May 19, 1941. Allied Victory In Ethiopia

Italian forces in Ethiopia surrendered.

Today in World War II History—May 19, 1941

This would stand as the first major Allied victor of World War Two.   Amazingly, Italian bitter enders carried on a guerilla campaign against the British until 1943, something which is little remembered, particularly in the context of general Italian ineffectiveness during the war.

The British took Fallujah in Iraq. 

On the same day, anticipating what was coming, the RAF withdrew from Crete.

In Japanese occupied Indochina, Vietnamese nationalist and communists formed the Viet Minh.  The movement was Communist dominated, although at this point it did include some other nationalist elements.  In some ways it was a revival of an organization that had been formed in the mid 1930s, in China, to oppose the French, but Japanese occupation sparked its immediate renewal.

The organization would go on to oppose the French after the war and would become solidly Communist by that time.

May 18, 1941. Airy Matters.

Flag of the Soviet Air Force.

On this day in 1941, Stalin's government began a purge of Soviet air force officers, which I'm aware of only due to this item:

Today in World War II History—May 18, 1941

By this point in 1941 the signs were there that Germany was getting set to invade the Soviet Union.  Eliminating air force officers was a bizarre thing to do, given the risk of impending war.  But much about Stalin's reign was bizarre.

Speaking of things airborne, the RAF inserted a company of British troops on the Baghdad road in Iraq by air, using Vickers Valentia's to do so.

If you've never heard of Valentia's, that's because its one of a collection of obsolete aircraft the British were still using in more remote areas at the time.

The German Navy commenced Operation Rheinübung with the Bismarck.  It would prove to be a short sortie.

It's mission was to raid British convoys.

Petty Officer Alfred Sephton would receive the Victoria Cross posthumously for his actions in directing anti aircraft fire on the HMS Coventry on this day in 1941.  The Coventry was aiding the Aba, a hospital ship under attack by German dive bombers.

More about that can be found here:

Petty Officer Sephton wins the Victoria Cross

Prince Aimone, the Duke of Aosta, was crowned the King of the Independent State of Croatia. He never went there, however, and refused to do so over the issue of Italian annexation of Dalmatian land, making him a particular odd character in that he was an Italian and an officer in the Italian navy.  Following Italy switching sides, he resigned his presumptive kingship and served again in the Italian Navy.  He resigned his ducal title upon the fall of the Italian monarchy.

May 2, 1941. The Anglo Iraqi War Commences

British troops wearing pith helmets and carrying SMLEs outside of Baghdad, 1941.

On this day in 1941, fighting between Iraqi insurgents who had recently staged a coup and taken over the country, and the British, started in earnest.  What is sometimes called the Anglo Iraqi War commenced on this day with British bombing raids on Iraqi air assets.  

Today in World War II History—May 2, 1941

War breaks out in Iraq

The entire Iraq episode would prove to be a sort of sideshow in the war, but perhaps one that should have gathered more attention at the time as it showed the practical limits of Axis' power.  Iraqi plotters had figured that the British were proving to be down and out.  In turn, the British would prove to have ample forces to deal with Iraq, even if those forces often looked more like they were out of World War One than World War Two.  The Axis, on the other hand, proved basically incapable of aiding their would be Iraqi allies.

The war would last until May 31, with the British, as noted, emerging victorious.

Romania formed a bureaucratic organization to expropriate Jewish property from Romanian Jews and to redistribute it to non Jewish Romanians.  Oppression of the Jews was a feature of the Romanian fascist state that ran the country until near the end of World War Two but it was home grown, rather than imported from the Nazis, as it was in some other nations. Romania, of course, was a German ally for most of the war.

German functionaries met on this day in 1941 to make economic plans for the occupation of the Soviet Union.  Those plans included seizure of food resources for importation into Germany with the resulting acknowledged starvation of large numbers of Soviet citizens.

The FCC took steps to start the licensing of the first ten commercial television stations in the U.S.

April 1, 1941 The Golden Circle Iraqi Coup

A pro Nazi coup by Iraqi officers who were seeking full, rather than the then partial, independence from the UK took place.  The plotters were in contact with the Germans and had calculated that World War Two could bring this about.  Instead, it brought about a direct British intervention that made short work of the coup.

German HE 111 with Iraq and German markings. Axis powers supplying aircraft to the Iraqi insurrectionist were reflagged in Iraqi colors.

The Germans and Italians did attempt to aid the insurrectionist by supplying aircraft. Vichy France allowed the use of its airfields in Syria, which would bring about the British intervention in Syria terminating their rule.

The plotters, termed the "Golden Circle" had formed in the 1930s and had been working towards this goal since that time.  Supported by the German ambassador in Iraq, their goal was to overthrow the British supported monarchy, end British influence in the country, and form a fascist state.

While the coup was a catastrophic failure for those participating in it, it's worth noting that in some ways it echoes to this day.  Fascism was proving to be popular in Middle Eastern quarters and it would reemerge as the Baath Party, a pan Arab fascist movement which still rules Syria and which did rule Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

More on that, and the ongoing British advance in the desert, can be read about here:

Today in World War II History—April 1, 1941

The Germans, it should be noted, would find their air intervention in Iraq ineffective and Vichy's decision to allow the Germans and Italians to use their airfields would end, forever, French rule in Syria.  Syrian airfields were already under attack by the UK at the time, so France's decision was not as bold as it might seem, given the circumstances.  Nonetheless France was entering the quasi belligerent stage.

British Commonwealth forces took the capitol of Eritrea on this day.

The Germans did seem to be reversing Axis fortunes in North Africa, however.

Workers at Ford Motors went on strike.

