تباين اميركي تركي يهدد تحالف واشنطن تضارب الاولويات في المسرح السوري

التحليل:

تباين اميركي تركي يهدد تحالف واشنطن

تضارب الاولويات في المسرح السوري

اميركا تهدد وتركيا تبتز:

اطلق نائب وزير الدفاع الاميركي، جون كيربي، تهديدا مبطنا لتركيا نهاية الاسبوع الجاري خلال سريان المحادثات المشتركة رفيعة المستوى في كل من انقرة وواشنطن، اذ قال: الاتراك "ليس لديهم مصلحة فحسب، بل هناك دور ينتظرهم" داخل ائتلاف واشنطن، مستدركا انه "تم ممارسة ضغط عليهم للعب دور" مميز.

          الموقف الاميركي اتى ثمرة لقاء عقد في واشنطن ليوم واحد ضم قادة عسكريين كبارا لـ 22 دولة مشتركة في الائتلاف، لبحث توحيد الرؤيا والجهود "لمحاربة الدولة الاسلامية في سورية، ترأسه قائد هيئة الاركان الاميركية، مارتن ديمبسي، كما حضر جلسة الافتتاح الرئيس باراك اوباما. لم يفلح اللقاء في زحزحة موقف تركيا التي تسعى للضغط على واشنطن انشاء منطقة عازلة داخل الاراضي السورية – مما يتيح لانقرة حرية الحركة وترحيل معظم اللاجئين السوريين اليها قسرا. بل ذهبت انقره الى اطلاق تمايز موقفها عن موقف واشنطن، التي بلورت نظرة مختلفة استنادا الى مصالحها الممتدة عبر العالم.

          توقعات الولايات المتحدة من اللقاء كانت شديدة التواضع. اذ اوضح الناطق الرسمي باسم قائد هيئة الاركان ان اميركا لا تتوقع ان يسفر عنه اتخاذ قرارات جديدة او التزامات متوقعة من الاطراف المشاركة. وقال ان الهدف "لقاء بعضنا البعض للبحث في الرؤيا والتحديات ومعالم المسيرة المقبلة."

          الرئيس اوباما ايضا استبعد التفاؤل وصرح بجملة لا تنم عن ترتيبات ينبغي اتخاذها داخل اللقاء. وقال "طبيعة الحملة ستكون طويلة الامد .. سنشهد فترات نحقق فيها انجازات واخرى تميزها الانتكاسات." كما جاء التوضيح على لسان مسؤولي ادارته بأن الاستراتيجية الاميركية الراهنة تنصب على "العراق اولا."

          الرئيس التركي رجب طيب اردوغان كان اشد وضوحا من نظيره الاميركي، اذ صرح امام طلبة جامعة مرمرة في اسطنبول ان اكبر تهديد تواجهه تركيا مصدره "لورانسات العرب الجدد" الساعين لزعزعة الاستقرار في الاقليم. واوضح ان "الصراع في هذه المنطقة تم تصميمه قبل قرن من الزمن .. وواجبنا يستدعي ايقافه." رمى اردوغان للفت انتباه كل من يعنيهم الأمر بأن بلاده تنوي العودة الى حدود وترتيبات الحرب العالمية الاولى – قبل تقسيمات سايكس – بيكو، واحياء حلم هيمنة الامبراطورية العثمانية.

          لخص معهد كارنيغي أس الخلاف الاميركي – التركي المعلن بالقول ان "يتبنى اعضاء الائتلاف مفاهيم متباينة فيما يخص آلية استتاب الاستقرار في الاقليم، بل لا تتوفر ارضية مشتركة بينهم حول تعريف التهديد الاساس" الذي ينبغي التركيز عليه. واضاف "لدينا كل هؤلاء اللاعبين الذين يتطلعون لتحقيق اهداف مختلفة وفي بعض الحالات تبرز مشاعر الكراهية العميقة بين طرف وآخر."

          بعد اشتداد حدة القتال في مدينة عين العرب – كوباني، نأت تركيا بنفسها عن التدخل لرغبتها في توفير الظروف المناسبة لمسلحي داعش السيطرة على المدينة وازاحة الكرد من موقع مميز بالقرب من الحدود المشتركة مع سورية. بيد ان صمود وعزم القوى الكردية واستماتتها في الدفاع عن مدينتهم مكنها من صد وتراجع المسلحين من معظم احياء المدينة ومشارفها.

من السابق لاوانه الجزم بصدقية وفعالية القصف الجوي للمقاتلات الاميركية والتحقق من ادعاءات الحاقها خسائر كبيرة بمسلحي داعش. بيد الثابت ان القوات الاميركية لم تضع مساندة القوى الكردية نصب اعينها منذ بدء الهجوم على المدينة نظرا للوجود الطاغي لحزب العمال الكردي وتشكيلاته الرديفة ممثلة في وحدات حماية الشعب في المنطقة، مقارنة مع تحركها العاجل ضد داعش في مشارف اربيل في العراق.

عين العرب – كوباني لم تكن ضمن اولويات السياسة الاميركية التي عبر عنها وزير الخارجية، جون كيري، بقوله ان المدينة "لا ترتقي الى هدف استراتيجي" ضمن اطر السياسة الاميركية. اما الغارات الجوية الاميركية في محيط المدينة استدعتها التطورات الميدانية لابقاء داعش ضمن الحدود المرسومة له كأداة هدم الدول الوطنية وتقسيم المجتمعات العربية وفق اسس طائفية ومذهبية.

