeted oil collection points, well heads, a refinery, oil pumps and pipelines and storage and staging facilities.
To specify the 57 airstrikes even more in-depth:
In total 31 of the 57 airstrikes in Deir Ez-Zur were economic targets, including 26 attacks on oil collection points, two wellheads, one on oil pumps, one refinery and one storage facility. The second group of targets was tactical in nature and included ten tactical ISIS units, two ISIS checkpoints and one fighting position.
The third group of targets, ten in total, were ISIS vehicles, including armored vehicles, a tank, an excavator, a piece of artillery and a MRLS system. Finally the last group of targets were ISIS buildings including two bunkers.
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Hangover coming
The folks celebrating the referendum “no” vote in Syntagma Square tonight in Athens are going to have a bad hangover. The Germans will likely stand firm, since doing otherwise would risk undermining the euro’s credibility. If Prime Minister Tsipras respects the referendum, Greek banks are unlikely to have sufficient euros to reopen as scheduled Tuesday.
Athens will need to issue a new currency, which will take time. Once issued, it will fall rapidly in value, making repayment of euro-denominated debt even more difficult. Several debt payments are due during July. The biggest slice is, ironically, owed to Germany (via Aljazeera): 
Sixty per cent is owed to EU member states and the European Central Bank (ECB). The amount is however relatively small from their perspective, so the default is unlikely to affect the euro much, unless nervousness spreads to Portugal, Italy and Spain. The ECB will want to focus its resources on preventing contagion. Negotiation of the “haircut” on the existing debt, which is what Greece hopes for, will take months if not years, making lenders leery of pouring good money after bad.
Out of the euro and issuing its own currency, Greece will theoretically be able to increase its exports and decrease its imports. But austerity will not end. Greece’s government will be insolvent and not creditworthy, making it impossible to stimulate the economy (or even pay government workers and pensions, except by printing money). Russia may ante up, but with far less than the situation requires. It will also insist on tough terms. Religious orthodoxy is no substitute for repayment guarantees.
Politics could intervene at any point, forcing Prime Minister Tsipras out and leading to formation of a new government committed to cleaning up the mess. But it will be years before confidence is restored. Greece has chosen a hard road that leads to an uncertain destination. Greece used to think it could get the Elgin marbles back from London. Now it will be lucky if it doesn’t have to mortgage the Parthenon.
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Independence and interdependence
It is Independence Day in the US, which marks 239 years since the representatives of the thirteen colonies declared in 1776:
That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.
The war that had begun the year before at Lexington and Concord (Massachusetts) continued, ending only in 1781 at Yorktown (Virginia). The peace was signed only in 1783 in Paris.
The United States and the United Kingdom fought again in 1812-15, but the UK did not intervene in the American civil war. By then British sentiment was mainly anti-slavery but the UK still relied on cotton produced in the Confederacy and feared industrial competition from the American north. It was only in the 1890s, more than a hundred years after the revolution, that America’s familiar friendly ties with the UK began to be established.
I tell this story not only because it is July 4, but also because it provides perspective on some of today’s problems. Kosovo and South Sudan are the world’s newest “independent” states. It would be easy to bemoan their current situations. Kosovo is suffering from economic doldrums and serious corruption. South Sudan is suffering a ferocious civil war that overshadows the economic doldrums and corruption that would otherwise be much in evidence.
Neither country is yet 10 years old. Kosovo has made good progress in normalizing its relations with Serbia, which is potentially Kosovo’s biggest market and its most obvious security threat. Khartoum may be aggravating South Sudan’s problems, but they are mainly internal. If only because of the Nile, which flows through both, Sudan and South Sudan will need eventually to establish what the Europeans like to call “good neighborly relations.”
Other trouble spots in the Middle East are also relatively young independent states: Libya (1951), Egypt (nominally 1922, but British troops didn’t leave until 1956), Yemen (British soldiers left in 1967, but the current state dates from the unification of north and south in 1990), Syria (1945) and Iraq (1932). They are suffering mainly from internal conflict, all too often precipitated or aggravated by outside powers. It is tempting to think that 100 years is still a reasonable time frame for state consolidation. Some of these states may not make it to that milestone.
Ukraine is in a similar situation. It achieved independence only in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It would have had internal problems in any event, but Russia has aggravated them by annexing Crimea and invading two of Ukraine’s eastern provinces.
Independence is hard, but many countries figure out how to govern themselves if left to their own devices. It is the interdependence dimension that often causes problems. The Saudi/Iranian rivalry has aggravated internal conflicts in Yemen, Syria and Iraq. Egypt and Libya have generated most of their own problems, which Islamic State affiliates are exploiting.