New York hit 60F for the first time that year, the fifth latest such date since records started to be kept, at that time, and now the seventh.

Veterans Day

 

June 2, 1920. Ships and faraway places.

Workmen posing before the launch of the USS Neches, Boston Navy Yard, June 2, 1920.  The ship was an oiler that would serve for 22 years until sunk by the Japanese submarine I-72 on January 23, 1942.

On the same day a Shia revolt commenced in Iraq.  Known as the Great Iraqi Revolt, the revolution would run its course for months before the British were able to put it down.  The British would deploy aircraft using air delivered poisonous gas during the war and at least 8,000 Iraqi lives were lost during the conflict, as well as 500 British lives.

The United States Congress rejected the proposal that the country engage in a League of Nations mandate over Armenia.

President Trump addresses the nation on Iran.

President Trump addressed the nation yesterday on the conflict with Iran.  He stated the following.

As long as I’m president of the United States Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Good morning.  

I’m pleased to inform you, the American people should be extremely grateful and happy. No Americans were harmed in last night’s attack by the Iranian regime. We suffered no casualties. All of our soldiers are safe,, and only minimal damage was sustained at our military bases.  

Our great American forces are prepared for anything. Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world. No American or Iraqi lives were lost because of the precautions taken, the dispersal of forces, and an early warning system that worked very well. 

I salute the incredible skill and courage of America’s men and women in uniform. For far too long, all the way back to 1979 to be exact, nations have tolerated Iran’s destructive, and destabilizing behavior in the middle East and beyond. Those days are over. Iran has been the leading sponsor of terrorism, and their pursuit of nuclear weapons threatens the civilized world. We will never let that happen. Last week, we took decisive action to stop a ruthless terrorist from threatening American lives.  

At my direction, the United States military eliminated the world’s top terrorist, Quasem Soleimani. As the head of the Quds force, Soleimani was personally responsible for some of the absolutely worst atrocities.  He trained terrorists armies, including Hezbollah, launching terrorist strikes against civilian targets. He fueled bloody civil Wars all across the region. He viciously wounded, and murdered thousands of US troops, including the planting of roadside bombs that may him and dismember their victims. Soleimani directed the recent attacks on US personnel in Iraq, that badly wounded for service members, and killed one American, and he orchestrated the violent assault on the US Embassy in Baghdad. In recent days, he was planning new attacks on American targets, but we stopped him. 

Soleimani’s hands were drenched in both American and Iranian blood. He should have been terminated long ago. By removing Soleimani, we have sent a powerful message to terrorists. If you value your own life, you will not threaten the lives of our people. As we continue to evaluate options in response to Iranian aggression, the United States will immediately impose additional punishing economic sanctions on the Iranian regime. These powerful sanctions will remain until Iran changes it’s behavior. In recent months alone Iran’s sea ships in international waters fired an unprovoked strike on Saudi Arabia, and shot down to US drones. Iran’s hostilities substantially increased after the foolish Iran nuclear deal was signed in 2013, and they were given $150 billion not to mention $1.8 billion in cash. Instead of saying thank you to the United States, they chanted death to America. 

In fact, they chanted death to America the day the agreement was signed. Then Iran went on a terrorist spree, funded by the money from the deal, and created hell in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The missiles fired last night at us, and our allies were paid for with the funds made available by the last administration. The regime also greatly tightened the reins on their own country. Even recently killing 1500 people, at the many protests that are taking place all throughout Iran. The very defective JCPOA expires shortly anyway, and gives a ran a clear and quick path to nuclear breakout. 

Iran must abandon its nuclear ambitions and end its support for terrorism. The time has come for the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia, and China to recognize this reality. They must now break away from the remnants of the Iran deal, or JCPOA, and we must all work together toward making a deal with Iran that makes the world a safer, and more peaceful place. We must also make a deal that allows Iran to thrive and prosper and take advantage of its enormous untapped potential. Iran can be a great country. Peace and stability cannot prevail in the Middle East as long as the Iran continues to foment violence, unrest, hatred and war. The civilized world, must send a clear and unified message to the Iranian regime. Your campaign of terror, murder, mayhem will not be tolerated any longer. It will not be allowed to go forward. 

Today, I am going to ask NATO to become much more involved in the Middle East process. Over the last three years. Under my leadership, our economy is stronger than ever before, and America’s achieved energy independence. These historic accomplishments shades our strategic priorities. These are accomplishments that nobody thought were possible, and options in the Middle East became available. We are now the number one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world. We are independent and we do not need Middle East oil. The American military has been completely rebuilt under my administration at a cost of two point $5 trillion. US armed forces are stronger than ever before. 

Our missiles are big, powerful, accurate, lethal, and fast. Under construction, are many hypersonic missiles. The fact that we have this great military and equipment, however, does not mean we have to use it. We do not want to use it. American strength, both military, and economic is the best deterrent. Three months ago after destroying 100% of ISIS, and its territorial caliphate, we killed the savage leader of ISIS al-Baghdadi who is responsible for so much death, including the mass beheadings of Christians, Muslims, and all who stood in his way. He was a monster. al-Baghdadi was trying again to rebuild the ISIS caliphate and failed. Tens of thousands of ISIS fighters have been killed or captured during my administration. 

ISIS is a natural enemy of Iran. The destruction of ISIS is good for Iran, and we should work together on this and other shared priorities. Finally, to the people and leaders of Iran, we want you to have a future and a great future, one that you deserve. One of prosperity at home, and harmony with the nations of the world. The United States is ready to embrace peace with all who seek it. I want to thank you, and God bless America. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

This then is the stated reason for the new situation with Iran.  As we noted yesterday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo seems to be instrumental in this new direction.  What is clear is that the Administration targeted Solemani because he was a principal Iranian paramilitary commander involved with Iran's sponsorship of foreign, illegal, terrorist militias. 

