Western Hypocrisy Over St. Petersburg Attacks

It was a welcome change to hear the Western media acknowledge that the St. Petersburg bombing might have something to do with Russian foreign policy: the interventions in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Syria. Yet you will never hear such an angle raised when its an atrocity carried out in an American or a Western European city. In such cases any attempt to explain terrorism would be dismissed as making excuses for violence.

This moral blackmail was not deployed over St. Petersburg. What do we know about the attack? The main suspect Akbarzhon Jalilov, a Kyrgyz national, is accused of killing 14 people and injured 50 others in detonating a bomb in the St. Petersburg underground. Six people have now been arrested. They have been accused of recruiting for ISIS. The suspects are all from Central Asian states. This would fit with the analysis that the bombing was staged in reaction to Russian aggression.

Not only was Central Asia dominated by the Soviet Union, the region was on the frontline in the war in Afghanistan. Once the USSR had invaded Afghanistan, the war aims quickly changed to building a new society and occupying the country for the time being. The United States and its regional allies - particularly Saudi Arabia and Pakistan - established a network of jihadists to fuel the Afghan resistance to the Red Army.

The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan would come to a close by 1989. Gorbachev oversaw the withdrawal and warned the West that the forces they had mobilised in Afghanistan would come back to haunt them. Of course, the network behind Osama bin Laden and the attacks on the World Trade Centre had their origins in the Afghan struggle. The war itself would create a space for Eastern European dissidents to challenge regimes backed by the USSR. This combined with economic factors would bring down the Eastern bloc.

Events in Chechnya would be even more crucial for the terror factor in Russia. As the USSR was dismantled in 1991, Chechen Ichkeria declared independence under the nationalist leadership of Dzhokhar Dudayev. Growing instability and tension in the region would lead to the eruption of armed conflict in North Ossetia, the Chechens feared the presence of the Russian armed forces would be the first stage of mission creep. Dudayev imposed a state of emergency after Russia deployed troops to the border.

At the same time, Dudayev was facing a groundswell of opposition in the fledgling state. This opposition would turn to armed force in 1994. Boris Yeltsin pledged Russian support for the attempt to overthrow the Dudayev government. Yeltsin was desperate to bolster his domestic support in the midst of his disastrous economic reforms. The instability in the Chechen region offered an opportunity. The Russians backed the opposition in order to overthrow Dudayev and crush the example of independence.

However, Dudayev held his own from October to November against the forces Yeltsin had mobilised. Russian armed forces would play a clandestine role, but the Battle of Grozny left the Russian government humiliated after the Chechen independence forces captured a large number of military vehicles and personnel. It was meant to be a swift operation to topple the government. Faced with this, Yeltsin sanctioned the invasion of Ichkeria ostensibly to restore the territorial integrity of Russia.

The Russian army began bombing the Chechen air capabilities and within ten days the invasion was underway. Just as Brezhnev had mistakenly thought the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan would be successful within weeks the Russians now thought the Grozny government could be toppled. The war would rage for two years before a ceasefire was signed on Russian terms. Dudayev was assassinated in an 1996 airstrike.

With American help, Yeltsin would survive the Presidential elections of 1996. Estimates of the people killed in the first Chechen war range up to 100,000, along with 500,000 people displaced, in just two years of fighting. A new war would start in 1999 following the apartment bombings in Moscow and the rise of Vladimir Putin. The second war was waged by Russia and its Chechen allies to kill off independent Ichkeria and snuff out the emergent Islamist movement in the Northern Caucasus.

The first aim was secured, but an insurgency continues to this day. Russia has been struck by numerous bombings by Chechen Islamist fighters, and a key reason for the Russian intervention in Syria has been partly to extent the war against those same Chechens - now fighting in Syria alongside the mainstream rebels and an array of jihadist groups. Of course, the main reason has been to back the Assad regime - the only Russian ally in the region.

An honest look at the situation finds that the Russian government relies upon the Islamist threat to  justify its aggression in Syria. Even though Russia has been motivated partly by counter-insurgency in Chechnya, the main targets of Russian bombing have been the Syrian opposition and the civilians living in their territory, not Islamic State or al-Nusra. This in turn is a key factor in the continued threat of terrorism in Russia.

Chasing Dirty Sexy Russian Money!

Unless you’ve been in a cave, you will have heard the good news: George Osborne has found work at long last! The former Chancellor will soon be the editor of The Evening Standard, the only free London newspaper, distributed at tube stations across the city. Plenty of people have raised the issue of a conflict of interests, losing track of who has gone through the spinning door. The full picture is far more absurd than one politician’s decision.

The Evening Standard is owned by Alexander Lebedev and watched over by his son Evgeny. Former editor Sarah Sands is going to take up a new role at BBC Radio’s Today Programme – the bane of many progressive listeners! Clearly, Sands is no longer content with just presiding over a conservative newspaper. But wait there is still more to the spinning door of the mainstream media. The BBC media editor Amol Rajan, who oversaw the coverage of this story, was the editor of The Independent (another Lebedev publication).

So we have the former Chancellor joining the Lebedev payroll, with former Lebedev employees moving to prominent roles at the BBC. It’s almost as if it were not farcical enough for the former Chancellor to take a top job in the media. The line between the independent media and the political establishment appears to be increasingly blurred. In fact, it’s almost as if the presumed independence of the media is up for debate, the wall between the media and the establishment turns out to be nonexistent. The two turn out to be on the same side of one coin.