I can only wish that the evolution in the Middle East will follow the course that US/UK relations took, with many ups and downs, during the 19th century. Iran and Saudi Arabia, which are doing so much to fuel conflict today, have good reason to come to terms. Both are spending too much to achieve too little in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. ISIS challenges them both. It is not hard to imagine a positive-sum outcome to their current negative-sum rivalries. Interdependence may be hard, but it is a lot better than war.
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Unfuck Greece
It is difficult to write anything about Greece in the current confused course of events, but I thought this Guardian video captured the situation well:
Unfucking Greece will not be easy. I take it this is the International Monetary Fund report the government is relying on to claim that austerity won’t work. But what the report says is that the debt is unsustainable because of Greek government policy failures.
Later today the Greek Council of State is supposed to rule on the validity of Sunday’s referendum. If it goes ahead, it will be a referendum on staying in the eurozone, though the question posed is not about that but rather about the austerity package the European Union has been pressing.
If I were betting, it would be on a Greek exit from the eurozone, which seems to be the only way to force its creditors into restructuring and reducing its debt. But anyone expecting the good life to return with the drachma is fooling themselves. Devaluation will impoverish Greeks even further.
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Grexit is no exit
Here is Greek Prime Minister Tsipras announcing Sunday his intention to default on the country’s International Monetary Fund obligations:
What? You didn’t hear the announcement? Welcome to the Greek hall of mirrors, where calling a referendum triggers default but is announced to the public as a necessary exercise in democracy, unjustifiably opposed by Eurocrats.
Timing isn’t everything in international affairs, but it does count. Had Tsipras wanted to go to a referendum, he needed to call it earlier than he did and schedule it in advance of the default deadline, which is today.
He is right, however, about fear. And Greeks have a lot to be afraid of. Their banks are closed and may never reopen in a euro-denominated economy. People are withdrawing as much as they can at ATMs. A “no” vote in the referendum will end Greece’s access to euros and force it to print drachmas again, which will plummet in value and impoverish the whole country. A “yes” vote may lead to fall of the government, an interim administration, and the austerity Tsipras was trying to avoid, with serious consequences for pensions and jobs.
I suppose Russia may come to the rescue with a big loan, but that is a fate I’m not sure I would wish on my worst enemy. Putin’s money comes freighted with conditions and cronyism. It also has to be paid back.
However this plays out, Greeks don’t get a way out of the predicament into which they have driven themselves. At best it will be years before a semblance of normality returns. Ordinary people who have worked hard and saved will pay the price. The politicians who created the problem and others who then failed to solve it will try to reap support from the resentment Greeks will justifiably feel. Greece may be leaving the euro (or not), but it has no way to leave its problems behind.
Grexit is no exit.
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Self-defeating
Shpend Limoni at Pristina daily Gazeta Express asked some questions this morning about the defeat in the Kosovo parliament of the much-discussed proposal for a special court to prosecute some war crimes cases. Here in English are his questions and my replies:
Q: Kosovo rejected the creation of Special Court on yesterday’s vote in Parliament. US Ambassador Samantha Power a couple of days ago said that this issue would be a test for Kosovo leader’s credibility. Is there any consequence that Kosovo will face in the future?
A: Yes. At the very least, Kosovo will be seen as unwilling to administer justice to those who sullied the reputation of the Kosovo Liberation Army by committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and murder. For a country seeking international recognition and acceptance, that is not good.
There is nothing patriotic about such crimes—a Kosovo patriot should want to see the perpetrators brought to justice.
I hasten to add that it is not easy to do that. It is still too difficult for the Kosovo judicial system, which in any event has no jurisdiction over crimes committed in Albania. There is no realistic possibility of a serious prosecution in Kosovo.
Q: Prime Minister Mustafa and his Deputy Hashim Thaçi said that issue of Special Court would be on Kosovo Assembly agenda soon rejecting the creation of Tribunal by UN. Is it to late for Mustafa and Thaçi?
A: My understanding is that the constitutional amendment required failed to get a two-thirds majority by just five votes. That could change tomorrow if the political will can be found.
Q: US ambassador in Prishtina Tracey Ann Jacobson on here first reaction said that US won’t put veto against initiatives to establish a Tribunal under UN mandate. Do you think such Tribunal will be imposed?
A: Foreign Minister Thaçi said it well in Parliament: “We have two options: to create this court ourselves, together with the EU and U.S., and to end this issue once and for all in three to five years; or we fail and it will go to the U.N. Security Council where the court will be created by the opponents of Kosovo independence and will last 15 to 20 years.”
The sad fact is that Kosovo in the future will find it difficult to get many kinds of help from the US and EU if this decision stands.
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