Turkey’s resentment towards the European Union is nothing new. Erdogan has been vocal about his negative reactions to some requirements in Turkey’s EU accession process. He is also in a position to pull the strings on much of Europe’s migrant policy, and is making good use of this position. What Turkey’s President has made even better use of is the anti-Western rhetoric and the visions of a “great-again” Turkey. The former has been instrumental in diverting public attention away from a lawsuit in Italy against his son for money laundering.
Apparently, the Greater Turkey vision cannot be realized with the EU constantly demanding things from Ankara that Ankara does not want to do, such as synchronizing its anti-terrorism policies with the EU, for example. It can, however, be realized if Turkey gets on the anti-West bandwagon driven by Russia and Iran, both survivors from Western sanctions, and both having their own regional ambitions.
The “Phantoms of the Cold War”, including Moscow-driven deflection and disinformation, have run through the Syrian Tragedy.
We may have a medieval world in which political experience involves broad illusion and perception managed by very powerful and wealthy personalities.
That’s life.
At this point, we should have had neither the Tyrant nor The Terrorists. I happen to believe — I’m the editor of the blog — that the two are of a whole “theater of politics and combat” in which the victims — dead, displaced, injured, or deeply manipulated — had no inherent value but to serve a new master or collection of them.
If there’s a positive observation to be made, cynically perhaps, or ironically, Syria may be interpreted as a demonstration project of the medieval worldview. The more established that becomes, the more widespread the potential for conflict and similar tracts of death and mass destruction.
I’ve been waffling because I think whether “he” or “she”, it’s Putin who may pick up a round in the “re-medievalizing” of the west’s portion of global politics. He has helped damage political NATO through Hungary (Orban) and Turkey (Erdogan) and, of course, has manipulated terrorism
— and by the way, look up “Moscow, PFLP —
to goad westerner toward a rightly defensive nationalist response, but in the process we lose both a part of our democratic, modern, and tolerant soul.
Despite the Trump-Manafort-Yanukovych experience, Trump, who seems to be trying to figure these politics out from a cold start — and he knows he’s a beginner as politician, but he’s a fast learner too — may well stand up for American constitutional arrangements and values and temper the demagoguery with our culturally INCLUSIVE ethos, related ideals, and extensive development of law and policy across years.
Hillary might wind up in the same place — there is an “American Way”.
Missing from public popular perception: the Cold War — check out BackChannels for that (https://conflict-backchannels.com/…/ftac-interpreting…/) and how business and politics among the world’s most powerful and wealthiest people, Putin and the oligarchs among them, hew themselves to feudal models. Perhaps we are doing that now — and Hillary, by way of the necessity of delivering a Constitutional American experience to the American people, will also have to confront Putin (and the Phantoms of the Soviet in the Middle East and around the world).
Muslims – this from an American of Jewish descent who has tired of religious cant: no one “wins” anything with either a supremacist or totalitarian outlook and permit for barbarism.
The medieval worldview, fully on display in Syria, promotes political absolute power.
Whether Putin, Assad, or Khamenei or Baghdadi — “Different Talks — Same Walk!” applies.
Also, Center-of-the-Universe Christian, Jewish, or Muslim self-concept seems to me a remnant of medieval history.
The enemies of the west — extremists Red-Black, Brown, and Green / old comrades, new nationalists, and Islamists — need that worldview sustained, but the democratic open societies of the west, also secular in governance and humanist in ideals, simply don’t need that anymore.
We have all to make this choice about which world we would prefer to live: the medieval world (let it go, please) or the modern one (where we investigate issues and address problems every day in the interest of greater peace and prosperity plus human dignity and freedom).
I’ve edited some between the “Awesome Conversation” and this post, but in essence feel we need greater distinction in time between medieval worldviews and related governance and the same under the umbrella of the modern worldview.
The argument between Russia — a revanchist neo-imperial state — and its allies and clients and NATO, God bless that old alliance — may be distilled as “Medieval Absolute Power” vs “Modern Democratic Distribution”.
We may have a long way to go with that “argument”, but at least we should see it for what it is.