          الحرب التي تقودها الولايات المتحدة، في سورية والعراق، لم تحقق نتائج ملموسة ضد الدولة الاسلامية في البلدين، بل ساهمت في  زيادة حدة التوتر في عموم المنطقة والذي من شأنه اشعال الحرب في عموم المنطقة. واقرت وزارة الدفاع الاميركية بعسر تحقيق الاهداف عبر الحملة الجوية، مما يعزز موقع ودور تركيا في الحملة الراهنة.

          مضت تركيا في ترتيب اولوياتها بمعزل عن الاهداف الاميركية، بما فيها الانخراط المباشر في الازمة السورية، مما وضعها في موقع مغاير لائتلاف واشنطن في هذا الظرف بالذات، وسعت لابتزاز الاخيرة بأنها على استعداد لدخول الحرب وانقاذ عين العرب – كوباني شريطة التزام الولايات المتحدة بهدف تدمير ليس الدولة الاسلامية فحسب بل نظام الرئيس السوري بشار الاسد.

استندت تركيا في قراءتها السياسية الى طبيعة فهمها لديناميات الجانب الاميركي، واعتقادها ان الولايات المتحدة غير جادة وينقصها العزم الضروري لشن حملة ناجحة في المنطقة، فضلا عن ضيق ذرع الادارة بقضايا الاقليم وتفضيلها بذل الجهود على المشهد الداخلي الاميركي في الفترة القصيرة المقبلة.

          كما تدرك تركيا محورية دورها في المعركة الحالية واشد ما تخشاه تحملها للجزء الاعظم من القتال ضد الدولة الاسلامية فيما لو انصاعت لرغبة واشنطن؛ فضلا عن تداعيات المعركة التي ستصب في صالح الدولة السورية ويحفزها استعادة السيطرة على اراضٍ فقدتها، الى جانب ادراكها استغلال سورية الاوضاع وتقديم الدعم لاكراد تركيا في قتالهم ضد انقرة "انتقاما" لدعم تركيا قوى المعارضة السورية.

          استشعرت تركيا غياب تماسك الاستراتيجية الاميركية حيال الدولة الاسلامية، وتشير تصرفاتها الى عدم الثقة بوجهة الاستراتيجية الاميركية التي تأرجحت في السنوات الثلاث الماضية بين هدف الاطاحة بالرئيس الاسد الى التكيف مع بقائه في السلطة، ومن توفير الدعم لقوى المعارضة السورية الى تفضيلها بقاء هياكل الدولة السورية على حالها.

الرؤيا الاميركية، بالمقابل، اوجزتها صحيفة "واشنطن بوست" حديثا انه "باستطاعة تركيا القيام بالمزيد. بل هي تريد من الولايات المتحدة حضورها وانجازها للمهمة" نيابة عنها. بينما حقيقة الأمر تدل على حث الادارة الاميركية لتركيا على الانخراط وانجاز المهمة بالتساوق مع استراتيجية الرئيس اوباما المعلنة، وليس استنادا الى ما تقتضيه المصالح التركية.

          سورية بقيت في عين العاصفة الاميركية ليس في بعدها المحلي فحسب، بل في بعد تحالفها مع ايران ودأب الاستراتيجية الاميركية على احداث الشرخ بينهما، او على الاقل ابعاد سورية عن دائرة النفوذ الايراني وترجيح كفة النظم العربية الموالية لواشنطن.

          القراءة الاميركية المفرطة في تسطيح المعادلة السورية اتى عليها بالفشل، واستطاع الرئيس الاسد كسب تأييد متنامي من الشعب السوري، وبالمقابل تضييق ساحة المناورة والدعم لقوى المعارضة السورية. وتدرجت حدة الحرب لتشمل اطرافا دولية هامة مثل روسيا ودول البريكس في مواجهة الصلف الاميركي.

          الخطاب السياسي الاميركي ادخل مصطلح "المعارضة السورية المعتدلة" عقب سلسلة هزائم تعرضت لها تشكيلات "الجيش الحر" وجبهة النصرة، والتنافس الحاد داخل صفوف المعارضة والدول الخليجية الداعمة، لضمان استمرارية دعم الشعب الاميركي للسياسة الرسمية.

في هذا الشأن باستطاعتنا القول ان السياسة الاميركية حيال سورية مرت في عدة مراحل: المراهنة على "الجيش الحر" في البداية؛ استحضار القاعدة ومن ثم داعش لتقويض سورية والعراق معا؛ بقاء المراهنة على تركيا وشهيتها لتقويض الدولة السورية واطماعها في ارض العراق؛ ومرحلة ربما قادمة تشير الى صيغة البلقنة في المنطقة. هذه "التطورات" فرضت نفسها على السياسة الاميركية التي لم تُسقط تشظي سورية من حساباتها، بل ادخلت تعديل على سبل واطر التعامل المطلوبة لتحقيق مصالحها العليا.

          يجمع الطرفين الاميركي والتركي على عدم التعرض لتنظيم داعش بغية القضاء عليه، فهو يخدم اجندة الطرفين في ابقاء فتيل الاشتعال ملتهبا وتوظيفه كادة ضغط على النظم والدول المعارضة للهيمنة الاميركية. ضمن هذا المنظار تتباين الرؤيا التركية مع واشنطن اذ لا تزال الاولى تضع اسقاط الدولة السورية على رأس سلم اولوياتها، بينما الاخرى اقضت مصالحها الآنية "التركيز على العراق اولا" لضمان استمرار الكيان الكردي باستقلالية عن الدولة المركزية – بصرف النظر عن هويتها الطائفية.