Should anyone be surprised by this? No, the mainstream media is the establishment. What we might call the commentariat has always existed. It has different sections of capital behind it, and different political factions within it. The vast bulk of the mainstream media is broadly right-wing and generally supports the Conservative Party, the left-liberal media is in the minority: you have The Guardian and its sister The Observer, along with The Daily Mirror (the only pro-Labour daily newspaper).

If people think the Russian factor makes this story unique, think again. London is awash with Russian money, including lots of dirty money. So the factor itself is not unique, though the details do matter. Fortunes amassed in the Yeltsin era of market-based chaos would be consolidated under the stewardship of Vladimir Putin. Former KGB man Alexander Lebedev emerged a wealthy man and soon began building a media portfolio and working with Gorbachev and others on political projects.

It’s not the first time Osborne has fraternised with Russian oligarchs. He was caught on a yacht in Corfu with Oleg Deripaska in 2008. It was alleged Osborne was looking to secure a £50,000 donation from the aluminium magnate. Also present was Peter Mandelson. It’s a great image, New Labour and the Conservative Party coming together aboard the yacht of a Russian oligarch. This isn’t to suggest anything improper was going on. Not at all, though it is interesting what goes on perfectly within the confines of law.

This article was originally published at Spectre.

Catastroika: Are the Russians Leaving?

Apparently, the Russians are leaving. Seemingly out of nowhere, Vladimir Putin declared that the operation had “largely achieved” the desired aims and Russian forces would be winding down operations in Syria. Not that this means the Russian military base will be dismantled. Far from it, the Russian invasion (yes, we shouldn’t mince words here) has entrenched the influence over the Assad regime, which it has strengthened. Out of 60 aircraft, the Russians have withdrawn 30. The picture is more mixed than the announcement of the mission’s ‘success’.

Of course, it’s not true that Islamic State has been decimated by Russian actions, however, the real aim was to defend the Assad regime and crush rebel groups. This may have meant bombing Islamic State’s positions, but it mainly meant striking at groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra, the Army of Conquest and the Free Syrian Army. These efforts gave the Syrian regime an advantage over the rebels. While it left Islamic State as a more distant foe. Keep in mind Bashar al-Assad can use ISIS to justify his own position.

If it is a choice between Islamism and Ba’athism, many would turn to Assad for order and security over chaos and terror. This falls apart when you look at the record. Assad has far more blood on his hands than anyone else in Syria. Many liberal and even leftist commentators have turned to argue for tactical and critical support for the Ba’athists. But this means, as long as the regime remains intact, the Arab Awakening will not have reached its conclusion.

Meanwhile the problem for liberal interventionists is precisely the lack of any credible force in Syria. Who do we need to defeat more? If we bomb ISIS, we help Assad and vice versa. Can we defeat both simultaneously and birth a secular democracy? Unlikely, as it may be, the only just outcome would be a democratic opening. Western intervention has served prolonged the conflict, whereas Russian involvement has consolidated the gains of the Assad regime.

At the same time, the Russian withdrawal sends a clear message to Assad. There are no blank cheques, or free passes, for the Syrian regime and Russian support may not be unconditional. Putin cannot do everything for Assad. The Russian army obviously cannot sustain a long-term occupation in Syria. Even the Soviet Union could not occupy Afghanistan for as long as the US has done. In fact, the Soviet experience in Afghanistan is particularly relevant to the Syrian intervention.

Defeated in slow-motion

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan came in 1979 after Hafizullah Amin organised the death of Muhammad Taraki and seized the reins in Kabul. Officially, the Soviet army intervened to aid the leftists in their struggle with the Mujahideen. Yet the true purpose of the intervention was take control of the country and restore order.

The People's Democratic Party came to power in 1978 with the violent overthrow of President Daoud. Once at the helm, Muhammad Taraki and Hafizullah Amin declared a revolution and proceeded to try and transform the country by breaking apart the remaining feudal structures. They declared women equal, abolished shariah, criminalised arranged marriages and began redistributing land. The new regime began converting opium production towards agricultural development. But these reforms would bring unforeseen consequences.

Prior to this upheaval, the Soviet Union was more than comfortable with the Afghan monarchy, which guaranteed stability, even as it pursued modernisation programmes. Afghanistan itself is valuable as a source of natural gas, but also as a route for pipelines. The revolution threw them off and provoked rebellion in the countryside, where the leftists were carving up the land. This would be the beginning of the Islamist revolt. What the Soviet leaders feared most was that this instability would engulf Central Asia.

After all, the region was predominantly Muslim and a valuable cluster of buffer-states between Russia and China, Iran and Pakistan. Much like the Eastern bloc, the hold on energy-rich Central Asia helped the USSR stand tall as a superpower. This is exactly why the US moved to back the insurgents. The day Soviet forces crossed the border, officially, national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote to President Carter: “We now have the opportunity of giving the USSR its Vietnam War”.

It's not that the Soviet leadership was ignorant of this factor. Alexei Kosygin was opposed to sending troops to Afghanistan precisely because of the example of Vietnam. In Kosygin’s view, the new regime should be able to hold its own against the rebellion, as North Vietnam had triumphed over the South and even against American aggression. Yet the balance of forces in the Soviet leadership still favoured intervention. In the end, Leonid Brezhnev was persuaded to back the intervention after Hafizullah Amin had Taraki smothered with a pillow.