What isn't clear is if nature of Iran's response was really contemplated.  It might have been, and should have been, but it might not have been.  Those over acclimated to terrorism may have thought that Iran would simply regard this as costs of the game and then recalculate the costs.  And indeed, we don't fully know that they won't do that.

If they don't, we also don't know if the Administration war gamed this matter to contemplate a dramatically increased conflict with Iran, which doesn't mean that I'm predicting a full scale conventional war (I'm not, and I think that extremely unlikely).  And it doesn't seem that Iraq's parliament asking us to leave was contemplated, and we don't know how that will play out.

One thing I don't think will occur, in spite of the President's reference to it, is an increased role for NATO in the Middle East.  Indeed, I can't even see where such a request would make sense.  We didn't run this strike against NATO when we did it, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, while it has been more active in global affairs since the fall of the Soviet Union, is for the defense of Europe.  A person can rationalize that taking on the problems of the Middle East fits that model, but it's really a stretch. And the NATO country that is in the Middle East, Turkey, no doubt has a different view on many things in comparison to the United States, although this Administration has been accommodating to Turkey as the recent events in Kurdish Syria have demonstrated.

In the late 1950s. . .

Egypt and Israel engaged in an artillery war.  My recollection is that it was mostly in 1958. 

During this period the two countries shelled each other over disputed territory, with Egypt doing most of the shelling.  It came to an end when Israel chose to use air power to bring it to an end.

I note that as I suspect that's what we're entering into now in Iraq, with Iran.  And if that's the case, a person should be somewhat concerned about the probably escalating course.  I.e., if they rocket us, we'll surely sooner or later take out the rocket sites, somehow.

Assuming we aren't ejected from Iraq, which is a very serious likelihood.  Indeed, if this develops, my guess is that it would be a probability, as no host nation wants to be rocketed repeatedly.

Of course, maybe they'll stop with their recent rocket strike. And maybe we won't retaliate for it.  But that seems unlikely.

All of which brings up why taking out a uniformed officer of an opposing nation, even where he is not supposed to be, in a targeted fashion isn't wise, no matter how problematic  he may be.

Asymmetrical War and Gross Overreaction

Dear readers, it is important to note that Pearl Harbor has not been struck by the Japanese in a second sneak attack.

Eh?

Well, the reason I note that is that event was the last one which caused the United States to declare war on anyone. Sure, we've fought several undeclared conflicts since then, one, or two, of which were illegally fought in that they required, in my view, a declaration of war, but there's no risk of "World War III".

None the less, some in the Press are even kicking around World War III headlines, which provides evidence of why people who are deeply informed on any one topic tend to take the Press with a very high dose of salt.

At the same time, we'd note, basically historical ignorance combined with people's basic love of panic, and people do love a good panic, is contributing to the complete and utter nonsense that's circulating right now.

Okay, what's this about and what's really going on, to the extent we know.

Death from above.  Starting with the Obama Administration and continuing now onto the Trump Administration individual enemies of the US and those near them have found themselves alive one moment and in eternity the next through strikes conducted by Predator drones, such as this one in Iraq.  Last week Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani found himself in the situation of flying into Baghdad to consult with those he lead in the name of the spread of Shia Islam to being in the next world and finding out if the 7th Century founder of Islam was right. .  or wrong. . . or perhaps a now greatly misunderstood Gnostic preacher who wasn't sending a message as now understood.

Last week President Trump, without informing Congress, ordered a drone strike on Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani.  Soleimani, in an acting of stunning hubris, flew into a nation where Iran maintains client militias in the Iranian's government effort to subvert the Middle East for the purpose of spreading the Shia theocracy, even while its own people are leaving Islam in droves and declaring they've had enough of the Shia theocracy.

Indeed, were the Iranian government lead by men with flexible minds overall, they'd democratize the country immediately, which would give Shia fundamentalism a much better chance of retaining influence in Iran, assuming its not too late, than their current course.  The course they're on right now will result in the secularization of the nation through disgust, sooner or later, and an educated Iranian population is already well into the process of pondering Islam's contradictions and problems.

But that's not the course of action they're going to take. They're going to go down with the ship, and make it worse for themselves.

And part of that is sponsoring guerrilla war against all sorts of forces and states in the region, including subverting the Iraqi government  and sponsoring militias there.

Gen. Qasem Soleimani had been instrumental in it and he met a fate he basically deserved.  

He deserved it as he was an instrument in a struggle that depended at its core on Iran's opponents not behaving like Iran.  And just like the rude motorist who finds himself cutoff by a tow truck driver who has had enough, Iran is complaining about it.

Citing Gasoline Alley may seem odd here, but in essence, Iran is behaving like Doc.

Iran of course feels this way as its been allowed to.  Western powers have restrained themselves from taking on the theocracy since its first creation, no matter how difficult that nation has been, for a variety of reasons.  And there's real logic to that approach.  Sooner or later, Iran's going to collapse under its own oppressive weight and the problem will be solved.

None of which means that anyone must tolerate their violent misbehavior in the meantime.

Which also doesn't mean that killing a top general of their's is wise

Indeed, all of this is very problematic.  For one thing, it's extremely odd to be using killer drones over the downtown street of a country you theoretically are aiding.  Indeed, as we are the guest, and they are the host, we presumably would want permission to act in this fashion.

We didn't get that, and we wouldn't have received it either.  Iran has strong influence in the Iraqi government.

