After The Bear Showed Its Teeth The Ukraine Filed For Peace?

First the Ukraine said it would use force to recover the renegade Donbass region as well as Crimea. It then moved heavy troops towards the contact lines. The ceasefire at the contact line was broken multiple times per day. Several Ukrainian soldiers died while attempting to remove a minefield in preparation of an attack.

It became clear that a war in Ukraine's east was likely to soon braek out. A successful war would help Ukraine's president Zelensky with the ever increasing domestic crises. A war would also give the U.S. more influence in Europe. The U.S. and NATO promised "unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty”.

Russia gave several verbal warnings that any Ukrainian attack on the renegade provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk or Crimea would cause a serious Russian intervention. There was never a chance that the U.S. or NATO would intervene in such a war. But it was only after Russia started to move some of its troops around that sanity set in. It dawned on the Ukrainian leadership that the idea of waging war against a nuclear armed superpower was not a good one.

Late yesterday it suddenly decided to file for peace (machine translation):

The Armed Forces ruled out the use of force to "liberate" Donbass

KIEV, April 9 - RIA Novosti. "Liberation" of Donbass by force will lead to mass deaths of civilians and servicemen, and this is unacceptable for Kiev, said Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Ruslan Khomchak.

"Being devoted to universal human values ​​and norms of international humanitarian law, our state puts the lives of its citizens in the first place," the General Staff's press center quoted him as saying.

According to Khomchak, the Ukrainian authorities consider the political and diplomatic way to resolve the situation in Donbass a priority. At the same time, he added that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are ready for an adequate response both to the escalation of the conflict and to "the complication of the military-political and military-strategic situation around the country."

Zelensky himself chipped in (machine translated):

Zelensky spoke for a truce in Donbass

MOSCOW, April 9 - RIA Novosti. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the need for a new truce in Donbass after visiting the contact line.

The head of state wrote on Facebook that shooting at the front lines had become "a dangerous routine." "After several months of observing a complete and general ceasefire, we returned to the need to establish a truce," Zelensky said.

As the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Ruslan Khomchak emphasized earlier, the use of force to "liberate" Donbass is unacceptable for Kiev, as it is fraught with casualties among the civilian population and military personnel. At the same time, last week he said that the Armed Forces of Ukraine will strengthen the grouping of troops in the Donbass and in the Crimean direction - in response to the "build-up" of Russian forces on the border with Ukraine.

It seems that order has come from Washington to stand down - at least for now. U.S. reconnaissance flights near Russia's border continue. One should therefore consider that the sudden call for a renewed ceasefire might be a ruse.

But if it is not why was all of this allowed to happen in the first place?

Why The U.S. Might Want War In Ukraine

Yesterday CNN said that the US is considering sending warships to the Black Sea amid Russia-Ukraine tensions. That the U.S. is 'considering' this is however disinformation:

The United States has notified Turkey that it intends to deploy two warships to the Black Sea amid rising tensions with Russia, Turkish Foreign Ministry sources said on Friday.

Washington made the notification just over two weeks ago, as required under the Montreux Convention on passage through the Straits.

The warships will stay in the Black Sea until 5 May.

"One US warship will arrive on 14 April, and another on 15 April to the Black Sea. And they will leave on 4 May and 5 May, respectively," a source in the Turkish Foreign Ministry said.

The tensions in the Ukraine have built up after the Ukraine transferred heavy forces to the borders of Donetsk and Luhansk, raised Nazi flags and made a lot of noise about reconquering the renegade provinces as well as Crimea.

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Russia has also started some movement of troops and equipment towards its western border. For now these units are just training and not in a position to attack:

Although the US does not see the amassing of Russian forces as posturing for an offensive action, the official told CNN that "if something changes we will be ready to respond." Their current assessment is that the Russians are conducting training and exercises and intelligence has not indicated military orders for further action, the official said, but noted that they are well-aware that could change at any time.

A few weeks ago we explained why the Ukrainian president Zelinsky is under pressure to start a war. The country is bankrupt and in a constitutional crisis. On top of that:

Polling numbers for Zelensky have sharply declined. Right wing city councils call on Zelensky to outlaw the largest opposition party. Meanwhile the pandemic puts a record number of people into hospitals while a meager vaccination campaign is failing.

A war against the eastern separatist could be a Hail Mary attempt by Zelensky to regain some national and international support.

