Dreams Into Lightning 2

Morning Report: 2012-07-24

Syria: What happens next?

Middle East: Iran threatens Arab countries over Syria intervention. 'A commander of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards has warned Arab countries not to intervene in Syria, threatening them with retaliation if they do. ...'

Syria: If Assad falls, what comes next? Michael Totten:

It’s time we decided whether or not we want a vote, so to speak, in which direction this goes. An Iraq-style intervention is off the table. A Libya-style intervention is a distant possibility. Far more plausible is gun-running to the Free Syrian Army. That will likely be the next stage of the conflict whether the United States gets involved or it doesn’t. Assad has too many enemies in the greater Middle East who are itching to finally be rid of him.

The prospect of a proxy war ought to make everyone pause and swallow hard, especially because Syria presents so many variables and competing interests. The final outcome can’t possibly be controlled. But it’s a near-certainty that the final outcome will be worse if the Free Syrian Army gets assistance from al-Qaeda, the Saudis, or Turkey’s Islamist prime minister instead of from the United States.

Perhaps the best reason, though, to get rid of Assad while we can is the grim prospect of what will happen if he wins.

“If the regime survives,” says Tony Badran, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, “the message in terms of regional power dynamics is stark: Iran and Russia stand by their allies to the end while the US does not. The US will appear to have no understanding of the strategic contest and balance of power, and will be—wittingly or not—shielding its enemies. The fundamental rule of foreign policy is straightforward: you protect and reward your friends, and you punish your enemies.”

Lee Smith:

By facilitating the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq, Bashar hoped to show Syrians what lay in store for them should they embrace the Americans’ freedom agenda—not democracy but civil war. Instead, what Assad’s policy illuminated for Sunni Arabs was the sectarian nature of the region. No matter how much the Assad regime waved the banner of Arab nationalism and cursed Israel, the Sunnis’ most pressing hostility was with the minority clique that they decided, on reflection, had no right to rule them. ...

Belmont Club has more.

Morning Report: 2012-07-18

Syria: Suicide bombing kills defense minister. American Thinker: 'This one hits close to home for Assad. Syrian defense minister, Daoud Rajha, and Asef Shawkat, the president's brother-in-law who was the deputy chief of staff of the Syrian military, were killed by a suicide bomber yesterday. ...' But AT is skeptical that the bombing represents more than an "inconvenience" to Assad. Long War Journal has more:

A suicide bomber killed the top two defense officials and seriously wounded the interior minister and the chief of the national security office in an attack at a high-level meeting of security officials in Damascus today. The attack was claimed by both the "Brigade of Islam" and the Free Syrian Army.

The suicide bomber, who is said to have been a bodyguard of a senior official in the Assad regime, detonated his explosive vest during a high-level meeting at the National Security building in the Syrian capital. Defense Minister Daoud Rajha and Deputy Defense Minister Assef Shawkat, who is also President Bashir al Assad's brother-in-law, were killed in the blast, according to the state-run Syrian television. ...

Read the rest at the link. UPDATE: Rebel leader says it was not a suicide bomb.

India: Minister claims doctors in hysterectomy scam. 'Doctors in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh performed hysterectomies on poor village women without a valid medical reason in order to claim money from a national insurance scheme, the state's health minister said on Wednesday. ...'

Israel: MK publicly destroys New Testament. Disgusting and disgraceful. And yet, somehow we're not hearing about deadly riots around the world. Odd, that.

Technology / Business: Yahoo names Google's Marissa Mayer as CEO. CNN: 'Marissa Mayer, who was Google's first female engineer and its 20th employee when she joined that company in 1999, has been named CEO of Yahoo....' Go to the story for 11 facts about her, including what she could do 40 of in her first career. Also, she's pregnant.

Morning Report: 2012-07-17

Conflicts in Damascus and around Africa.

Syria: Damascus showdown looms. Al-Arabiya: '“Machinegun fire was heard in the Sabah Bahrat square, and members of the security forces, armed with Kalashnikovs, ran across the square,” site of the country’s Central Bank, witnesses told AFP. ... Syria’s military deployed armored vehicles near central Damascus on Monday as troops battled rebels around the capital in what activists said could be a turning point in the 16-month uprising. Rebels late Monday announced the launch of a full-scale attack operation.' NOW Lebanon:

The rebel Free Syrian Army said on Tuesday that the "battle for the liberation of Damascus has begun," as fighting raged in the capital.