Additionally, flat out killing an Iranian general in this fashion, while technologically impressive and oddly honest in a way as well, isn't really strategically sound for a variety of reasons, first and foremost of which is that overall any one general's ability to influence the long term outcome of a struggle is always questionable.  

Even if he is key, however, doing it outright will cause the Iranian people to rally to their government, no matter how much they might otherwise detest it.  Deeply Orthodox Russian soldiers fought for the atheistic Soviet Union heroically, as Mother Russia had been attacked.  

Red Army soldier, likely a Soviet Pole, and a Catholic, during World War Two.

And while it may be a bad or disturbing example, German soldiers fought tooth and nail during the final months of World War Two against the advancing Soviets.  Viet Cong solders, increasingly youthful as the war went on, fought hard in the 1970s for a cause they only understood loosely at best simply because the other side was there, in their concept of another side.

The point is that this actually may serve to prolong the struggle with Iran.

Which is why, if it was necessary, most nation's would have gone about this differently.  In Baghdad nobody would have though much of a couple of RPG rockets slamming into a car followed by concluding bursts of AKM (AK47) fire.  It'd look like another Iraqi militia had done it.

Indeed, a colleague of mine who had once been a Navy SEAL told me that in his day, for sidearms they carried Browning Hi Powers. They were used by so many nations at that time that if one was dropped, you could never tell what military had been there.

This assumes, of course, that it was necessary to kill Soleimani, which is a big assumption.  It's difficult for me to see how that would have been true.  Of course, the New York Times is now declaring he was no big deal, but the Times, like Chuck Todd, has become so partisan its lost all objectivity.  Suffice it to say, however, taking us to a higher level of conflict with Iran right now really raises some questions.

One question it doesn't raise is whether or not we're going into "World War III".

There's actually some outright moronic speculation of this type.  On Twitter, for example, the Twitter Twits are causing this to trend today:

Politics · Trending

#Iranattack

Trending with: #IranUsa, #WWIIl

That's just silly.

But perhaps not as silly as this:

Selective Service

@SSS_gov

·

Jan 3

Due to the spread of misinformation, our website is experiencing high traffic volumes at this time. If you are attempting to register or verify registration, please check back later today as we are working to resolve this issue. We appreciate your patience.

Eh gads, any narcissistic fool who seriously is calling the Selective Service as they think there's going to be a resumption of conscription is truly a bed wetter.  Head out of the phone bucko, and read some real history.

There isn't even going to be a conventional war between Iran and the United States.  Iran would loose it and they know that.  All of which makes the public freaking out about this downright dumb.

Indeed, probably the most amusing freak out was that of Rose McGowan. She's an actress, and therefore is part of the vapid set, who posted a gif of an Iranian flag with a sunny and a smiling bear, or something, on it, with this text:

Deaar #Iran, The USA has disrespected your country, your flag, your people. 52% of us humbly apologize. We want peace with your nation. We are being held hostage by a terrorist regime. We do not know how to escape. Please do not kill us. #Soleimani

That's really stupid.

That it was stupid became pretty obvious really quickly and she began to back-peddle enduing up with this:

Ok, so I freaked out because we may have any impending war. Sometimes it’s okay to freak out on those in power. It’s our right. That is what so many Brave soldiers have fought for. That is democracy. I do not want any more American soldiers killed. That’s it.

Oh horse sh**.  This was an example of vapidness blowing up on the commentator.  There's a lot of it around right now.  And its just not very smart.

There's going to be no conventional war with Iran.  We aren't going to engage in one, and the Iranians aren't either.  Neither side, in fact, could easily do it, but it it occurred, it would be the end of the Iranian theocracy, and they likely know deep down that its winding down anyhow and they don't want to accelerate that.  At some foreseeable point in the near future the Shiite mullahs of Iran will have the same level of influence on Iran that the Church of Sweden has over that county's affairs. That's not to say none, in either case, but it won't be what it is now.

Speculation about the effectiveness of the Iranian military has been rampant for a really long time, but the best evidence is that it isn't.  The common citation to their effectiveness is the example of their war that Iraq fought with Iran from 1980 to 1988 in which both sides actually demonstrated a raving level of military incompetence.

Fighting to a draw with modern weapons and World War One technology isn't an example of military prowess.  At that time Iran had a western trained 1970s vintage military with 1970s vintage military equipment and Iraq had a Soviet trained 1970s vintage military with 1970s vintage military equipment.  Both side managed to forget their training nearly immediately and fought with their respective 1970s equipment as if it was 1917.  

Iran still has 1970s equipment but now are largely internally trained and, in a conventional war, would be even less competent than they were in the 1980s, much like the Iraqis were in the 1990s and 2000s. And they likely have no illusion about being able to fight anyone.

Iranian F-14s in the 1980s. The F-14 was a great plane, but old airplanes with no parts don't stay great and technology has moved on.

Indeed, they don't really try. The Iranians like asymmetrical, irregular war, and that's what we'll likely see.  But we will see that.

Which does bring us back around to a more tense situation.  Will Iran try to close the Persian Gulf and what will the Europeans do if they do (they depend on it being open more than we do)?  Will Iran ramp up terrorism?

Indeed, the latter appears to be a certainty, as Iran has already stated that its retaliation will be "against military sites". That's worrying, but what that suggest is that they'll engage in asymmetrical war at a calculated level.  Basically, like Arab nations did with Israel for decades.  Just enough violence to not really provoke a war terminating their state.

All of which means that this will go on, most likely, for years. . . depending upon our reaction, which is proving to be the difficult one right now.  And that's the weird situation that Iran finds itself in.  Like a habitual rude driver, they suddenly find themselves having angered somebody who appears to be irrational and are now in the "oh crap. . . did that tow truck driver cut me off and is he getting out of the cab with a beer and a gun. . . ?"  Nobody knows what any reaction from the United States will be right now.