But nothing will happen on the frontline without the consent or even encouragement from Washington DC. The Biden administration is filled with the same delusional people who managed the 2014 coup in Kiev. They may believe that the NATO training the Ukrainian army received and the weapons the U.S. delivered are sufficient to defeat the separatist. But the state of the Ukrainian military is worse than one might think and the separatist will have Russia's full backing. There is no question who would win in such a fight.

Russia has since made its position clear:

Cont. reading: Why The U.S. Might Want War In Ukraine

U.S. Iran Conflict In Iraq Put On Pause

During their recent strategic dialogue the U.S. and Iraq agreed to relabel U.S. combat troops in the country into train and assist forces. A common statement said:

Based on the increasing capacity of the ISF, the parties confirmed that the mission of U.S. and Coalition forces has now transitioned to one focused on training and advisory tasks, thereby allowing for the redeployment of any remaining combat forces from Iraq, with the timing to be established in upcoming technical talks. The transition of U.S. and other international forces away from combat operations to training, equipping, and assisting the ISF reflects the success of their strategic partnership and ensures support to the ISF’s continued efforts to ensure ISIS can never again threaten Iraq’s stability.

The timing of the actual relabeling is still open. Technical meetings, to be held sometime in the future, are supposed to decide on that.

This however will not satisfy the Iraqi parliament which had decided that all foreign troops have to leave Iraq. Nor will this satisfy the 'resistance axis' of Iran, Syria and the aligned Shia militia groups in Iraq and Lebanon. As long as U.S. troops are still in Iraq, they will also continue their war on Syria. Those troops must leave:

Prior to the US-Iraq strategic talks, the Coordinating Committee of the Iraqi Resistance Factions, which includes all Iran-backed militias, issued a statement demanding a clear timetable for departure of all US forces from Iraq. The committee said it supports the strategic talks only if they lead to setting a clear timetable for a US departure, and that otherwise militias will return to attacking US bases and forces in Iraq.

Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, who became Prime Minister in May 2020, had promised to fulfill the parliament demand. He is however known to be leaning to the U.S. side. He has also worked deftly to diminish the influence of militia groups which lean towards the Iranian side:

In recent years, the Iranian-backed political and armed factions and their allies have occupied high-ranking offices in various sensitive security services, giving them wide-ranging power.

The National Intelligence Service, the National Security Agency, the national security adviser, the Internal Intelligence Agency, the elite Falcons Cell, and the Supreme Technical Committee for Information and Communication Security are among the most important official security agencies that the Tehran-allied armed factions and political forces controlled until last year.

But Kadhimi has managed to prize them all from the factions’ hands under one pretext or another, security officials told MEE.

The Interior Intelligence Agency and the Falcons Cell, the most prominent domestic intelligence units in terms of technical and human capabilities, which had not previously used their resources to pursue the Iranian-backed factions, have been in the prime minister’s hands since January.

Despite these losses of influence the various forces aligned with Iran are still powerful. Iraq also depends on electricity and gas which Iran provides to it. Kadhimi must therefore take Iranian interests into account:

Al-Kadhimi has walked a tightrope as he negotiates with the Americans while coming under growing pressure from local militias loyal to Tehran.

Last week, a convoy of heavily armed Shiite militiamen drove openly through Baghdad, denouncing the U.S. presence and threatening to cut off al-Kadhimi's ear, a display that clearly sought to undermine the premier.

Angered, al-Kadhimi asked Iran's leaders to rein in Iran-backed militias in Iraq and suggested he would confront the factions, two Iraqi officials said Wednesday. In the note, al-Kadhimi threatened to "announce clearly who backs these groups," the officials said.

It was not immediately clear who the message was given to. The timing suggested al-Kadhimi, who has appeared powerless in confronting the militias, was looking to appease the Americans ahead of Wednesday's talks.

The message led to a two-day visit this week by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force chief Ismail Qaani to Baghdad, where he met with militia and Shiite political leaders and called for calm, according to a senior Iraqi Shiite politician.

While Iran still wants the U.S. to leave the Middle East it is currently not interested in an immediate conflict. That is why Ismail Qaani told the Iran aligned militia groups to stand down. A priority for now is the return of the U.S. to the nuclear deal and the lifting of U.S. sanctions. Should that process fail it will again be open season. Kadhimi will then have to leave and the U.S. 'trainers' in Iraq will again come under direct attacks.

All this is political movement on the tactical level. On the strategic level Iran's aim is still to remove the U.S. from the Middle East. That will however take much more time.

