Archive for the ‘Arab World’ tag
Libya – A Quick Military and Geopolitical Overview
He may be crazy but he's not stupid.
Libya, a nation in name only, is in the early stages of a tribally driven and brutal civil war. But for all the comparisons between Colonel Gaddafi and the other ranter du jour, Charlie Sheen, there is very little that’s deranged about the Colonel. Indeed, he’s probably been prepared for the eventuality that Benghazi would fall for longer than we imagine.
Gaddafi kept the army small and disorganized for precisely the reason we see now. The rebels are too poorly trained and lack the cohesion to beat Gaddafi’s family and tribal led elite units and African mercenaries in a head-on clash. They’re small but far better trained and equipped than the rebels will ever be. Gaddafi’s men also have their backs to the wall. If Tripoli falls, they are clearly dead. Which is why he’s counterattacking to head off the possibility that the urban mob in the capital will turn on him and end the game through the back door. Read the rest of this entry »
The Road to Revolution is Paved with Bread Not Tech.
When this stuff is pricey, dictators watch out.
And it always has been.
Napoleon’s famous adage that an Army marches on its stomach applies to something else he knew a little something about – popular revolt. Indeed, a brief scan of the French Revolution might be more than a little prescient as Egypt settles in for calamitous disappointment.
Simply put, the story goes like this.
While it was the gifted thinkers of the bourgeoisie in France that framed and drove the conflict with the monarchy, aristocracy, and clergy, it was the energizing of the mob that turned the slow and enlightened march to reform into an irresistible and uncontrollable surge, starting from the Siege of the Bastille in 1789. And what triggered the rage of the urban poor? Astronomical bread prices brought on by disastrous harvests and cynical price controls. For the Sans-Culottes on the streets of Paris spending 80% or more of one’s meager day wages on bread meant slow starvation. So a sheet of musket fire was hardly something to be feared. Read the rest of this entry »
Israel. No More Mr. Nice Guy
it's got to the point that israel needs to project raw power to secure a two-state solution.
From now on, it’s no more Mr. Nice Guy in Israel. Promising “a disproportionate response” to Hamas for rocket attacks signals a new direction for Jerusalem. For years they have been on the wrong end of one of the most successful PR juggernauts of recent history – the Palestinians.
Nothing seems to dent the Palestinian love-bubble. The fact that Hamas has been targeting innocent Israelis for years through suicide bombings and rocket attacks seems to mean nothing, the fact that they use human shields means less, the fact that they brutally murder anyone remotely seen as an informer, irrelevant. Hamas has maintained lock-tight control on Gaza in order to further its longstanding total war against Israel. It gets as close as it can to starving its own people into hatred. The constant portrayal of Gazan as victim is incongruous with the fact that most of Hamas leadership has nothing to do with the place. To them maintaining the degradation of the world’s largest refugee camp is a means to an end. Read the rest of this entry »
Obama and Iraq – Now Comes The Hard Part.
saigon 1975. will it be different when we leave Iraq?
Ivan Watson, NPR’s Baghdad Correspondent was the target of an assassination attempt today when he and his team were nearly killed by a car bomb. And in recent weeks there has clearly been a spike in violence in Iraq. Let nobody say that the situation that war-torn country is anything close to peaceful.
And yet the next President is going to withdraw our troops. Not in victory, or in defeat, but ‘believing’ and ‘hoping’ that peace will break out when we’re gone. That’s a bet many wouldn’t make.
Obama staked his early rise to prominence on a speedy withdrawal from Iraq, and superficially, facts on the ground seem to bear him out. He’s committed to a “safe and responsible” withdrawal of US troops around sixteen months from taking office. He has the support of the Maliki government, and the vast majority of the Iraqi people want us gone. The Status of Forces agreement which mandates our withdrawal by the end of 2001 also provides us with some political cover too.
So what’s the problem? Simple. When we leave, there is simply no way we won’t be leaving a power vacuum in Iraq. Read the rest of this entry »