Including Americans.

But it won't involve World War Three and it won't involve conscription.

It'll be more analogous to the the long Arab Israeli struggle, at least for the time being.  Which means that panicked might have to do a little studying.

Hubris and Hostilities. The Death of Gen. Qasem Soleimani

Gen. Qasem Soleimani was a bolt and brave man.

The aptly named USAF MQ-9 Reaper.

Which doesn't make him somebody we should admire. 

Nathan Bedford Forrest was a brave and bold man, but he served an evil cause and went on to found the Klu Klux Klan.

Nathan Bedford Forrest

Joachim Pieper was a bold and brave man.  But he was a nasty Nazi as well.  His special SS commandos were responsible for the Malmady massacre, for example, the 75th anniversary of which was just passed.

Joachim Peiper

And indeed, both men are good comparisons in some ways.  They were radicals for causes they believed in deeply, and they were willing to die for them. They had personal bravery, an attribute we widely admire, and applied it in the service of causes we deeply oppose.

Soleimani has been an instrumental figure in Iranian proxy wars all over the Middle East.  A person cannot feel sorry for his death and he died the way that people who live the way he lived die.  He who lives by the sword, as St. Matthew noted, die by it.

Islam of course was spread by the sword and for a very, very, long time its two principal Middle Easter branches have contested it other in manners in which swords were occasionally drawn.  Iran, for its part, has had no problem whatsoever about violently spreading its Shiia theocracy's point of view violently from day one.

And hence the irony.  Soleimani had been allowed to do what he did, mostly because the West tolerated. There are certain rules to war, even dirty wars and proxy wars, and one of them is that you don't assassinate the uniformed general officers of your opponent.

Not that doing such is an illegitimate act of war.  Soleimani was a solders.  Killing soldiers is legitimate.  We've been at war in Iraq now for 20 years, attempting to prop up a government we installed while Iran attempts to completely co-opt it.  Iran has no right, or at least not any more right than we do, to have proxy armies in Iraq. At least we have a relationship with the legitimate government.  So Soleimani flying into the Baghdad airport was based on the assumption that his Western opponents would abide by the unwritten rule of not targeting the general officers of an opponent even if Iran itself has widely ignored the laws of war.

Apparently the current administration has determined that it won't abide by that rule.

Which brings us to this.

Nobody should weep for Soleimani.  Probably even Soleimani wouldn't want people to do that.  And he received a fate which, through is life, he had advocated for.

But now what?

Clearly, we're on to some sort of new stage in the long slow struggle with Iran.  Iran hasn't played by the written rules and now we're not playing by the unwritten ones.  Iran will be obligated to retaliate somehow, but in asymmetric war, they're uniquely exposed as a large established state.  Their ability to act as a sponsor of terrorism and proxy militias depended upon the grace of their opponents, which now seems to have been removed.  It will try to act, not doubt, but in doing so, it can no longer be certain of anything.

Still, the question remains.  What on earth was Soleimani thinking in pulling into an airport in a country where you are maintaining an illegitimate military effort?

The Turkish border offensive in Syria and its slow progress.

Turkey announced yesterday that had succeeded in taking a major town in its offensive into northern Syria. 

Of course, stating that doesn't make it true. But what likely is true is that Turkey is making advances.

Or, rather, we should say that Turkey and a Turkish backed Syrian militia are making advances.

Which might explain things.

Last week we ran an item entitled Old Equipment about the Turkish army and, to a very small extent, the Kurdish militias, and their equipment. What was noted in that is the Turkey has a good army, but it's equipped with a lot of old equipment.  That shouldn't matter in what they're doing, however.

Well, be that as it may the Turks, or perhaps their Syrian militia allies, aren't doing all that great in their effort to push 30 km, or about 20 miles, into Syria and create a buffer zone between it and the Kurds in northern Syria.

Before we go on in that, however, we'd have to note that that particular goal is somewhat nonsensical in and of itself.  If the Turks extend their frontier with the Kurds 20 miles to the south, they still have a frontier of the exact same length, so their strategic position will not have actually improved.  Of course, they'll dump a puppet Syrian militia in the new border zone as well, so that's likely an integral part of their aims.

Be that as it may, an offensive of this type, given their arms, shouldn't have taken much more than two or so days, maybe three, but now they're that far into it and they're still slugging it out in border towns.

Of course, the Turkish army is a 1970s style mechanized army. The Kurds are light infantry, although it turns out that they also have artillery now and they were capable of shelling Turkish towns.  The fact that they're fighting in border urban areas, however, would demonstrate that the Kurds are not only doing better than expected, but they're using a strategy which puts Turkish combatants at a disadvantage.

Beyond that it shows some decline in the quality of Turkish forces, a decline that might in part be explained by Turkey also using Syrian militias which are highly unlikely to be as capable as the Turks or the Kurds.

None of this should be taken to suggest that the Kurds will win. But the Turks might get much more bloodied than they expected.  Part of this is for tactical reasons, they're fighting in urban areas and the Kurds are in fact fighting back.  But part of it may be that sixteen years into Erdogan's administration (if we include his time as Prime Minister and President), the Turkish army may not be what it once was.

The longer the fighting goes on the more problematic it becomes for Turkey. Erdogan has declared that Turkey will fight as long as it takes, but as a President of a democratic county where he is already controversial, an excessively  high casualty rate may not be something that he can really weather.  Fighting as long as it takes is always something that's is a problematic statement in a democratic society.  And additionally a long period of fighting will increase the regional refugee problem while at the same time making the Kurds appear much stronger than many may have supposed.  Even when Turkey establishes its border zone there will still be a Kurdish entity in northern Syria and it will be in close contact with the same in Iraq.  Ramping up a war against capable fighters who have, in the past, been willing to wage a guerrilla war inside of Turkey may prove not to have been terribly smart.