Of course, financial support for the Mujahideen was already under way even before the invasion was launched. The CIA, with the help of Pakistan and Saudi, had set out to built a vast network of Islamist militants. This gave Arab regimes the opportunity to rid themselves of these troublesome elements. Far from harbouring any regrets, Zbigniew Brzezinski says he would do it again if he could go back. As Brzezinski personally told Islamists in the mountains: “Your fight will prevail... because your cause is right and God is on your side.”

Without any institutional framework for government, the country descended into civil war as the informal networks of power, both communal and tribal, were easily fractured and broke apart. This process would destroy the fabric of Afghan society. The US considered the reversal of social progress in Afghanistan as a necessary part of the efforts to defeat the Soviet-backed regime. Later the journalist Alexander Cockburn would read out a portion of a document seized during the Iran Hostage Crisis on the eve of the NATO-ISAF war in 2001:

The United States’ larger interest would be served by the demise of the Taraki-Amin regime despite whatever setbacks this might mean for future social and economic reform in Afghanistan. The overthrow of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan would show the rest of the world, particularly the Third World, that the Soviet’s view of the socialist course of history being inevitable is not accurate.

Although the Soviet intervention came with few humanitarian illusions, the occupation would soon take the shape of the civilising missions launched by European empires. Babrak Karmal, the leader of the Parcham faction, was installed as leader, while the USSR set about shaping the country in its image as it waged a brutal counter-insurgency campaign. The new narrative would be that the occupation was necessary to defend the rights of women from the reactionary forces mobilising against the regime.

Realpolitik was not enough in the end. The brutality of the Soviet occupation had to be dressed up as an expression of solidarity justified by socialist internationalism. As the years passed it became more and more evident that the occupation could not be sustained. Gorbachev would initiate an exit strategy concluding in total withdrawal in 1989. Just as the US would invade Afghanistan in 2001 in an act of vengeance - against the same network it helped to establish years earlier - only to discover the cause of women's rights. In both cases, the invaders were defeated in slow-motion.

Life after defeat

Members of the CIA would later claim the Soviet collapse was a result of endogenous factors. It fell apart like a house of cards because it was a house of cards. The political system was bankrupt and no longer functioned. So this had little to do with US policy. If anything, observers like Archie Brown have argued the Cold War helped preserve the USSR and not bring it down. But this was not the view taken by the Mujahideen. Many of the Islamists believed that they helped to bring down the USSR. They are not alone either.

Journalist Robert Fisk takes this view. It can be argued that the defeat of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan became so costly, it opened up a space for dissidents to win major battles in Eastern Europe. This was clear by 1981 when KGB chief Yuri Andropov (Putin’s hero, incidentally) persuaded Brezhnev not to intervene in Poland. It was evident that the system could not sustain such adventurism. In other words, the USSR could not repeat the actions it took in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and in Hungary in 1956.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian foreign policy has been primarily concerned with national sovereignty. This was the basis of Boris Yeltsin’s postures over Serbia and Chechnya. The brief war with Georgia, and the conflict in eastern Ukraine, also fits this pattern. Although Syria shares no borders with Russia, the civil war could well have implications for Chechen jihadists. It’s easy to sell the intervention as ‘defensive’ within Russia. Despite the economic problems Putin can still bolster support through jingoism.

The key question for Putin is how long can this last? Oil prices remain low and the sanctions are hitting the government and its oligarchs. Putin’s credibility is at stake. He is widely credited with ending the economic chaos of the 1990s. The military adventures are incidental, whether it’s Chechnya or Syria. If the economic problems facing the country cannot be resolved, there may be more trouble on the horizon.

This article was originally published at Souciant.

Putin versus the BBC

Last week, BBC Panorama shone a bright light on President Putin and allegations of corruption against the Russian leader. At first the programme focuses on Putin’s lifestyle - his expensive watches and tracksuits - and quickly moves on to hearing journalists, former allies and politicians dredge up old accusations: $40 billion in assets and the Cape Idokopas palace. It notes that the CIA and the FBI agree that Putin may be worth $40 billion in assets.

We’ve heard much of this before. However, Panorama does flesh out its coverage with new goodies for its viewers. The US Treasury’s Adam Szubin makes an appearance to call Putin ‘corrupt’ provoking outrage from Russia. There have been calls for evidence to be put forward. It’s obvious the truth isn’t really the point here. The US and Russia are at odds more so than ever. The crisis in Ukraine and the Syrian civil war have brought tensions to the surface.

Of course, this isn’t to say Vladimir Putin is beyond corruption. He’s often described as presiding over a ‘Mafia state’, and with good reason. The allegations against Putin are certainly plausible given the state of Russia’s body politic, yet the more interesting question may be why the BBC would take aim at Putin now. It’s not like corruption and authoritarianism are new to Russia. No immaculate figure could pass through the system and reach its heights. History tells us all we need to know.

Rule by excrement

Under the Yeltsin administration, the level of corruption was so rife there was an investigation into allegations of embezzlement of funds through the refurbishment of the Kremlin. The coterie of oligarchs around President Yeltsin - particularly Boris Berezovsky, Roman Abramovich and Mikhail Khodorkovsky - brought in Putin as a new weapon to be deployed against the investigators. Putin did a good job in quashing the investigation. He was soon on track to succeed Yeltsin and become the leader he is today.

This background story is removed from most reportage. It’s particularly inconvenient given the West’s love affair with Russian oligarchs. The British media romanticises figures like Berezovsky and Khodorkovsky. Both men are now portrayed as dissident critics of the Putin regime. Evidently, the West still harbours nostalgia for the Yeltsin era, when the Russian economy was prised wide open, and the state was stripped bare of its regulatory powers. Never mind corruption. Never mind the plight of Chechnya.