Moscow – Putin | Putin, Assad, Khamenei | Putin, Orban | Putin, Erdogan (never mind the superficial enmity and differences in “talk”) — supports political absolutism in relation to the malignant narcissism evident in the personalities of related leaders (like Orban, like Erdogan). For this reason, Putin has encourage both Far Left and Far Right political organizations and personalities; it is why his government has hosted PFLP (2014) and continues to refuse to condemn Hezbollah and Hamas. The form of power wanted by dictators — different talks: same walk — is the power to visit suffering on others with impunity. On the cheerful side of that 🙂 — the acquisition of unlimited narcissistic supply. Whatever the west’s own issues may be with business, corruption, and crime, the power-distributing and power-checking political systems threaten the “malignant narcissist” — the autocrat, the absolutist — and that’s really what their battles are about. The power of the special sovereign / great leader has its place in Russian history but is by no means confined to Russia. In fact, I think feudal despotism more the way of the world, even if one hopes not its only future, than checked-and-distributed political power, and that at least two NATO states feature illiberal autocrats as heads of state — Hungary and Turkey — tells what the argument is really about: i.e., Medieval Absolute Power vs Modern Checked and Distributed Power.
The paragraphs may grow shorter as I retype and recast BackChannels’ main themes.
Why do dictators do what they do?
Ah, pride — but pride that compensates and covers psychic injury. Terms of art may include the following:
Narcissistic mortification
Malignant and Reparative Narcissism — I would refer to this as “narcissistic pathing” or channeling.
Narcissistic Supply — that approving roar of the crowd.
Unlimited Narcissistic Supply — Ah, glorious, unless you have found yourself on the Great Leader’s wrong side, i.e., somewhere in the opposition.
The “PLO” became the “PA” — but I’m going to call it the “PSO” — “Palestinian Slavery Organization” from here on out. The Fatah Party, a secular-nationalist political machine, continues to dominate the PLO / PA. The chain of association between it, the old Soviet, the Baath Parties, and pan-Arab nationalism should be clear.
I don’t know the early history of Hamas, but two characteristics certainly stand out today: we know (we know, I know you know, and everyone knows) it”s a Muslim Brotherhood organization. However, it is also an organization approved and manipulated by Moscow and Tehran, neither of whom — from Tehran, we would expect this but not from Putin’s Moscow — will join the west in designating the same as a terrorist organization. In fact, and despite Putin’s “anti- anti-Semitism” stance, Moscow hasn’t altered its relationship much since Soviet days, and the neo-feudal / neo-imperial revanche has sought to sustain old “friendships”.
Although Hussein and Gaddafi have been shoved off the world’s stage, Putin appears to regard the Russian client Syria as essential to his state’s ambitions and defense — and mafia ways of doing business. It appears to me that Washington and NATO have chosen to contain the Russo-Syrian-Iranian arrangement rather than challenge it while at the same time seeking to accept the fallout in jihadism (ISIS was incubated by Assad’s counterrevolutionary strategy, and I have plenty of evidence for that) and refugees, leaving the blame for Syria on Moscow’s doorstep.
Back to the “Palestinians” — the refugees: they remain representative of Cold War / Soviet politics. As Putin plays extremes against the middle, i.e., supporting Far Right and Far Left organizations and personalities worldwide, the PA and Hamas suit his ends, which includes promoting and sustaining absolute and frequently criminal political power at state level in his world and in others.
Into this comes Mohammed S. Dajani Daoudi who for his good nature slipped through the fence, figuratively in his reading, literally with the visit to Auschwitz with his students, and now I think the has a larger problem: what does one say to a whole population that has been duped by political machinations they could not see? How does one approach decades of disinformation, miseducation, and deep political manipulation?
As suggested in the excerpt From the Awesome Conversation, the Obama Administration and NATO have adjusted to perhaps containing the apparent (!) energies of a revanchist Russia while choosing to let that most dispassionate of political scripting that has been “Assad vs The Terrorists” play itself out into the horror that it has become.
From Cold War to Cold Struggle and from the installation of the Middle East Conflict to this day seems not that long a span by the measurements of history — 68 years of statehood for Israel and the same period for the Arab world’s separation of the Refugees of 1948 from the mainstream of Arab history; 71 years since the collapse of Nazi Germany and the near concurrent initiation of competition and hostility (and fear) between Moscow and Washington — and 24 years and six months since the dissolving of the Soviet (December 26, 1991).
Where are we now?