"Victory is nigh," said the central Homs-based spokesperson for the FSA's Joint Command, Colonel Kassem Saadeddine, adding that the fighting will not stop until the whole of the capital has been conquered.

"We have transferred the battle from Damascus province to the capital," said Saadeddine. "We have a clear plan to control the whole of Damascus. We only have light weapons, but it's enough." ...

Nigeria: Rocket fired at Muslim school kills boy. 'A rocket fired at a Muslim school in the central Nigerian city Jos on Tuesday killed a boy aged about 10, a military spokesman said. ...'

Africa / Israel: Study says millions of Africans identify as Jews. Dr. Shalva Weil of Hebrew University says there has been a sharp rise in the number of Africans identifying as Jews in the past 15 years. 'Weil, from the Research Institute for Innovation in Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is an anthropologist and expert on Ethiopian Jewry who has spent years studying the Ethiopian community and its acclimation into Israeli society. Weil recently gave a series of talks throughout South Africa and took part in a conference on African Jews hosted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, where she spoke about racism toward Ethiopian Jews in Israel. ...' She cites communities among the Lemba of southern Africa and the Igbo of Nigeria. 'Weil says that from an academic perspective, Black Judaism is a varied and exciting field. But she feels that the Israeli establishment is not aware of the phenomenon or its ramifications.'

Niger: EU to train security forces to fight al-Qaeda. The European Union will send experts to Niger to train security forces to fight al Qaeda, beginning in August at Niamey.

Morning Report: 2012-07-16

Turkey: 46 lawyers on trial for KCK / PKK links. '(Reuters) - Dozens of lawyers went on trial in Turkey on Monday on charges of links to Kurdish militants and foreign jurists rallied outside the court to protest at the latest in a series of cases that have drawn criticism of Ankara's human rights record. All 50 defendants - including 46 lawyers - had been involved in representing the jailed Kurdish militant chief Abdullah Ocalan. ...' They're accused of ties to the Union of Kurdistan Communities (KCK), which Ankara sees as urban wing of the militant separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Ocalan was captured in 1999.

Russia / Syria: Analysis - Putin's realism. Zenpundit posting at IVN:

Russian President Vladimir Putin made a foreign policy speech to Russia’s ambassadors and Foreign Ministry officials that is very much worth reading in context of his dispatch to Syria of a fleet of warships, including a battleship, to the modest Russian naval base in Tartus. Under Putin’s hand, Russian support for the bloody regime of Bashar Assad has consistently been more about safeguarding and expanding Russia’s strategic place in world than about Syria ...

Read the rest at the link.

Russia and Assad

Mehmet Ali Birand at Milliyet, via Al-Monitor:

The naval base at Tartus is not as vital as we think. The base, manned by 50 navy servicemen in a couple of barracks, has no strategic value apart from being a place for Russia to plant its flag on the Mediterranean.

As for the weapons sales to Syria, they only account for 5% of Russia’s total sales. Moreover, Russia has not been selling advanced technology or high-powered weapons for a long time. Furthermore, they just announced that they will not be signing any new weapons contracts.

However, keeping the Syrian regime intact has other significant benefits for Russia. If the West deposes of Bashar al-Assad, as they did with Gadhafi in Libya, it will mean the fall of Russia’s last ally in the Middle East. Perhaps that, symbolically speaking, will also mean the complete erosion of Russia’s superpower status. Moscow does not want this and is struggling to keep Assad out of the West’s reach.

Putin is seriously irritated by the West’s footloose and unchallenged moves in the Middle East. He feels the changes brought about by the Arab Spring and the replacement of secular regimes by Islamists are contrary to Russian interests. For Moscow, an “authoritarian secular regime” is the best defense against Islamists and in that context, Assad is not that bad of a dictator. ...

This sounds like it makes sense. Moscow may be wondering why Americans so easily fall for the mystique and the ungratefulness of radical Islam.

Morning Report: 2012-07-10

Official visits in London and Kabul, official truth from Beijing, and desperate officials in Damascus.

France / Britain: Hollande to meet with British leaders on UK visit. French President Francois Hollande will meet with British Prime Minister David Cameron and Queen Elizabeth II during a visit to the United Kingdom today. They'll talk about the economy, the eurozone, and foreign policy issues.

Afghanistan: Pakistan PM Raja Pervez Ashraf to visit. Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf will visit Kabul on July 16, according to reports.