The Panorama documentary shows us that the system is based upon patronage throughout a state-embedded elite. This is far from the free-market utopia, which was meant to emerge under Boris Yeltsin. Instead the period of primitive accumulation created the basis, not for market democracy, but for Russian nationalism to be rejuvenated. As a consequence of Yeltsin’s rule, many Russians jokingly equate democracy with rule by excrement. Shitocracy might be the word for it in English.

The best parts of the documentary provided some details of Putin’s inner circle. It turns out Putin has maintained his team from St Petersburg. This includes his old lawyer Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as Russia’s Prime Minister alongside President Putin. Even neighbours and childhood friends have done very well for themselves. Putin’s former assistant Igor Sechin, who now chairs Rosneft, and economist Alexey Miller, now the head of Gazprom.

None of this is very surprising. It’s compatible with the kind of political system preferred by the former KGB agent. An admirer of the conservative French strongman Charles de Gaulle, Putin believes in the confluence of national and corporate interests. The idea being that this guarantees capital will comply with the body national and its needs. He thinks he can unite the powers of the state with the economy. This leaves room for state intervention, protectionism and a lot of corruption.

The key difference between Yeltsin and Putin has set out to block the US in its pursuits. While Yeltsin allowed the Soviet Union to be dismantled, Putin clearly mourns the loss of the Eastern bloc as a buffer region. NATO can no longer be kept away from Russia’s periphery. The crisis in Ukraine emerged out of the tension between NATO expansion and Russian nationalism. Now Putin has intervened in Syria to challenge US policy on a new front. The BBC has clearly taken sides, but this is nothing new.

The role of the BBC

Much like the New York Times, the BBC sets the contours of public debate and its coverage becomes history. Contrary to the popular misconception, the BBC does not have a left-wing bias and its coverage really straddles the centre of politics. This is also something the BBC has in common with the New York Times. It's standpoint really oscillates around the so-called ‘centre-ground’. Yet the corporation is as much constitutive of the centre, the left and the right, as it channels the flow of discourse.

Although the BBC hopes to stand as an impartial intersection, the truth is far more complex. If the BBC wants to get both perspectives on a political issue it usually asks a Conservative and a Labourite to comment. This excludes everything beyond these tribal affiliations. Programmes like Question Time and Newsnight become opportunities for the political class to assert itself. Discussions can only take place within the realm of certain assumptions.

Despite the right-wing accusations of rampant ‘political-correctness’, the BBC was the home of Jeremy Clarkson for many years and Nigel Farage is a regular guest on Question Time. Many BBC journalists were cheerleaders of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Famously, Andrew Marr was eager to herald the vindication of Blair over Iraq. The same was true over Syria. As David Cameron was pushing for bombing in 2013, the BBC aired discussions with hawks Bernard Kouchner, David Aaronovitch and Paul Wolfowitz. The only dissenting voice was Mehdi Hasan, a liberal Muslim journalist.

However, the pro-war bias is not consistent. With the rise of Islamic State, Newsnight allowed Patrick Cockburn to talk freely about the Syrian civil war, and he is far from an advocate of Western intervention. Meanwhile the BBC has, for the most part, supported a narrative around Ukraine favouring the US and the EU over Russia. You can either support the West and its ‘values’, or you’re secretly sympathetic to Russian aggression. Other positions are disregarded from the outside.

‘Objectivity’ is based on the exclusion of particular viewpoints. There is no space for inclusivity here. If you’re beyond the reach of conventional opinion, you will be policed and demonised. For example, you could only be for some kind of austerity and not against it outright. The contours of official truths can only be perceived once you’ve cleaved away everything else. This is only possible if the BBC is partial. In this way, the BBC sets the agenda for the British media. This is why it is both loved and loathed.

This article was first published at Souciant.

Catastroika: Putin's Syria Policy

So Russia is now an active participant in the Syrian civil war. The pretext is standard: Islamic State must be defeated at any cost to the Syrian people. Yet the bombs are falling on other rebel targets - al-Qaeda's Jubhat al-Nusra, no doubt - and civilian targets are not out of bounds. Russian bombs have already hit hospitals and medical centres. These incidents will only increase as the bombing continues and the war continues to hurtle onward.

As I wrote before the Russian army began bombing Syria, Vladimir Putin has a more coherent strategy than the Western powers - which still cling to the hope that Islamic State and Assad can be defeated at once. Putin begins from a different premise: Assad's regime is the most legitimate force in the war. This may be a key strength, but it doesn't guarantee victory - nor does it justify itself. Four years of war have left 250,000 people dead, maybe more, and displaced millions.

No one power seems capable of destroying the other. But this could quickly change. Bashar al-Assad could be ousted by his generals. Islamic State could takeover a major city and declare a new capital, which would be a tremendous blow. That's why Assad has been so desperate to cling onto Aleppo. If the Alawite-Sunni alliance, on which the Syrian regime depends, collapses then there will be a strong power vacuum.

The endless war

In this case, Syria will fall into the abyss, as if the conflict wasn't already bad enough, imagine total chaos. It's plausible external powers would back whichever factions they can to try and regain control over the situation. There are a hand full of countries where this has happened: Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya and now Syria possibly. It's not pretty, to put it mildly.