          استطاع تنظيم داعش وروافده التمدد مجددا في العراق، لا سيما محافظة الانبار المحورية، وبات يهدد مشارف العاصمة بغداد ومطارها الدولي. كما فاز التنظيم بمزيد من المعدات العسكرية والذخائر اميركية الصنع من الجيش العراقي. رغبة عدد من الاطراف وقف تمدد التنظيم تتطلب اتخاذ اجراءات وتدابير صارمة، تشمل خطوط الامداد الخلفية في تركيا وتدمير معداته باستخدام مكثف للطائرات المقاتلة، والأهم "اقناع" تركيا بفتح حدودها امام تدفق المتطوعين للدفاع عن عين العرب.

تقرير خاص وحصري

اميركا والسعودية تشتركان بانشاء سلاح جو للمعارضة السورية

        افادت مصادر موثوقة في واشنطن ان الولايات المتحدة تقوم بتدريب "طيارين من دول الشرق الاوسط" واعدادهم كنواة سلاح جوي مقاتل يتخذ مهامه في الاراضي السورية التي تستطيع المعارضة التحرك فيها بحرية خارج سيطرة الدولة. اجراءات التدريب تتم بسرية تامة ولا تخضع لقيود اتفاقيات بيع الاسلحة وتدريب الطواقم التقنية لدول اخرى.

          تجري التدريبات في حقل للرمايات تابع لسلاح مشاة البحرية في صحراء ولاية اريزونا بموازاة الحدود المشتركة مع المكسيك، يكنى بحقل "باري غولدووتر لرمايات سلاح الجو" للتدريب على عمليات قصف جو – ارض، باستخدام طائرات مقاتلة من طراز A-10.

          مقاتلات بريطانية الصنع من طراز "سترايك ماستر،" تستخدم لمهام التدريب بشكل حصري، والتي دخلت ترسانة سلاح الجو للسعودية ودول الخليج الاخرى بكثافة "وقد يتم تسليمها لاطقم طياري المعارضة السورية" في مرحلة لاحقة كجزء من سلاح الجو الذي يجري اعداده.

          يشرف على برامج التدريب طاقم من "المتعاقدين المدنيين مع وزارة الدفاع،" يمتلك الخبرة المطلوبة لقيادة تلك المقاتلات، قام بتوفير خوذات وبذلات عسكرية لا تحمل علامات تحدد هويتها للمتدربين الطيارين "الشرق اوسطيين،" الذين يقومون بطلعات جوية مساندة للمقاتلات الاميركية، في المرحلة الحالية.

(مرفق صورة للمقاتلة البريطانية على مدرج حقل الرمايات المذكور:

BAC Strikemaster light attack aircraft

        تعج معظم المدن الاميركية، الصغرى والمتوسطة، بمطارات خاصة بها تستخدم لاغراض التدريب وممارسة هواية الطيران على متن طائرات صغيرة.

        مدينة توسون بولاية اريزونا تضم "مطار رايان الجوي،" استخدم في السابق كأحد مراكز التدريب للطيارين خلال الحرب العالمية الثانية. وتجددت أهمية المطار حاليا والذي اصبح يستخدم للتدريب على مهام الدعم الجوي، وهي مهام مطلوبة لسلاح الجو الاميركي في غاراته المتعددة في كل من سورية والعراق، كما جاء في ادبيات شركة التدريب التي استقينا منها المعلومات المفصلة ادناه.

متعهد التدريب شركة محلية

        اوكلت مهام التدريب على الدعم الجوي لشركة خاصة محلية في اريزونا، بلو اير تريننغ Blue Air Training، والتي تعرف عن نفسها في موقعها الالكتروني بانها "رائدة في توفير التدريب على اعمال الدعم الجوي عن قرب في الولايات المتحدة .. تتميز اطقم تدريب الطيارين بالخبرة القتالية في افغانستان او العراق."

          الدورات التدريبية للدول الحليفة للولايات المتحدة تجري وفق ترتيبات معلنة مع سلاح الجو الاميركي. "الطيارين السعوديين،" مثلا، يجري تدريبهم في قاعدة ماونتين هوم بولاية ايداهو. اما "الطيارين من الشرق الاوسط يشرف على تدريبهم متعاقدين مدنيين مع وزارة الدفاع دون وضع علامات محددة على الخوذات او البذلات الخاصة بهم .. ونظرا لالتزام الولايات المتحدة بتدريب العناصر المعتدلة في المعارضة السورية، فالاحتمالات المرجحة انه يتم اعدادهم للقيام بمهام تشن اما في سورية او العراق."

          هناك 5 طائرات تدريب متوفرة لدى الشركة المذكورة  من طراز "سكاي ماستر .. كانت ملحقة بسلاح الجو السعودي والنيوزيلندي سابقا .. وجرى استخدامها على نطاق واسع في الشرق الاوسط."

Fareed Zakaria: Obama needs to dial back his Syria strategy

SURUC, TURKEY, October 16: Smoke billows in Kobani, Syria following an airstrike by the US-led coalition. (Gokhan Sahin/Getty Images)

From the start, President Obama’s Syria policy has foundered because of a gap between words and deeds. And he’s done it again. Having declared that the aim of U.S. policy is to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State, Obama now finds himself pressured to escalate military action in Syria. This is a path destined for failure. In fact, the administration should abandon its lofty rhetoric and make clear that it is focused on a strategy against the Islamic State that is actually achievable: containment.

Escalation in Syria cannot meet American objectives and is almost certain to produce chaos and unintended consequences. The central reality is that Washington has no serious local partners on the ground. It is important to understand that the Free Syrian Army doesn’t actually exist. A Congressional Research Service report points out that the name does not refer to any “organized command and control structure with national reach.” The director of national intelligence has testified that the opposition to the Bashar al-Assad regime is composed of 1,500 separate militias. We call a bunch of these militias — which are anti-Assad and also anti-Islamist (we hope) — the Free Syrian Army.