Open Thread 2021-026

News & views ...

Will There Be A Global Resistance Economy?

Alastair Crooke's latest is, as usual, very interesting:

China and Russia Launch a ‘Global Resistance Economy’

What is ‘it’? It is not just a trade and investment pact with Tehran; neither is it simply allies helping each other. The ‘resistance’ lies precisely with the way they’re trying to help each other. It is a mode of economic development. It represents the notion that any rent-yielding resource – banking, land, natural resources and natural infrastructure monopolies – should be in the public domain to provide basic needs to everybody – freely.

The alternative way simply is to privatise these ‘public goods’ (as in the West), where they are provided at a financialized maximum cost – including interest rates, dividends, management fees, and corporate manipulations for financial gain.
...
The point is that – at the economic plane – the U.S., hyper-financialised sphere is fast shrinking, as China, Russia and much of the ‘World Island’ turn to trading in their own currencies (and do not buy U.S. Treasuries). In a ‘war’ of economic systems, America therefore starts on the back foot.
...
China has spectacularly made its entrance in the Middle East, and is challenging the U.S. with a resistance agenda. FM Wang, when he met with Ali Larijani, special adviser to the Supreme Leader Khamenei, framed it all in a single sentence: “Iran decides independently on its relations with other countries, and is not like some countries that change their position with one phone call”. This single comment encapsulates the new ‘wolf warrior’ ethos: states should stick with their autonomy and sovereignty. China is advocating a sovereigntist multilateralism to shake off “the western yoke”.

Wang did not confine this political message to Iran. He had just said the same in Saudi Arabia, before arriving in Tehran. It was well received in Riyadh. In economic development terms, China earlier had linked Turkey and Pakistan into the ‘corridor’ plan – and now Iran.

How will the U.S. react? It will ignore the message from Anchorage. It will likely press on. It is already testing China over Taiwan, and is preparing an escalation in Ukraine, to test Russia.

While I do not agree with every point - Iran and Russia are less socialist than the above assumes - the core push is IMHO correct as far as it is relevant to China, Russia and Iran. But can it go beyond them?

Anyway, there is more food for thought in it.

How Many Songs? How Many Glasses?

The crazies at Hamburg's miniature wonderland used the lockdown to create a classical music medley and quiz.

Astonishing that they spent time to built such a magnificent background for this video.

The making of the above with English subs is also on their Youtube channel. My personal favorite of their modelscapes is the airport.

How Russia 'Weaponized' 111 Times

Last night Bryan MacDonald, an Irish journalist currently working for RT, picked up on a theme we previously noted here.

Bryan MacDonald @27khv - 19:21 UTC · Apr 4, 2021

With the US/UK press in full Russia hysteria mode, right now, it's time for a thread on things the Anglo-American media has accused Moscow of "weaponising."
We shall start with Charlie Sheen.
Yes. Really. Not a joke.
Take a bow, @ak_mack & @ForeignPolicy

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Bryan MacDonald's thread is a good opportunity to update our list of all the issues, ideas and things Russia has weaponized.

Even while the list below now includes 111 entries - like robotic cockroaches, postmodernism and 14.legged squids - it is likely far from being complete.

Cont. reading: How Russia 'Weaponized' 111 Times

The MoA Week In Review - OT 2021-025

Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:

• March 31 - False Assertions, Misleading Quotes, Fake Sources - How The NYT Writes Anti-China Screeds
  Related:
  - The Origins of a Distinguished Diplomatic Career and the U.S.-China Fight for Primacy—BPR Interviews: Chas Freeman

> CF: Do they want to take on our global dominion and hegemony role? No, but we assert that they do. We posit that China thinks and behaves like us: “We had Manifest Destiny and it took us across the Pacific to the Philippines. Therefore, China must have a Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny in mind.” This is wrong. Things don’t work like that. So I would argue that we have inhaled our own propaganda, and we are living in the appropriately stoned state that that produces. If we have sound policies, we can out-compete anyone. But we’re not looking at sound policies; we’re looking at pulling down our competitor. <

• April 1 - "America Is Back" Collides With A Multipolar Reality
  Related:
  - Russia, China Uphold Rules-Based Order – In Spite of Western Roguery - Strategic Culture Foundation

• April 2 - The 'Russian Military Build-Up'
  Related:
  - Again, Washington jumps to conclusions over Ukraine-Russia skirmish - Anatol Lieven / Responsible Statecraft
  - Ukraine Edges Towards Ceasefire As Lavrov Warns "War Would Destroy Ukraine" (video) - Alexander Mercouris

• April 3 - Former U.S. Official: Al-Qaeda In Syria Is "An Asset" For U.S. Strategy
  Related:
  - How Ambassador Robert Ford Attempted to Whitewash the CIA’s Dirty War on Syria - Libertarian Institute
  - U.S. Sanctions Are Killing Innocent Syrians - Foreign Policy

---
Other issues:

Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review - OT 2021-025

Happy Easter

Today we celebrate the Roman-Christian equivalent of Nowruz, the festivity that welcomes spring and with it the resurrection of life.