Russia has been here before. In December 1979 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, first to topple Hafizullah Amin, who it found untrustworthy and unstable, then it set about trying to turn the Parcham wing of the People's Democratic Party into the centre of power in the country. Babral Karmal was its Menshevik front man. The Mujahideen, backed by the US and Pakistan, was its adversary. In the end, the Soviet Union was humiliated.

Today Russia cannot afford to reenact this catastrophe. Despite this historical lesson, the Putin government has not been deterred from de facto invading Syria on the side of the Assad regime. Up to now, Putin was playing the distant game. In early 2013 Putin made his stance clear at the UN Security Council and stood in unanimity with China. When it looked like the US was getting ready for 'punitive bombing' in August 2013 Putin was sending arms to Assad.

Now Putin has 'little green men' flying over Syria to dump explosives on the rebels. There has been a dramatic shift since 2013 and it may come down to one country: Ukraine. The Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea provoked outrage in the West and led the US and the EU to impose sanctions on the Russian Federation. As wrong as it was for Russian troops to march into a sovereign nation-state, the most outraged squeals came from war criminals.

As the Russian economy faces bleak prospects - thanks to the collapse of oil prices, never mind the sanctions - the Ukrainian crisis is being felt in the homes of ordinary Russians. If Putin cannot stabilise the economy he could face serious domestic opposition. The boost in popularity over Ukraine could easily disappear. The end of the Yeltsin years left Putin with a great deal of credibility. He appeared as a necessary force providing order and stability.

High-risk strategy

According to financial journalist Andrew Critchlow, Putin is playing a high-risk strategy to drive oil prices up. To undermine the Russian economy, the US and Saudi Arabia have repeatedly slashed oil prices. This has hit Russia hard, but it also threatens to destabilise the Saudi dictatorship. Rather than back down Putin has moved to confront his enemies via the Syrian civil war. He has moved to strengthen the Syrian regime and the Iranian government, which pose serious obstacles to Saudi Arabia.

By invading Syria, Russia can throttle the jihadi rebels mobilised by Saudi and Qatari petro-dollars. It might be the means to exhaust the Saudi royal family. King Salman can't afford to face chaos at home either. If the House of Saud feels its position threatened by the Syrian civil war it may back down. In this case, King Salman may cut oil production to allow prices to rise. This would help ease the strain of the Russian economy.

Along these lines, as Critchlow's theory goes, the Syrian civil war could threaten the ruling order in the Saudi Kingdom and the Russian Federation. If Putin's gamble leads all sides to push harder, then it's possible everyone would lose out. Even in that case, it's likely oil prices will have to stabilise in the end. In the meantime, as the civil war reaches new suicidal heights, the Syrian people are the real losers.

If the Russian air strikes can weaken the rebels, the Syrian regime can hold onto its gains and may be even expand its reach. This could force the Western powers to accept new terms of negotiation. In this scenario, Putin will have won and the US will have been humiliated. If Putin can do this and force the Saudis to raise oil prices this victory will be twofold. But the stakes are high and the war is far from cold.

This article was originally published at Souciant.

Catastroika: What's Syria in Russian?

In realpolitik minds, Vladimir Putin casts the shadow of a shrewd player on the world stage. He opposes ‘humanitarian interventions’, while he aggressively defends Russia’s national sovereignty. Even still, it’s true Putin understands power as well as he wields it. Putin’s primary interest is in the consolidation of the state and the maintenance of its power.

As recent events in Ukraine, and less recently in Georgia, demonstrate, Putin wants to secure the body national above all else. So why is there a Russian military presence in Syria?

For decades, the Assad regime maintained itself as a wedge between the Sunni elite and the Alawite military leadership. When the uprising began it had a popular, secular and democratic character (though these elements still exist) which was comprised by a diverse base. It was during the crackdown that it spiraled into a cycle of violence, into which hordes of Sunni Islamists flooded. As the uprising descended into a bloodbath, Putin may have began counting the miles between Syria and Chechnya.

The fact that the Chechen cause of independence from Russian hegemony has drawn Islamists from the Arab world must be unsettling. The prospect of Islamic State emerging from the chaos in Syria has sent shockwaves throughout the region. It could well embolden Islamic militants in the Caucasus, as it has elsewhere. After all, jihadi groups in Libya have declared allegiance to Islamic State, just as Boko Haram and al-Shabaab have done. The Assad regime may pose a bulwark, in Putin’s view, to the tide of Islamism.

So the Syrian regime does fit into Putin’s domestic agenda. However, it’s also the case that Syria fits into Russia’s regional interests. It’s a major nexus of fuel pipelines, and it has strategic value. Syria sits on NATO’s doorstep, alongside Iraq and Iran. It has a coastline with the Mediterranean, home to the US Sixth Fleet. Russia has long looked for counterweights to US proxies in the region. Consequently, Russia has been a major supplier of arms to the Syrian regime long before the civil war broke out.

Recently, it has come out that the Russian government offered a deal, in which Assad would step down. In February 2012, Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari held talks with the envoys of the UN Security Council. The Russian representative, Vitaly Churkin, laid out a three-point plan, which included a proposal for Bashar al-Assad to cede power. This would be after peace talks between the regime and the opposition had started. The US, UK and France were convinced Assad was about to fall, so they rejected the Russian offer.

Ironically, the US continues to demand that Assad step down, and this prevents any serious negotiations. This demand helps to keep Assad in power. Otherwise it might be possible for the regime and the opposition to engage in peace talks. As Patrick Cockburn writes, serious negotiations could lead to power-sharing arrangements. It’s plausible that the Syrian regime would be willing to dump Assad to hold on. Yet, even when it was within reach the US did not jump at the opportunity. The Russian plan to drop Assad is not without precedent.