The Secondary Waves of the Great War.

World War Two, for obvious reasons, looms large in our imagination as the biggest event of the 20th Century.  The biggest, and the most significant.

But are we wrong?  

It seems lately that the echos of World War One are resounding pretty loudly.

World War One smashed the old order and demolished the borders of centuries.  The interbellum tried to reconstruct them, but did so in a metastasized and imperfect form, giving rise to new malignant orders that sought to fill the voids left by the death of the old imperial ones.  World War Two pitted three forces against each other, fascism, communism, and democracy, with democracy and communism ultimately siding with each other against fascism. After the war, the results of the Second World War gave rise to a contest between the two victors, communism and democracy, against each other until the vitality of free societies and free markets drove the rigidness of communism to and beyond the breaking point.

And now that communism is dead and gone, buried alongside its evil cousin fascism, the old unsolved questions of the Great War are back.  The rights of small nations, including those with out countries, against the possessions of older larger ones.  The demise of great empires giving rise to smaller ones.  Nationalism of all stripes against everything else.

It's 1919 all over again.

Turkey didn't sign the Treaty of Sevres.

Indeed, rather than do that, it fought it out.

It can't be blamed.  The Greeks had a quasi legitimate claim to Smyrna, but only quasi. A lot of ethnic Greeks lived there, which is no surprise as Anatolia had been Greek. The Ottoman's were invaders to the region, finally taking it in the 1450s.  But it had a large Ottoman population that they were bloodily brutal towards and they engaged in conquest, with the help of their Western allies, in Anatolia proper, seeking in a way to reverse what was lost centuries prior.

The Italian claim, moreover, to islands off of Turkey was absurd.

But the Armenian claims to their lands weren't.

The region sought of Armenia marked for a plebiscite is Kurdistan.  The Syria that ran to the sea and down to Palestine was an Ottoman province carved away from the Empire.  So was the Mesopotamia, i.e., Iraq, that appears on the map.

In 1990, the United States intervened in the Middle East to force Iraq, the British post World War One creation, out of Kuwait, a desert province that the British had protected during their stay in the Middle East, launching operations, with the assistance of others, from that region of Arabia named for the Sauds, that Arabian family that spent the Great War and the immediate interbellum consolidating power at the ultimate expense of the Hashemites, that Arabian noble family who had made war on the Turks.  The British dolled out kingdoms to that family as consolation prizes, with the Hashemites taking Iraq and the Transjordan.  The French got to administer Syria, a region that it claimed an historical affinity to, with the British taking administration of Palestine and Egypt, both of the latter having been Ottoman provinces although Egypt was long administered by the British in an arrangement that nobody can possibly grasp.

And so now, the old fights, and the interbellum struggles, reappear.  The peoples not accorded nations would like to have them. The old empires would like to keep their domains.  Borders drawn by European nations, with the help of Woodrow Wilson, are treated as real, when perhaps they were never correct.

Blood on our hands

The fate of prisoners taken in war uniformly depends upon the views of the captors, combined with their capacity to act in compliance with their ideals.

It's never been an enviable fate to be a prisoner taken in war.  And by that, I don't just mean prisoners of war, those combatants taken in battle, but also those individuals who become captives because of war.

In the Old Testament the Law modified the custom of the pagans in providing that women who were taken as prizes in war were allowed to morn their dead  husbands and were to be treated fairly by those Jewish captors who took them as prizes.  This is often misunderstood to mean that the Old Testament sanctioned taking widows of combatant opponents as forced brides.  It did not.  It restrained an existing universal custom by putting some elements of kindness and humanity into it.

And so commenced a long tradition in the Jewish world, and then the Christian world, of trying to treat prisoners of wars humanely.

It's not a universal norm, and it hasn't been even among those peoples who Christianity has reached.

During the Revolution, at least at the start, the British kept American prisoners, who after all were rebels, in horrible condition contributing to their high death rate.  A way out was to switch sides and join the British, which more than a few did.

During the American Civil War both sides, for much of the war, paroled enemy prisoners, simply sending them home on the promise not to fight again.  Some did fight again, and eventually both sides stopped the practice.  In the prisoner of war camps on both sides the conditions were awful, with those in the resource starved South the most horrific.

During the Boer War the British found it expedient to depopulate the countryside and make prisoners of the Boer women and children. The British have generally been decent, post 18th Century, to captives in war but these concentration camps had appalling conditions and many of the prisoners died.

During the Great War the Allied nations treated the prisoners it took fairly well, as they did those that they interned during the war. The Germans less so, but still not like what was to come.

During World War Two a soldier surrendering to the Allied in Europe, who survived the tense first moments of that experience, were treated quite well.  The Germans were less kind, once again, to western Allied POWs in their hands, ultimately shooting quite a few in one spectacular instance of mass escape from Stalag Luft III.

In the east, it was different.  The Germans were brutal to Russian prisoners, assuming that they survived the experience in the first place.  The Soviets reciprocated as the war went on.  Civilians on either side ran great risks from the enemy in their midst.  Civilian foreign prisoners of the Germans faced dreadful uncertainties.

Of course, anywhere, prisoners falling into the hands of the SS risked death for that reason alone.

In the Pacific, the Japanese tried to avoid surrendering, and as the war went on the Allies didn't make much of an effort to take them prisoner.  Allied soldiers falling into Japanese hands were horrifically treated, and civilians weren't treated much better.