Scholar Joshua Landis — whose blog Syria Comment is an essential source — estimates that the Assad regime controls about half of Syrian territory, though much more of the population. The Islamic State controls about one-third of the country, and the other militias control a little less than 20 percent. But the largest and most effective of these non-Islamic State groups are al-Qaeda-affiliated and also deadly enemies of the United States. The non-jihadi groups collectively control less than 5 percent of Syria. Landis writes that, according to opposition leaders, Washington is supporting about 75 of these groups.

A U.S. strategy of escalating airstrikes in Syria — even if coupled with ground forces — would wish that the weakest and most disorganized forces in the country somehow become the strongest, first defeating the Islamic State, then the Assad regime, all while fighting off Jabhat al-Nusra and Khorasan. The chance that all this will happen is remote. Far more likely, heavy bombings in Syria will produce chaos and instability on the ground, further destroying Syria and promoting the free-for-all in which jihadi groups thrive.

Critics are sure this policy would have been easy three years ago, when the opposition to Assad was more secular and democratic. This is a fantasy. It’s true that the demonstrations against the Assad regime in the initial months seemed to be carried out by more secular and liberal people. This was also true in Libya and Egypt. But over time, more organized, passionate and religious forces triumphed. This is a familiar pattern in revolutions — including the French, Russian and Iranian. They are begun by liberals and taken over by radicals.

For any strategy to work in Syria, it needs both a military and a political component. The military element is weak. The political one is nonexistent.

The crucial, underlying reason for the violence in Iraq and Syria is a Sunni revolt against governments in Baghdad and Damascus that they view as hostile, apostate regimes. That revolt, in turn, has been fueled by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, each supporting its own favorite Sunni groups, which has only added to the complexity. On the other side, Iran has supported the Shiite and Alawite regimes, ensuring that this sectarian struggle is also regional.

The political solution, presumably, is some kind of power-sharing arrangement in those two capitals. But this is not something that the United States can engineer in Syria. It tried in Iraq, but despite 170,000 troops, tens of billions of dollars and David Petraeus’s skillful leadership, the deals Petraeus brokered started unraveling within months of his departure, well before American troops had left. This is not a part of the world where power-sharing and pluralism have worked — with the exception of Lebanon, and that happened after a bloody 15-year civil war in which one out of every 20 people in the country was slaughtered.

The only strategy against the Islamic State that has any chance of working is containment — bolstering the neighbors (who are threatened far more than the United States) that are willing to fight militarily and politically. They include, most importantly, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and the Gulf states. The greatest challenge is to get the Iraqi government to make serious concessions to Sunnis so that they are recruited into the fight, something that has not happened so far. All of this should be coupled with counterterrorism, which means strikes at key Islamic State targets, as well as measures to track foreign fighters, stop their movements, intercept their funds, and protect the neighbors and the West from a jihadi infiltration spilling over.

Obama’s Syria choices go from bad to worse By Philip Stephens

Obama’s Syria choices go from bad to worse

By

 

Philip Stephens

Barack Obama is too much the lawyer and too little the leader. Leon Panetta, the former US defence secretary, has a memoir to sell, but in truth, his critique of the president treads familiar ground. Administration officials, serving and retired, have long muttered about an excess of caution in the Obama White House. For what it is worth, America’s allies voice the same gripe. They often have a point. So does the president.

At first glance, the siege of the Syrian border town of Kobani by the self-proclaimed Islamic caliphate has handed ammunition to the critics. Only a couple of weeks ago Mr Obama declared, albeit after protracted hesitations, that a US-led coalition would degrade and ultimately destroy the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or Isis. Now the Sunni extremists are threatening to seize control of a swath of territory on the Syrian-Turkish border.

The US is getting no help from its nominal ally Turkey. Ankara is at best ambivalent about the fate of the Kurds in Kobani. Recep Tayyip Erdogan points to their close association with the Kurdistan Workers’ party, or PKK. In his eyes, that makes them terrorists. He seems content to see them encircled by Sunni jihadis.

Mr Erdogan’s broader strategic objective is to use the plight of Kobani as a lever to draw US forces into the Syrian civil war: Ankara’s support for the coalition against Isis has been made conditional on Mr Obama’s agreement to deploy American forces against Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Damascus. Thus Turkey will take on Isis only if the US promises to fight Mr Assad. The supposed “third” force in Syria – the moderate opposition – lives on only as a figment of hopeful western imaginations.

So the US is being asked to fight on both sides of Syria’s civil war. Even by the outlandish standards of the Middle East this looks a bizarre proposition.

An increasingly complicated armed conflict is pitting rebel groups not only against the regime and its allies, but also against each other

Mr Erdogan’s stance is egregiously cynical, but the region now broadly divides between those the US counts as adversaries and those it can consider unreliable (and duplicitous) allies. Support for Washington’s objectives even within the formal coalition assembled against Isis is limited and conditional. Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies are willing to constrain the Sunni extremists they have previously nurtured only in so far as this does not empower Iran’s Shia allies in Iraq and Syria.

Washington is everyone’s excuse. Hauling the US into the fight allows its supposed allies to avoid shouldering their own responsibilities for the region and to obscure multiple contradictions and hypocracies. Get Mr Obama to put boots on the ground and just about everyone will soon enough blame the US for the violent chaos that has become the story of the Middle East

Some, of course, say Mr Obama has himself to blame. The fatal hesitation came when he baulked at using military might to topple Mr Assad. By drawing, and then retreating from a red line over the use of chemical weapons, the president undercut decisively the US capacity to shape events.