In February 2003, Putin dispatched his envoy Yevgeny Primakov to Baghdad to deliver a stern message to Saddam Hussein. By this point, Vladimir Putin had joined Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder in opposing the US invasion of Iraq. Putin told Saddam that if he would step down from his post as President, voluntarily, to allow democratic elections to take place, then he could stay in the country. It was a last ditch attempt to stop the war. Perhaps fearing a coup d’etat by his generals, Saddam Hussein quietly rejected the idea.

Alas, the failure to prevent the Iraq war has now engulfed Syria in flames. The rhizome of Islamic militancy embedded itself deep into Iraqi society before reaching into Syria in the midst of civil war. The rise of Islamic State partly comes out of Saudi-Qatari ambitions to promote fundamentalism and combat secular nationalism and republicanism. It also comes out of the Iraq war, the experience of US occupation and the sectarian rule of the Maliki government. The new fundamentalist hive took shape because all political alternatives have been snuffed out.

The region is home to over four million soldiers divided between the different states. Yet Islamic State has been left to take shape and seize huge swathes of territory. The problem is clear: you can’t defeat Islamic State without working with Assad, and you can’t defeat Assad without empowering Islamic State. How can you pretend you stand for liberal values and take sides in this fight? The West has a problem. The liberal apologists for ‘humanitarian intervention’ have an even bigger problem. But it’s not the only one.

It looks like there is no coherent strategy. The US faces a myriad set of competing interests, among its proxies, and its foes. Turkey wants Assad to fall, and it’s been willing to lend support to Islamic State. Especially as this threatens the aspirations of Kurdish nationalists. To Erdogan, ISIS are the anti-PKK. Meanwhile Iran and Hezbollah share a common interest in defending the Assad regime. In a bid to destroy the Ba’athist regime, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have funneled arms and treasure to the Salafi jihadists. So Israel is happy to watch the corpses pile up, but it fears Islamic State reaching its borders.

It’s would be much more viable for Russia to back the Syrian regime. The Russian government has longstanding connections to Iran, which in turn needs Syria to help arm and fund Hezbollah. Without this alliance, Israel might still be occupying southern Lebanon. The Iranian government also wants to keep Iraq as a sovereign and democratic country because it can easily be dominated by the Shi’a under those conditions. So it’s obvious who has the potential to forge a coherent strategy. But it would likely leave the Syrian regime (possibly not Assad) in power.

However, the reasons why the Syrian people rose up against Bashar al-Assad have not been resolved. Human rights are still a far away dream, let alone democracy. Hundreds of thousands of people have been slaughtered and millions have been displaced. It’s clear that the Putin government does not have the best interests of Syrians at heart. Peace and stability in West Asia really just chimes well with the status quo. If the global order is redefined and reconstituted, Putin could easily lose out.

This article was first published at Souciant.

Murder in Moscow.

As soon as Nemtsov was reported dead I knew the news would take it up as a fresh charge against the Putin regime. People are right to be suspicious given the circumstances, the background and the record of assassination in Vladimir's motherland:

Imagine if armed thugs assassinated John Boehner, the Republican speaker of America’s House of representatives, in front of the White House. Though nowhere near as sympathetic a character as Nemtsov, few would have difficulty pointing their fingers at the White House. That Putin is responsible should thus not be subject to question. But, Russia being what it is, no one can be 100% sure. The authoritarian consensus is that strong. 

It’s probably the most significant killing in the former USSR since Anna Politkovskaya was shot on Putin’s birthday almost a decade ago. Five men have since been convicted of Politkovskaya’s murder, but the questions around who ordered her death predictably remain. It is plausible Politkovskaya was murdered on orders from Ramzan Kadyrov, the thug who keeps Chechnya under Putin’s thumb, especially as three of the convicted are Chechen men. Whether or not Putin had any foreknowledge of the killing has yet to be confirmed or disconfirmed. Undoubtedly, it was convenient for a critic of Russia’s aggression towards Chechnya to be silenced. 

Following Nemtsov’s demise, the Russian government moved quickly to condemn his muder. The authorities have since suggested that the killing was a ‘provocation’ timed to undermine Putin, and are even investigating the possible role of Islamists, as Nemtsov was ethnically Jewish. Never mind that he was a convert to Russian Orthodoxy. The fact that Nemtsov was a critic of Putin has been rightly emphasised by Russian opposition figures, and Western media. Meanwhile RT has been predictably attacking Western media for its coverage of the killing. This is far from over.

Will Putin fall?

The combination of economic sanctions and oil prices have led to the currency crisis in Russia mutating into the greatest crisis for Putin to face. The question which observers should be pondering is whether or not Putin will survive this storm. This is why I felt it necessary to write on the new crisis in Russia:

Putin’s brand of national capitalism, not to be confused with a neoliberal market economy, faces the greatest challenges in its short history. Economic nationalism meant the combination of a flat tax regime, land privatisation, state management of resources and protectionist measures to maintain industry. Oil revenue allowed Russia to secure growth and pay off its Soviet-era debt. But the nationalist push against international capital inevitably comes up against the limits of its own barriers.

Russia has a strategic interest in keeping Ukraine out of the EU-NATO orbit, but this doesn’t mean it produces results for its economy. On the contrary, the invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea led to diplomatic and economic pressures being brought against Russian institutions. The sanctions converged with the collapse of oil prices, as OPEC maintains output, confident that it will break even sooner rather than later. The rouble is unstable, sanctions are beginning to cripple international trade, and the economy is logically contracting.