During the Korean War prisoners of the United Nations forces were fairly well treated.  UN POWs were not well treated by the Communists.  ARVN and US troops who fell into North Vietnamese hands were horrifically treated by the North Vietnamese.  Treatment of NVA and VC prisoners by the South Vietnamese was mixed.

The point?

All of this points out the difficult nature of this question to start with.

And now the Turkish army is set to overrun the areas of northern Syria held by the Kurds.

And he Kurds are holding a lot of ISIL prisoners, including a lot of women and children of ISIL combatants.

Under the Christian world view the west possesses, whether it is willing to admit the origin of that view or not, these people are people, and they should be allowed to live as humanely as possible. And while I suppose its possible that the Kurds have been acting in this manner is due to their own views, I sort of doubt it.  My guess is that prisoners of war of one Middle Eastern combatant who fall into the hands of another, or just prisoners in general, aren't treated really well.

I could be wrong, of course.

In any event, in very quick time, the Kurds will have to leave these prisoners.  I don't think they'll hang around to do a change of flag ceremony.

So, what will become of them?

Well, we're not going to take them.

The Kurds might simply kill them.  That's horrific, but its expedient, and the Kurds have plenty of enemies, don't need any left alive, and don't have a lot of time. 

Or they might let them go, in which case these still very radical ISIL adherents will see their situation as a just perseverance vindicating their views, and go on to be trouble for us, Syria, and Iraq. Trouble we don't need. 

President Trump has suggested that its a European problem as they were "headed to Europe". Maybe some would head to Europe, but trouble for Europe doesn't help us.  And disregarding a problem and suggesting its a European problem will come back to haunt us.

Or perhaps they Turks will overrun them. They don't want to deal with them either, however, and what happens next isn't clear.  They won't hold them for years.

Maybe they'd turn them over to the Iraqis, or the Syrians.  It'd certainly be better to be turned over to the Iraqis.  The fate of people turned over to the Syrians would be grim.

All of this, of course, is something we wouldn't have to face if we hadn't have gone into Syria in the first place. But we did. And we supported the Kurds whom we're now abandoning. By doing that, we encouraged the Kurds to hold the prisoners we did.

So we are responsible for whatever occurs.

"shortsighted and irresponsible."

So says Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Donald Trump's stoutest defenders, about Trump's decision to betray the Kurds and leave them to the mercy of the Turks.

And it is an outrage.

To be clear, I opposed the United States intervening in Syria militarily.  This isn't because I think the Baathist regime there is nice. Rather, I was, I think realistic about the nature of the combatants there.

When the civil war broke out in Syria, the United States, both its population and its government, Americanized it in their minds.  To us, all revolutions against are by the good guys against the bad guys.  Indeed, it's summarized that way in the 1960s movie The Professionals, with the follow up line by Burt Lancaster's explosive expert characters adding; "the question is who are the good guys and who are the bad guys."

Well, it's not that simple.

In Syria there was one main westernized force set for overall control of the nation, realistically, and then there were Islamist theocrats.  One or the other was going to be the one that prevailed.  Trouble was, the westernized force their was the government, and the western ideology it had adopted was fascism.  Fascism is a western creation, and the Baath Party are fascists.  Indeed, the Middle Easter fascist party, the Baath Party, is the most successful fascist party of them all by some measures as its been in power far longer in various places, principally Iraq (formerly) and Syria, than any other fascist party was anywhere else.

The prime opponents of the Syrian government were Islamic radicals who sought to impose a theocracy. Oh, sure, there were other forces, but they were disorganized and inept.

Really effectively intervening in that situation would have required creating a Syrian rebel force out of something while also wiping out the Islamic elements.  That would have required the commitment of thousands of troops, probably 20,000 or more.  And it would have required a long occupation.

We weren't going to do that and it was obvious from the first.

Instead, over time, when we realized what was going on there we supported efforts to quash ISIL and support regional rebel forces where possible. In the meantime, Russian backed Syrian forces with quite a bit of support from actual Russian troops of one kind or another (not officially Russian, but clearly supported by the Russians and made up of Russian military men) crushed the rebellion.  Overall, our small scale intervention was much more effective than I would have supposed, although the winner overall is the Syrian regime which is now closer to Russia than ever.

And then there are the Kurds.

The Kurds are claimed to be the largest ethnicity in the world with a distinct territory that lacks a state. Their territory is spread over Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran. All of those nations have suppressed the Kurds. Right now, probably ironically, the Kurds are best off in Syira and Iraq.

That's about to end in Syria.

The Kurds deserve a country. They've long demonstrated that and they're fairly politically adept and cohesive.  By and large, politically, the Kurds would make most American politicians wince as they're on the Marxist end of the scale without being full blown Communists.  They're basically what we hoped the Castro lead Cuban revolutionaries would be and what we still like to pretend the Spanish leftist combatants, who were really Communist, in the Spanish Civil War were.  They've been fighting for political independence for decades.

Now they're running a quasi state in northern Syria where they successfully threw off the Syrian government and defeated ISIL.

Let me note that again, they defeated ISIL.

Central Intelligence Agency map of Kurdish regions.

And they're running their own state, uneasily and quasi officially, within the Iraqi state.

The number of American servicemen in norther Syria, supporting the Kurds, is quite small.  The exact numbers are likely unknown publicly, but President Trump claims its only fifty men.  Maybe, but at least as of a couple of years ago there were at least 4,000 Special Forces troops in Syria and additionally there was a small contingent of U.S. Marine artillerymen. Indeed, at one point American troops and unofficial Russian troops engaged each other with the Russian unit being utterly destroyed.  And this doesn't include the air contingent.

If its small, does it matter?