I doubt the 25th anniversary of the dissolving of the Soviet will go unremarked in major media, and perhaps it is about now, this summer, and not to mention this American Independence Day, that analysis, lowly bloggers, and major media pundits will be asking the same question: as regards Moscow and Moscow-Tehran and the many “worlds” spun up around central absolute or authoritarian power, indeed, where are we now?
The discovery of oil would transform the geopolitical role of Saudi Arabia. It was an American firm, later called Aramco — not a British firm — that succeeded in getting the rights for prospection in 1938. Aramco sought assistance from the U.S. government to exploit the fields.
One consequence of Aramco’s interest combined with President Franklin Roosevelt’s vision of the geopolitical future of the United States was a now famous, then little noticed, meeting of Roosevelt and the ruler of Saudi Arabia, Ibn Saud, on Feb. 14, 1945 aboard a U.S. destroyer in the Red Sea.
The deputy PM in charge of the weapons industry says Russia would remove all ‘sensitive’ production facilities from Ukraine if the association agreement with the EU is signed, and he doesn’t believe Ukraine can count on eventual EU entry anyway.
“We will not be able to place certain sensitive technology [in Ukraine], we will have to completely localize them on Russian Federation territory. This means problems connected with the future cooperation in the aircraft and space industry and many more spheres,” Dmitry Rogozin told reporters.
“One can experiment as long as one wishes by deploying non-nuclear warheads on strategic missile carriers. But one should keep in mind that if there is an attack against us, we will certainly resort to using nuclear weapons in certain situations to defend our territory and state interests,” Rogozin, the defense industry chief said on Wednesday speaking at the State Duma, the lower house.
He pointed out that this principle is enshrined in Russia’s military doctrine. Any aggressor or group of aggressors should be aware of that, he said.
German newspaper Bild wrote this weekend that Russia stationed several Iskander tactical ballistic missile systems – which are capable of carrying nuclear warheads – in its westernmost exclave of Kaliningrad, along the border with Baltic states. The paper said it obtained “secret satellite” images showing at least 10 Russian missiles close to the EU border, which were deployed over the past year.
STUTTGART, Germany — NATO’s largest war game in years, which kicked off in Poland on Saturday, will involve some 6,000 troops at locations spread out across the region over the course of nine days.
ANKARA — While the last of six Patriot anti-missile batteries are deployed in Turkey, ostensibly to protect Turkish airspace from a potential missile strike from neighboring Syria, some officials claim the primary purpose is to protect a radar that would track Iranian missile launches.
The U.S. deployment of Patriot missiles in Turkey began Saturday to help the country defend against any possible threats from neighboring Syria in the throes of a civil war, AFP reported.
[Russia – Syria – Iran] | Ukraine and Eastern Europe | NATO
Syria’s pit fire would seem to have spilled over into Russia’s post-Soviet pseudo-democratic mafia-oligarch relationship with Europe: The Bear wants its buffers back (whether they like it or not).
Call it jockeying for position, political posturing, or whatnot, the world at the edge of history, i.e., the apparently still collapsing Soviet Union and the more just and friendly and expanding European melange of democratic open societies just got a lot more dangerous.
Perhaps from the start with Boris Berezovsky playing kingmaker, Putin had no intention of being the one to turn the lights out on imperialism Soviet-style. The talk has changed, perhaps: the walk? You tell me.
In this dangerous and hideous play, which may be entering a new phase, Syria’s civil war would seem to have signaled the fragility of Soviet-built post-Soviet relationships: what card had the Assad regime to play but its longstanding “thing” between Iran’s theocracy gone mad and Russia’s military-industrial trade complex?
That card has been played, indeed, and the old Syria ruined for hanging on to its yesterday.
Now Ukraine’s a kind of chip and both NATO and Russia would seem to have turned up new cards at the table, not too suddenly though but, still, one’s pushing a radar system behind missile batteries associated with the adverse Syria-Iran relationship and the other has sent out to its borderlands some trucks with missiles on their backs.
Who wants popcorn?
Stove top? Hot air? Or microwave?
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The latest professionally-agitated spectacle in Kyiv’s was spearheaded by the same Soros/Sharp/National Endowment for Democracy/CIA hydra that saw the overthrow of Ukraine’s government in 2004 in the so-called Orange Revolution. This time, not only is Ukrainian President Yanukovych, but ultimately Russian President Vladimir Putin, are the targets…