Well, maybe. It is possible, just, that had Mr Assad been removed, Syria would have fallen into the hands of those now invisible moderates. It is at least as plausible, however, that the jihadis of Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra would have led the march to Damascus. No doubt that in turn would have brought calls for Mr Obama to redeploy in Syria the forces he withdrew from Iraq.

The president’s caution is in part a reaction to his predecessor’s mistakes. Whatever one thought at the time of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, one of the more obvious lessons of the conflicts was that initial military success is not a substitute for a strategy. What George W Bush, the former US president, had planned as a shock and awe demonstration of US power served in the end to present a painful lesson about its limits.

Mr Obama has taken an intelligent view of America’s place in the world. Perhaps there was a moment – during that brief interlude when the French railed against the “hyperpuissance” and commentators counted the US navy’s aircraft carriers – when the US could do what it pleased. If so, the kaleidoscope has since turned. The indispensable has become the insufficient power – and nowhere more than in the Middle East.
This is not to say that the cerebral president has played his hand well. Oddly, the world’s most powerful leader does have a blind spot about the exercise of power. Analysis has too often been the handmaid of paralysis. The critique that sticks is the one that says the US has been badly hobbled by Mr Obama’ s defensive deferral to the political advisers who fill the corridors of the White House. Mr Obama has disdained those in the foreign policy establishment who could have told him that inaction can impose a higher cost than action. He has failed to grasp the importance of perceptions. Foreign policy is not just about what this or that power could do, but whether others think it would actually do it.

It is much easier, though, to say the US approach to the Middle East lacks coherence than to set out what an effective strategy would look like. The cauldron of territorial and confessional rivalries and competing and overlapping allegiances does not allow for neat grand strategies.

 

Unless, that is, the west wants to start thinking about a Middle East in which Shia Iran rather than the Sunni autocracies of the Arab world provides the essential source of stability.

Can China and Russia Squeeze Washington Out of Eurasia? The Future of a Beijing-Moscow-Berlin Alliance By Pepe Escobar

 Can China and Russia Squeeze Washington Out of Eurasia? 

The Future of a Beijing-Moscow-Berlin Alliance 

By

 

  Pepe Escobar

A specter haunts the fast-aging “New American Century”: the possibility of a future Beijing-Moscow-Berlin strategic trade and commercial alliance. Let’s call it the BMB.

Its likelihood is being seriously discussed at the highest levels in Beijing and Moscow, and viewed with interest in Berlin, New Delhi, and Tehran. But don’t mention it inside Washington’s Beltway or at NATO headquarters in Brussels. There, the star of the show today and tomorrow is the new Osama bin Laden: Caliph Ibrahim, aka Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the elusive, self-appointed beheading prophet of a new mini-state and movement that has provided an acronym feast -- ISIS/ISIL/IS -- for hysterics in Washington and elsewhere.

No matter how often Washington remixes its Global War on Terror, however, the tectonic plates of Eurasian geopolitics continue to shift, and they’re not going to stop just because American elites refuse to accept that their historically brief “unipolar moment” is on the wane. For them, the closing of the era of “full spectrum dominance,” as the Pentagon likes to call it, is inconceivable. After all, the necessity for the indispensable nation to control all space -- military, economic, cultural, cyber, and outer -- is little short of a religious doctrine. Exceptionalist missionaries don’t do equality. At best, they do “coalitions of the willing” like the one crammed with “over 40 countries” assembled to fight ISIS/ISIL/IS and either applauding (and plotting) from the sidelines or sending the odd plane or two toward Iraq or Syria.

NATO, which unlike some of its members won’t officially fight Jihadistan, remains a top-down outfit controlled by Washington. It’s never fully bothered to take in the European Union (EU) or considered allowing Russia to “feel” European. As for the Caliph,

a 

 postmodern cynic might even contend that he was an emissary sent onto the global playing field by China and Russia to take the eye of the planet’s hyperpower off the ball.

Divide and Isolate

So how does full spectrum dominance apply when two actual competitor powers, Russia and China, begin to make their presences felt? Washington’s approach to each -- in Ukraine and in Asian waters -- might be thought of as divide and isolate.

In order to keep the Pacific Ocean as a classic “American lake,” the Obama administration has been “pivoting” back to Asia for several years now. This has involved only modest military moves, but animmodest attempt to pit Chinese nationalism against the Japanese variety, while strengthening alliances and relations across Southeast Asia with a focus on South China Sea energy disputes. At the same time, it has moved to lock a future trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), in place.

In Russia’s western borderlands, the Obama administration has stoked the embers of regime change in Kiev into flames (fanned by local cheerleaders Poland and the Baltic nations) and into what clearly looked, to Vladimir Putin and Russia’s leadership, like an existential threat to Moscow. Unlike the U.S., whose sphere of influence (and military bases) are global, Russia was not to retain any significant influence in its former near abroad, which, when it comes to Kiev, is not for most Russians, “abroad” at all.

For Moscow, it seemed as if Washington and its NATO allies were increasingly interested in imposing a new Iron Curtain on their country from the Baltic to the Black Sea, with Ukraine simply as the tip of the spear. In BMB terms, think of it as an attempt to isolate Russia and impose a new barrier to relations with Germany. The ultimate aim would be to split Eurasia, preventing future moves toward trade and commercial integration via a process not controlled through Washington.

From Beijing’s point of view, the Ukraine crisis was a case of Washington crossing every imaginable red line to harass and isolate Russia. To its leaders, this looks like a concerted attempt to destabilize the region in ways favorable to American interests, supported by a full range of Washington’s elite from neocons and Cold War “liberals” to humanitarian interventionists in the Susan Rice and Samantha Power mold. Of course, if you’ve been following the Ukraine crisis from Washington, such perspectives seem as alien as any those of any Martian. But the world looks different from the heart of Eurasia than it does from Washington -- especially from a rising China with its newly minted “Chinese dream” (Zhongguo meng).