The full article can be read at Souciant.

What buttons does Putin push?

The national psyche of any country may be made up by a complex web of associations in memory and myth running through history, culture and literature. It would be very easy to put down all of Russia's problems to its long history of authoritarian rule and chauvinism. However, we must remain aware that this is itself a construction of how the West would like to see itself - as standing out against the wretched backwardness of the East. This is a projection and we shouldn't fall into the convenience of old ideas in new conflicts. In fact, that's sort of the problem the Russians are having in the recrudescence of nationalism. I've covered this:

One of the first decisions undertaken by Putin after the 2000 election was to restore the Soviet National Anthem by Alexander Alexandrov. It was a symbolic break with the Yeltsin era. The anthem replaced the Patriotic Song of Mikhail Glinka that the Russian Federation had adopted in the wake of the dissolution of the USSR. Many in the West perceived this as an ominous sign of things to come. As the 1996 election was deemed to be the last hope for Russia’s Communists, the alternative to Yeltsin had always been framed as a throwback to the days of Stalin. 

The return of Alexandrov’s anthem seemed to confirm Putin was looking to recreate the old Soviet Union. This perception was widely shared, particularly by free market advocates, fearful that their revolution was coming to and end. Leading liberal Grigory Yavlinsky said, “We see this as a signal of where our society is heading, of what awaits us in the near future”. Yavlinsky was a proponent of the 500 Day Programme, first articulated in the late 1980s. It called for the mass-privatisation of state assets combined, with market reforms and the stripping away of regulations. All in 500 days. The programme was eventually implemented, in diluted form, under Yeltsin. 

What was lost on market liberals like Yavlinsky was that it wasn’t just about economics. The Soviet anthem has an equally significant nationalist side to it. After all it comes from Stalin’s Great Patriotic War, and supplanted the traditional socialist anthem the Internationale with its revolutionary patriotism. It was this side of the Russian campaign that Putin was tapping into, not a retreat back to the state capitalism of the Communist era.

The Russian nationalist narrative has a lot of sway and popular appeal because it holds factual ground. That isn't to say it is accurate of the full story. Pavel Stroilov recently produced an article exploring the popular claim in Russia that the West - principally, manifested in its expansion of NATO eastwards - reneged on its promises at the end of the Cold War. Stroilov put his own right-wing perspective on it and appears to be woefully uncritical of NATO and Western foreign policy. Even still, it is worth a read. You can read the rest of my article on Russian nationalism at Souciant.

Israel turns towards Russia.

On March 27^th 2014 Prime Minister Netanyahu abstained from the vote at the UN General Assembly on a resolution on Crimea. It was de facto support for Russian aggression.  The significance of this event may not have hit the mainstream just yet, but it may soon outpace it in its own trajectory. It’s not the first time the Israeli government has looked eastwards with fond eyes. When Putin invaded Georgia in 2008 the Israeli government set a moratorium on arms sales to the tiny republic and in return Medvedev cancelled a delivery of missiles to Iran in 2009.  There’s even talk of a free trade deal between Russia and Israel now.

It would seem that there is a hand full of very exact reasons why the Russian government would seek out a relationship with the Israeli government at this time. Firstly, the Russian repression of the Chechen bid for self-determination has been severe and has engendered a Chechen resistance. Secondly, the need for international legitimation of Russia’s military campaigns in its backyard and, in general, a new pretext as the Cold War is long over. Thirdly, there is the necessity of non-Arab actors as allies in the Middle East. Israel is a top candidate for all of the above. It’s a state that has long understood what it takes to grind a people into dirt. But the Israeli government knows full well that it couldn’t do so without its patron-state.

The US has long played the role of patron-state to Israel’s aggressive expansionism. There are signs that the Netanyahu administration can see far enough to perceive a potential break with the American hegemon. Even Washington cannot support Israeli aggression indefinitely. It has seemed, for a long time, completely incomprehensible that the US would ever abandon Israel and with good reason. The US does need a strong military outpost capable of policing the region and it has built Israel into an armed force greater than any standing NATO power. It has created a strong force at hand in a region ridden with crises and oil fields. The empowered outpost has the capability to pursue its own strategic agenda. The story won’t end there.

This is an excerpt of an article to be published at Souciant where it can be read in its fully edited form as presented on May 14th 2014.

Blair on Putin.

Every now and then Tony Blair pops up out of nowhere and reminds us all he’s still out there on his private jet. It’s almost routine now. This time Blair tells us the West needs to focus on radical Islam. No surprise there. It’s an old message now. We’ve heard it all before. He ranked it alongside the environment in importance. Of course, it should go without saying that the politicians like Blair have never been as interested in combating climate change as they have been in waging wars in West Asia. For years all we’ve heard about has been radical Islamism and the threat it poses to liberal democracies. Yet in Blair’s mind it’s as if the West suddenly stopped focusing on radical Islam.

All of this is to be expected from Tony Blair given his record. What stands out is one of the suggestions Blair makes to this end. The former Prime Minister asks that the West put aside their differences with Russia over Ukraine. Of course, by Russia we know that the former statesman means Putin, as all statesmen see governments and countries as one in the same, just as when he refers to ‘the West’ he doesn’t mean the populations of America, Britain, and Europe. Usually ‘the West’ would only refer to North America and North-Western Europe, but since he has defined ‘the West’ in relation to Russia we can include Eastern Europe in this category as well. Like everything about Blair’s world we can only see it in its proper context.