It certainly does. The map tells the reason why, as well as the history of the region.

American troops in the Kurdish region keep the Turks from going into that area.  The Turks would, and now will, as the Kurds are there.

Turkey is a patch quilt country created in part by ethnic cleansing.  The Turks invaded Anatolia during the 15th Century, completing their conquest of the Greek Byzantine Empire in 1453.  Coming out of Asia Minor, where many of the Turkish culture remain, the Ottoman Turks ruled from Constantinople until the Empire fell under the stress of the Great War.  At its height it threatened Europe before being contained by efforts in the 1500s which coincided with the Reformation and which constituted the one thing that fractured Christianity could agree upon.

The Ottoman Empire was just that, an empire, a conglomeration of peoples and nations which, in its case, were ruled by one nation, the Ottoman Turks.  The Empire was vast, stretching into Europe and over North Africa, but unable to spread into Asia Minor, ironically, where the Turks had their ethnic base.  Even on Anatolia the population was far from uniformly Turkish, but included substantial populations of Greeks, Armenians and Kurds.  World War One changed that.

During the war the Turks slaughtered gigantic numbers of Armenians in what may be legitimately be regarded as the first ethnic holocaust of the 20th Century.  Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the surrender of the Ottoman state to the Allies, the Greeks intervened in Anatolia and proved to have a grasp that exceeded their reach. In the areas of Anatolia that they occupied, atrocities occurred against the Turkish population, often the majority in these areas, that were both horrific and inexcusable, and which are now largely forgotten. This caused the Turks, who beat the Greeks in the Greco Turkish War, to do the same to the Greeks in the areas that they came back into control of, as they did so, and in the peace the Greeks were basically expelled.

The Kurds and the Armenians remain, and the Kurds have been fighting for their own country ever since.  The Turks want no part of that for the reason that the map makes plain.  If the Kurds secure their own country, Turkey will be considerably smaller.

Well, so be it, and the same for Iran, Syrian and Iraq.  Putting aside all old rights and wrongs, the Kurdish part of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran is Kurdish. A Kurdish state should be there.

But we're pulling out, and the Turks are coming in.

And by coming, let's be clear. They intend to invade northern Syria to deal with our allies the Kurds.

That is what Graham had to say:

Lindsey Graham

✔@LindseyGrahamSC

 · 6h

Replying to @LindseyGrahamSC

The most probable outcome of this impulsive decision is to ensure Iran’s domination of Syria.

The U.S. now has no leverage and Syria will eventually become a nightmare for Israel.

Lindsey Graham

✔@LindseyGrahamSC

I feel very bad for the Americans and allies who have sacrificed to destroy the ISIS Caliphate because this decision virtually reassures the reemergence of ISIS. So sad. So dangerous.

President Trump may be tired of fighting radical Islam. They are NOT tired of fighting us.

1,284

7:49 AM - Oct 7, 2019

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Exactly right.

The Kurds have been our allies and now we're betraying them.

Flat out betraying them.  We're literally stepping aside so that an enemy of theirs, Turkey, can put them down.

And in doing so, we're doing that by way of what appears to have come about in a telephone call between President Trump and President Endrogan.

In fairness to Trump, he signaled a desire to pull out of Syria earlier, and was backed down by opposition within the GOP and his own administration.  He apparently returned to his earlier views in his phone call with the Turkish president.

And that president, Endrogan, is an Islamist himself, the first one to really rule Turkey since the fall of the Ottomans (and they weren't terribly Islamist in their final years, even though the Turkish Emperor claimed the title of Caliph).  Those following Turkey have been nervous ever since Endrogan came to power as he's sidelined his opponents and seems from time to time set to take Turkey in a non democratic, Islamist, directly, and away from the strongly secular government it had featured (not always democratic by any means) since 1919.

That's not a direction the Kurds would go in.

And beyond that, while I didn't think we should go into Syria, once you do, you have an obligation to the people who you are allied to, and who are allied to you.  Graham, who has been a strong supporter of Trump, is exactly correct.  We're abandoning our allies.

We have a history of doing that. We set the South Vietnamese up for betrayal with horrific results.  Our messing around in Cambodia lead to a Cambodian disaster in a country we never intended to become directly involved in.

Now we're doing that in Syria.

That's disturbing in and of itself, but the President's reply is disturbing as well.

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump

As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!). They must, with Europe and others, watch over...

8:38 AM - 7 Oct 2019

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1. 1. Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 37m37 minutes ago
      

      ....the captured ISIS fighters and families. The U.S. has done far more than anyone could have ever expected, including the capture of 100% of the ISIS Caliphate. It is time now for others in the region, some of great wealth, to protect their own territory. THE USA IS GREAT!

First of all, let's deal with the blistering absurdity of the proposition we'll punish the Turks if their invasion gets out of hand.

What the crud would that mean? An armed invasion is out of hand in the first place.  When you send in an army it's not the same thing as a local church coming to your door and asking you to convert or something.

Secondly, we haven't ever "obliterated" the economy of Turkey.  If that's a reference to Iran, well we've badly damaged the Iranian economy, but the regime there is still keeping on keeping on and probably diligently working on acquiring an atomic bomb. The economy of North Korea is a rampaging mess and has been for a long time, but it's Stalinist court is still in power and they have the bomb.

And using the phrase "great and unmatched wisdom" is amazingly inept for a man who must know that there are those who seriously question his mental stability.  That this came about by way of a phone call, where the individual in question is already in trouble due to a phone call, is stunning.

Of course this may mean nothing more than Trump has returned to his isolationist view of the world, one in which the consequences do not so much matter as long as U.S. troops are involved.

If that's so, or in any event, this decision is flat out wrong.