As laid out by President Xi Jinping, that dream would include a future network of Chinese-organized new Silk Roads that would create the equivalent of a Trans-Asian Express for Eurasian commerce. So if Beijing, for instance, feels pressure from Washington and Tokyo on the naval front, part of its response is a two-pronged, trade-based advance across the Eurasian landmass, one prong via Siberia and the other through the Central Asian “stans.”

In this sense, though you wouldn’t know it if you only followed the American media or “debates” in Washington, we’re potentially entering a new world. Once upon a time not so long ago, Beijing’s leadership was flirting with the idea of rewriting the geopolitical/economic game side by side with the U.S

.

 , while Putin’s Moscow hinted at the possibility of someday joining NATO. No longer. Today, the part of the West that both countries are interested in is a possible future Germany no longer dominated by American power and Washington’s wishes.

Moscow has, in fact, been involved in no less than half a century of strategic dialogue with Berlin that has included industrial cooperation and increasing energy interdependence. In many quarters of the Global South this has been noted and Germany is starting to be viewed as “the sixth BRICS” power (after Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa).

In the midst of global crises ranging from Syria to Ukraine, Berlin’s geostrategic interests seem to be slowly diverging from Washington’s. German industrialists, in particular, appear eager to pursue unlimited commercial deals with Russia and China. These might set their country on a path to global power unlimited by the EU’s borders and, in the long term, signal the end of the era in which Germany, however politely dealt with, was essentially an American satellite.

It will be a long and winding road. The Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, is still addicted to a strong Atlanticist agenda and a preemptive obedience to Washington. There are still tens of thousands of American soldiers on German soil. Yet, for the first time, German chancellor Angela Merkel has been hesitating when it comes to imposing ever-heavier sanctions on Russia over the situation in Ukraine, because no fewer than 300,000 German jobs depend on relations with that country. Industrial leaders and the financial establishment have already sounded the alarm, fearing such sanctions would be totally counterproductive.

China’s Silk Road Banquet

China’s new geopolitical power play in Eurasia has few parallels in modern history. The days when the “Little Helmsman” Deng Xiaoping insisted that the country “keep a low profile” on the global stage are long gone. Of course, there are disagreements and conflicting strategies when it comes to managing the country’s hot spots: Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang, the South China Sea, competitors India and Japan, and problematic allies like North Korea and Pakistan. And popular unrest in some Beijing-dominated “peripheries” is growing to incendiary levels.

The country’s number one priority remains domestic and focused on carrying out President Xi’s economic reforms, while increasing “transparency” and fighting corruption within the ruling Communist Party. A distant second is the question of how to progressively hedge against the Pentagon’s “pivot” plans in the region -- via the build-up of a blue-water navy, nuclear submarines, and a technologically advanced air force -- without getting so assertive as to freak out Washington’s “China threat”-minded establishment.

Meanwhile, with the U.S. Navy controlling global sea lanes for the foreseeable future, planning for those new Silk Roads across Eurasia is proceeding apace. The end result should prove a triumph of integrated infrastructure -- roads, high-speed rail, pipelines, ports -- that will connect China to Western Europe and the Mediterranean Sea, the old Roman imperial Mare Nostrum, in every imaginable way.

In a reverse Marco Polo-style journey, remixed for the Google world, one key Silk Road branch will go from the former imperial capital Xian to Urumqi in Xinjiang Province, then through Central Asia, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey’s Anatolia, ending in Venice. Another will be a maritime Silk Road starting from Fujian province and going through the Malacca strait, the Indian Ocean, Nairobi in Kenya, and finally all the way to the Mediterranean via the Suez canal. Taken together, it’s what Beijing refers to as the Silk Road Economic Belt.

China’s strategy is to create a network of interconnections among no less than five key regions: Russia (the key bridge between Asia and Europe), the Central Asian “stans,” Southwest Asia (with major roles for Iran, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey), the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe (including Belarus, Moldova, and depending upon its stability, Ukraine). And don’t forget Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, which could be thought of as Silk Road plus.

Silk Road plus would involve connecting the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar economic corridor to the China-Pakistan economic corridor, and could offer Beijing privileged access to the Indian Ocean. Once again, a total package -- roads, high-speed rail, pipelines, and fiber optic networks -- would link the region to China.

Xi himself put the India-China connection in a neat package of images in an op-ed he published in the Hinduprior to his recent visit to New Delhi. “The combination of the ‘world’s factory’ and the ‘world’s back office,’” he wrote, “will produce the most competitive production base and the most attractive consumer market.”

The central node of China’s elaborate planning for the Eurasian future is Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang Province and the site of the largest commercial fair in Central Asia, the China-Eurasia Fair. Since 2000, one of Beijing’s top priorities has been to urbanize that largely desert but oil-rich province and industrialize it, whatever it takes. And what it takes, as Beijing sees it, is the hardcore Sinicization of the region -- with its corollary, the suppression of any possibility of ethnic Uighur dissent. People’s Liberation Army General Li Yazhou has, in these terms, described Central Asia as “the most subtle slice of cake donated by the sky to modern China.”

Most of China’s vision of a new Eurasia tied to Beijing by every form of transport and communication was vividly detailed in “Marching Westwards: The Rebalancing of China’s Geostrategy,” a landmark 2012 essay published by scholar Wang Jisi of the Center of International and Strategic Studies at Beijing University.

 As a response to such a future set of Eurasian connections, the best the Obama administration has come up with is a version of naval containment from the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea, while sharpening conflicts with and strategic alliances around China from Japan to India. (NATO is, of course, left with the task of containing Russia in Eastern Europe.)