In the ‘War on Terror’ the Russian Federation was a notable member of the coalition forged by the US with countries around the world. Back in 2001 Putin was fighting to put down an insurgency in Chechnya having flattened most of the country since the conflict first started. It was vital to the consolidation of his power in Moscow that the regions remain as Russian provinces. To some it was clear what this meant at the time. As Chomsky said in 2001 “We should look very carefully at this anti-terrorism coalition and who is joining it and why. Russia is happily joining the international coalition because it is delighted to have U.S. support for the horrendous atrocities it is carrying out in its war against Chechnya. It describes that as an anti-terrorist war. In fact it is a murderous terrorist war itself.”[1] Certainly, Blair and Putin understood this then just as they understand it today.

The tussle over Ukraine is a non-issue for Blair in his private jet. He has more pressing issues to concern himself with, such as advising the Nazarbayev regime in Kazakhstan, the al-Sabah family of Kuwait, and King Abdullah II of Jordan. For Blair the personal is political and we should never take him as a neutral agent. He stands as the Middle East Peace Envoy for the Quartet formed by the backing of the United Nations, the United States, the European Union, and the Russian Federation. Blair works closely alongside John Kerry and Sergei Lavrov. The Quartet was set up in 2002 in the still warm aftermath of the Second Intifada and the Israel’s war with Lebanon. The point of the Quartet has been to back ceasefire arrangements and try to bring about a peace settlement. But it’s long been clear what the arrangement is really about.

In his capacity as peace envoy Blair spends a week out of every month in Jerusalem and maintains warm relations with the Netanyahu government. He was conspicuously absent during Operation Cast Lead and chose to extend his holiday rather than comment on the unfolding bloodbath. Just as Putin has worked to build strong relations between Russia and Israel and continues to hold together the relationship in spite of the Ukrainian crisis. If there were any doubts that the Israeli government would fall in line with its American patrons those doubts were swiftly put to rest last month. On March 27^th Netanyahu abstained from the vote at the UN General Assembly on a resolution on Crimea. No doubt, Netanyahu has the old refusenik voters to consider as his coalition with Avigdor Lieberman bids to hoover up as many of them as possible.

It doesn’t stop there. Israel looks forward to a free-trade deal with Russia. The Israeli government held a moratorium on arms sales to Georgia and turns a blind eye to Putin’s rampaging in the Caucasus; and in return Medvedev cancelled a delivery of missiles to Iran in 2009.[2] In its own aggressive expansionist designs Israel cannot help but find common cause with states which have traditionally sought to expand their boundaries. Of course, this is a relationship not uncomplicated given Russia’s support in weapons of Assad and, by extension, the Hezbollah. The main objective for the Israelis is to prolong negotiations in order to give them more time to expand even further. The Russians have no objection provided they can rely on Israeli and Western support for its operations to thwart the Chechen bid for independence.

Like everything about Middle East policy in the West it all comes down to Israel. So when Ariel Sharon finally died it wasn’t too surprising to see Tony Blair at the funeral service. There the peace envoy spewed forth about how the Bulldozer brought ‘iron determination’ to diplomacy as he had to the camps of Sabra and Shatila.[3] The Israeli government were more than displeased by the last minute change in policy towards Mubarak in the US. Netanyahu wanted total support even after it had become impossible to prevent Mubarak from being removed by his own goons. The reasoning was obvious. Israel does not need a rejuvenated Arab powerhouse on its border with the reins of government in the hands of its populace. Blair and Putin couldn’t agree more. This is what realists mean when they talk about ‘regional stability’.

Not many commentators seem to recall, or perhaps they don’t want to, Blair’s remark that Hosni Mubarak is “a force for good”.[4] As the military were displaced from power and democratic elections were held in Egypt the crusader was clear. He told the readers of the Evening Standard “democracy is not just a way of voting but a way of thinking”.[5] He emphasised the need for proper institutions and pluralism and individual freedoms and a modern economy. When the Muslim Brotherhood were dumped by military putsch last summer Blair reiterated these same words as a justification for the coup. The Arab masses weren’t ready for the democracy and, as always, need a strong leader, in his mind, the kind of man General al-Sisi looks for in his mirror every morning.

If the Quartet is a roadshow for the negotiations then we should know how to frame the importance of Russian support for it. All the states involved in the ‘peace process’ declare solemn support for the two-state settlement, the matters of when, where and how remain conveniently mysterious. As part of the Quartet, only the UN has been a serious forum for international opposition to Israeli aggression and support for a two-state settlement. The UN routinely votes through resolutions to the Israel-Palestine conflict and it votes unanimously in favour of a two-state settlement. The US uses it privilege on the UN Security Council to veto all resolutions and has done consistently for over thirty years now. Meanwhile the EU has been striking in its timidity to the US until recently when the Europeans passed a modicum of sanctions against Israeli settlements. It’s clear that the Russian Federation stands with the US to counterbalance any opposition which might creep out of the UN and the EU.

This article was originally written for Souciant on May 2nd 2014.

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[1] http://www.counterpunch.org/2001/10/04/chatting-with-chomsky/

[2] http://www.cerium.ca/IMG/pdf/Yakov_200.pdf

[3] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25710124

[4] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/02/tony-blair-mubarak-courageous-force-for-good-egypt

[5] http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/tony-blair-we-cant-ignore-the-middle-easts-hunger-for-change-7892819.html