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My personal Easter ritual, inherited from my father, is to read out loud, and then take, the Easter Walk from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's, Faust, Part I:

Look from this height whereon we find us
Back to the town we have left behind us,

Where from the dark and narrow door
Forth a motley multitude pour.

They sun themselves gladly and all are gay,
They celebrate Christ's resurrection to-day.

For have not they themselves arisen?
From smoky huts and hovels and stables,
From labor's bonds and traffic's prison,
From the confinement of roofs and gables,
From many a cramping street and alley,
From churches full of the old world's night,
All have come out to the day's broad light.
...
How it hums o'er the fields and clangs from the steeple!
This is the real heaven of the people,
Both great and little are merry and gay,
I am a man, too, I can be, to-day.

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Happy Easter!

Former U.S. Official: Al-Qaeda In Syria Is "An Asset" For U.S. Strategy

There is a new public relation campaign pushed by Turkey to whitewash al-Qaeda in Syria. 'Western' journalists were invited to Idleb governorate through some Turkish agency to make some fan flicks about Hayat Tahrir al Sham, the al-Qaeda entity under Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, which rules in Idelb.

The U.S. Public Broadcasting Service sent a crew for the gig and scored an interview with Jolani himself:

In his first interview with an American journalist, Jolani told FRONTLINE correspondent Martin Smith that his role in fighting Assad and ISIS, and in controlling an area with millions of displaced Syrians who could potentially become refugees, reflected common interests with the United States and the West.

Jolani told Smith that his group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, posed no threat to the United States, and the government should remove him from its list of designated terrorists.

“First and foremost, this region does not represent a threat to the security of Europe and America,” Jolani told Smith. “This region is not a staging ground for executing foreign jihad.”

There is of course no reason to believe such nonsense:

Aaron Y. Zelin, whose research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy focuses on jihadi groups in North Africa and Syria, told Smith that it’s hard to know what Jolani’s intentions are “because he has been a chameleon.” Zelin said in an interview conducted March 8, “How can you necessarily trust somebody that’s just trying to survive and continue to remain in power, because that’s the only way he can?”

Still - PBS is whitewashing the guy. Just see this passage:

Since the start of the conflict in Syria a decade ago, the Assad regime’s forces and ISIS have conducted large-scale human rights abuses. The Assad regime’s actions, Jolani told Smith, fit the definition of terrorism because it was “killing innocent people, children, poor people, women.”

Human rights organizations have also documented violations by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, from indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas to arbitrary arrests.

"Arbitrary arrests" seems mild when compared to "large-scale human rights abuses". That is until you learn form recent news how Hayat Tahrir al Sham really rules:

Three women and one man were stoned to death in Idlib, northwestern Syria, on Monday, on the orders of Islamist militant group Hay'at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS).

According to sources close to HTS, who spoke to The New Arab’s Arabic language service Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, the individuals executed were charged with "adultery" and "attempted murder".

They were brutally executed in the city centre and the sentence was carried out by the security apparatuses, sources said.

But the U.S. government and its media never had trouble to ally with entities who commit such crimes. They are in fact often seen them as valuable tools. Former U.S. officials no problem with admitting that:

James Jeffrey, who served as a U.S. ambassador under both Republican and Democrat administrations and most recently as special representative for Syria engagement and special envoy to the global coalition to defeat ISIS during the Trump administration, told Smith that Jolani’s organization was “an asset” to America’s strategy in Idlib.

Is Jeffrey now in breach of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act?

The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 (Pub.L. 97–200, 50 U.S.C. §§ 421–426) is a United States federal law that makes it a federal crime for those with access to classified information, or those who systematically seek to identify and expose covert agents and have reason to believe that it will harm the foreign intelligence activities of the U.S.

Probably not. The law protects only covered agents and it has long been obvious that Jolani and his group were working in U.S. interests.