An Iron Curtain vs. Silk Roads

The $400 billion “gas deal of the century,” signed by Putin and the Chinese president last May, laid the groundwork for the building of the Power of Siberia pipeline, already under construction in Yakutsk. It will bring a flood of Russian natural gas onto the Chinese market. It clearly represents just the beginning of a turbocharged, energy-based strategic alliance between the two countries. 

Meanwhile, German businessmen and industrialists have been noting another emerging reality: as much as the final market for made-in-China products traveling on future new Silk Roads will be Europe, the reverse also applies. In one possible commercial future, China is slated to become Germany’s top trading partner by 2018, surging ahead of both the U.S. and France.

A potential barrier to such developments, welcomed in Washington, is Cold War 2.0, which is already tearing not NATO, but the EU apart. In the EU of this moment, the anti-Russian camp includes Great Britain, Sweden, Poland, Romania, and the Baltic nations. Italy and Hungary, on the other hand, can be counted in the pro-Russian camp, while a still unpredictable Germany is the key to whether the future will hold a new Iron Curtain or “Go East” mindset. For this, Ukraine remains the key. If it is successfully Finlandized (with significant autonomy for its regions), as Moscow has been proposing -- a suggestion that is anathema to Washington -- the Go-East path will remain open. If not, a BMB future will be a dicier proposition.

It should be noted that another vision of the Eurasian economic future is also on the horizon. Washington is attempting to impose a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) on Europe and a similar Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) on Asia. Both favor globalizing American corporations and their aim is visibly to impede the ascent of the BRICS economies and the rise of other emerging markets, while solidifying American global economic hegemony.

Two stark facts, carefully noted in Moscow, Beijing, and Berlin, suggest the hardcore geopolitics behind these two “commercial” pacts. The TPP excludes China and the TTIP excludes Russia. They represent, that is, the barely disguised sinews of a future trade/monetary war. On my own recent travels, I have had quality agricultural producers in Spain, Italy, and France repeatedly tell me that TTIP is nothing but an economic version of NATO, the military alliance that China’s Xi Jinping calls, perhaps wishfully, an “obsolete structure.”

There is significant resistance to the TTIP among many EU nations (especially in the Club Med countries of southern Europe), as there is against the TPP among Asian nations (especially Japan and Malaysia). It is this that gives the Chinese and the Russians hope for their new Silk Roads and a new style of trade across the Eurasian heartland backed by a Russian-supported Eurasian Union. To this, key figures in German business and industrial circles, for whom relations with Russia remain essential, are paying close attention.

After all, Berlin has not shown overwhelming concern for the rest of the crisis-ridden EU (three recessions in five years). Via a much-despised troika -- the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Commission -- Berlin is, for all practical purposes, already at the helm of Europe, thriving, and looking east for more.

Three months ago, German chancellor Angela Merkel visited Beijing. Hardly featured in the news was the political acceleration of a potentially groundbreaking project: an uninterrupted high-speed rail connection between Beijing and Berlin. When finally built, it will prove a transportation and trade magnet for dozens of nations along its route from Asia to Europe. Passing through Moscow, it could become the ultimate Silk Road integrator for Europe and perhaps the ultimate nightmare for Washington.

“Losing” Russia

In a blaze of media attention, the recent NATO summit in Wales yielded only a modest “rapid reaction force” for deployment in any future Ukraine-like situations. Meanwhile, the expanding Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a possible Asian counterpart to NATO, met in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. In Washington and Western Europe essentially no one noticed. They should have. There, China, Russia, and four Central Asian “stans” agreed to add an impressive set of new members: India, Pakistan, and Iran. The implications could be far-reaching. After all, India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is now on the brink of its own version of Silk Road mania. Behind it lies the possibility of a “Chindia” economic rapprochement, which could change the Eurasian geopolitical map. At the same time, Iran is also being woven into the “Chindia” fold.

So the SCO is slowly but surely shaping up as the most important international organization in Asia. It’s already clear that one of its key long-term objectives will be to stop trading in U.S. dollars, while advancing the use of the petroyuan and petroruble in the energy trade. The U.S., of course, will never be welcomed into the organization.

All of this lies in the future, however. In the present, the Kremlin keeps signaling that it once again wants to start talking with Washington, while Beijing has never wanted to stop. Yet the Obama administration remains myopically embedded in its own version of a zero-sum game, relying on its technological and military might to maintain an advantageous position in Eurasia. Beijing, however, has access to markets and loads of cash, while Moscow has loads of energy. Triangular cooperation between Washington, Beijing, and Moscow would undoubtedly be -- as the Chinese would say -- a win-win-win game, but don’t hold your breath.

Instead, expect China and Russia to deepen their strategic partnership, while pulling in other Eurasian regional powers. Beijing has bet the farm that the U.S./NATO confrontation with Russia over Ukraine will leave Vladimir Putin turning east. At the same time, Moscow is carefully calibrating what its ongoing reorientation toward such an economic powerhouse will mean. 

Someday, it’s possible that voices of sanity in Washington will be wondering aloud how the U.S. “lost” Russia to China.

In the meantime, think of China as a magnet for a new world order in a future Eurasian century. The same integration process Russia is facing, for instance, seems increasingly to apply to India and other Eurasian nations, and possibly sooner or later to a neutral Germany as well.

 In the endgame of such a process, the U.S. might find itself progressively squeezed out of Eurasia, with the BMB emerging as a game-changer. 

 Place your bets soon. They’ll be called in by 2025.

Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times/Hong Kong, an analyst for RT, and a TomDispatch regular. His new book, Empire of Chaos, will be published in November by Nimble Books.