China: Censors tip Beijing's hand. Analects at The Economist covers online censorship in China. 'Teams at Harvard and the University of Hong Kong have been using new software that allows them to watch the censoring of posts on Chinese social-media sites more closely than before,' the Economist's Asia blogger reports, and as many as 13 pct of all social-media posts are censored. In another censorship-watch program, 'researchers at the University of Hong Kong have developed a program that concentrates solely on China’s most popular microblogging site, Sina Weibo.' They also discovered that an uptick in official censorship often portends an imminent crackdown.

Syria: Assad regime running out of options. Strategy Page notes that 'with more cash and weapons flowing in from the wealthy Persian Gulf Arab states, and Turkey providing bases and training for the growing number of Syrian men fleeing the country, the number of trained and armed rebels within Syria grows.'

Morning Report: 2012-07-08

Syria / US: Like sands through the hourglass. 'U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday that "the days are numbered" for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime.' She adds that "the sand is running out of the hourglass" for Assad. That's quite a change from how things looked to Brown Lloyd James not long ago:

MEMORANDUM

TO: Fares Kallas
FROM: Brown Lloyd James
RE: Crisis Communications Analysis

It is clear from US government pronouncements since the beginning of the public demonstrations in Syria that the Obama Administration wants the leadership in Syria to survive. ...

Read the rest at Claire Berlinski's post.

UK: Officials detain another Olympics suspect. British officials arrested a terror suspect after he traveled close to the Olympic Park in East London five times, a U.K. newspaper reported on Sunday, capping off a week of heightened security concerns in the run-up to the games later this month. ...'

Morning Report: 2012-07-06

Syria: Tlas defection "hard blow". 'A Syrian general close to President Assad has defected, delivering "a hard blow for the regime", French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has said. Brig Gen Manaf Tlas fled Syria via Turkey, his family confirmed. ...'

US / Pakistan: Moving forwrd. Walter Russell Mead:

Many in Pakistan are already complaining that Clinton’s carefully worded statement avoided “the A-word”: apology. As the Times notes, Pakistani officials seem to have realized that they “overplayed their hand” and underestimated NATO’s (read, America’s) resolve.

The fact is, bad as relations are today and much as many Pakistanis hate and fear the United States, America remains one of Pakistan’s only friends. The country does not poll well among its neighbors, or in the Muslim world as a whole. Few Muslims anywhere see Pakistan as more than an embarrassment ...

Liel Leibovitz on Israel: Jobs, not draft, for haredim. Leibovitz argues that private-sector employment, not more bodies in IDF uniforms, is in Israel's best interest.

Son of Former Syrian Defense Minister Defects to Turkey

'Syrian Brigadier General Manaf Talas, the son of former defense minister Mustapha Talas, has defected to Turkey ...'

Morning Report: 2012-06-29

Chinese astronauts return home. BBC: 'Jing Haipeng, commander of the Shenzhou-9 crew, was the first to emerge from the return capsule, followed by his flight engineers, Liu Wang and the country's first woman astronaut, Liu Yang. Job well done. But their grin is shared across the whole Chinese nation today. ... The Shenzhou-9 mission posted a series of firsts. Liu Yang's presence in orbit obviously caught the headlines, but I was thinking more about the engineering milestones: the first manned automatic and manual dockings; the first long-duration spaceflight; and the first crew to live aboard a permanently orbiting module, Tiangong-1. ...' Space.com: 'By any measure, Shenzhou 9 — the nation's fourth human spaceflight mission, after efforts in 2003, 2005 and 2008 — appears to have been a big success. The spacecraft docked with the unmanned Tiangong 1 space module by remote control on June 18, and then again on June 24 while being piloted by the taikonauts (as Chinese astronauts are called). ...' The Telegraph has video.

US Ambassador to Kenya quits. 'The U.S. ambassador to Kenya has resigned just over a year after taking up the post, citing differences with Washington over priorities and his style of leadership, an embassy statement said on Friday. Scott Gration's departure came a week after the U.S. embassy warned of a threat of an imminent militant attack in the port city of Mombasa, angering the Kenyan government which said the advisory amounted to "economic sabotage". ...'

Syria: Hamas leader killed in Damascus. Ha'Aretz: 'A Hamas member was killed in Damascus Wednesday night, the French news agency AFP cited a senior official for the organization as saying, adding that Hamas suspected that the Mossad was behind the killing. The official, who spoke anonymously, said that "a group of people entered the home of Kamel Ranaja (also known as Nizar Abu Mujhad), and killed him. According to information that we have gathered, the Mossad is behind the attack." ...'