: من أجمل ما كتب جبران عن يسوع جبران خليل جبران العواصف

: من أجمل ما كتب جبران عن يسوع

جبران خليل جبران

العواصف

الانسانيّة ترى يسوع الناصري مولودا كالفقراء عائشا كالمساكين مهانا كالضعفاء

مصلوبا كالمجرمين...

فتبكيه وترثيه وتندبه

وهذا كل ما تفعله لتكريمه.

منذ تسعة عشر جيلا والبشر يعبدون الضعف بشخص يسوع،

ويسوع كان قويّا ولكنّهم لا يفهمون معنى القوّة الحقيقيّة.

ما عاش يسوع مسكينا خائفا ولم يمت شاكيا متوجعا

بل عاش ثائرا وصلب متمردا وماتجبارا.

لم يكن يسوع طائرا مكسور الجناحين

بل كان عاصفة هوجاء تكسر بهبوبها جميع الاجنحة المعوجة.

لم يجيء يسوع من وراء الشفقالأزرق ليجعل الالم رمزا للحياة

بل جاء ليجعل الحياة رمزا للحق والحريّة.

لم يخف يسوع مضطهديه ولميخش أعداءه ولم يتوجّع أمام قاتليه...

لم يهبط يسوع من دائرة النور الأعلى ليهدم المنازل ويبني من حجارتها الاديرة والصوامع، ويستهوي الرجال الاشداء ليقودهم قساوسة ورهبانا...

لم يجيء يسوع ليعلّم الناس بناء الكنائس الشاهقة والمعابد الضخمة في جوار الاكواخ الحقيرة والمنازل الباردة المظلمة, بل جاء ليجعل قلب الانسان هيكلا ونفسه مذبحا وعقله كاهنا.

هذا ما صنعه يسوع الناصري وهذه هي المباديء التي صلب لأجلها بإختياره الكامل،وباصرار تام..

ولو عَقُل البشر لوقفوا اليوم فرحين متهللين منشدين أهازيج الغلبة والانتصار...

إن إكليل الشوك على رأسك هو أجلّ وأجمل من تاج بهرام، والمسمار في كفّك أسمى وأفخم من صولجان المشتري، وقطرات الدماء على قدميك أسنى لمعانا من قلائد عشتروت.

فسامح يا سيد هؤلاء الضعفاء الذين ينوحون عليك لأنّهم لا يدرون كيف ينوحون على نفوسهم، واغفر لهم لأنّهم لا يعلمون أنّك.

 

صرعت الموت بالموت ووهبت الحياة لمن في القبور.

-------------------------- ------------- 

The New York Times Mr. Erdogan’s Dangerous Game Turkey’s Refusal to Fight ISIS Hurts the Kurds

Mr. Erdogan’s Dangerous Game

Turkey’s Refusal to Fight ISIS Hurts the Kurds

By THE EDITORIAL BOARDOCT. 8, 2014

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, once aspired to lead the Muslim world. At this time of regional crisis, he has been anything but a leader. Turkish troops and tanks have been standing passively behind a chicken-wire border fence while a mile away in Syria, Islamic extremists are besieging the town of Kobani and its Kurdish population.

This is an indictment of Mr. Erdogan and his cynical political calculations. By keeping his forces on the sidelines and refusing to help in other ways — like allowing Kurdish fighters to pass through Turkey — he seeks not only to weaken the Kurds, but also, in a test of will with President Obama, to force the United States to help him oust President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, whom he detests.

It is also evidence of the confusion and internal tensions that affect Mr. Obama’s work-in-progress strategy to degrade and defeat the Islamic State, the Sunni Muslim extremist group also called ISIS or ISIL. Kurdish fighters in Kobani have been struggling for weeks to repel the Islamic State. To help, the Americans stepped up airstrikes that began to push the ISIS fighters back, although gun battles and explosions continued on Wednesday.

But all sides — the Americans, Mr. Erdogan and the Kurds — agree that ground forces are necessary to capitalize on the air power. No dice, says Mr. Erdogan, unless the United States provides more support to rebels trying to overthrow Mr. Assad and creates a no-fly zone to deter the Syrian Air Force as well as a buffer zone along the Turkish border to shelter thousands of Syrian refugees who have fled the fighting.

No one can deny Mr. Assad’s brutality in the civil war, but Mr. Obama has rightly resisted involvement in that war and has insisted that the focus should be on degrading ISIS, not going after the Syrian leader. The biggest risk in his decision to attack ISIS in Syria from the air is that it could put America on a slippery slope to a war that he has otherwise sought to avoid.

Mr. Erdogan’s behavior is hardly worthy of a NATO ally. He was so eager to oust Mr. Assad that he enabled ISIS and other militants by allowing fighters, weapons and revenues to flow through Turkey. If Mr. Erdogan refuses to defend Kobani and seriously join the fight against the Islamic State, he will further enable a savage terrorist group and ensure a poisonous long-term instability on his border.

He has also complicated his standing at home. His hesitation in helping the Syrian Kurds has enraged Turkey’s Kurdish minority, which staged protests against the Turkish government on Wednesday that reportedly led to the deaths of 21 people. Mr. Erdogan fears that defending Kobani would strengthen the Syrian Kurds, who have won de facto control of many border areas as they seek autonomy much like their Kurdish brethren in Iraq. But if Kobani falls, Kurdish fury will undoubtedly grow.

The Americans have been trying hard to resolve differences with Mr. Erdogan in recent days, but these large gaps are deeply threatening to the 50-plus-nation coalition that the United States has assembled. One has to wonder why such a profound dispute was not worked out before Mr. Obama took action in Syria.