The Rise and Rise of Donald Trump

Many people are amazed and dismayed at the way in which Donald Trump has risen to the top of the list of Republican candidate wanabees.  His candidacy seems to be gaining an air of inevitability in spite of the efforts of the GOP establishment to find a more acceptable alternative.  

It is true that Trump is a loudmouth, racist bigot.  Many think that this is his appeal - that there is a big pool of racist bigots, especially on the right of the political spectrum, who have found in him a champion of their cause.  Perhaps there is some truth in this, but I don't think this pool is big enough to explain Trump's success.  Conservative commentator (and former independent presidential candidate) Pat Buchanan has I think identified three reasons why Trump is so popular, especially among white working class Americans.  

http://buchanan.org/blog/buchanan-trumps-rise-is-rejection-of-quarter-century-of-bush-republicanism-124847

Buchanan suggests that the Trump phenomenon is a rejection of what he calls "Bush Republicanism" i.e. the policies of the Republican party over the past quarter century (the time of the Bushes, pere and fils). Three aspects of GOP policy, during this era, have been particularly inimical to the interests of conservative-minded working Americans. They concern:

1.  Free trade.
2.  Immigration.
3.  Foreign wars.

While there are many advantages to free trade (and economic theory to justify its benefits, going all the way back to David Ricardo in the early nineteenth century) it is often overlooked that there are losers as well as winners from free-trade agreements.  I think it is pretty much indisputable that the working classes of the USA, Britain and other early industrializers have been among the biggest groups of losers.   Well-paid manufacturing jobs have all but vanished from many once prosperous manufacturing regions.  With this collapse of industrial jobs has gone the weakening of unions.  There have indeed been many winners from free trade, not least of whom are consumers, a group that overlaps considerably with industrial workers.  But cheap goods for consumption are not much use if you don't have an income from a decent job.  But on the American side the biggest winners from free-trade have been corporations and the owners of capital, who are able to outsource production to low-wage countries.

Immigration, again, is a two-edged sword.  It has undoubtedly helped many people from poor countries and it has provided a willing workforce, especially for jobs which many Americans don't want to do. Immigration  has also enriched the cultural life of the host countries - think what a Sunday in Toronto was like in the Fifties.  But at the same time, immigration has helped reduce the bargaining power of labour, because many immigrants (especially illegal ones) have been willing to work for much lower wages than native Americans.   

These two aspects of globalization have been embraced not only by the Republican Party, but also by the Democrats.  But the GOP can claim almost exclusive ownership of the third issue - foreign wars.  The US has been almost constantly at war since Bush Junior's ill-advised and illegal invasion of Iraq in 2001.  There is no end in sight.  The costs of these wars has been enormous.  Funding these wars while cutting taxes, especially for top income earners, has led to large budget deficits and an ever-increasing debt burden.  

While all three of these GOP policies have undoubtedly hurt many ordinary conservative-minded working Americans, the irony is that a large number of them have been deceived into supporting the party - a party which really does not represent their interests. The GOP has achieved this by appealing to wedge issues like abortion, religion etc. and patriotic nationalism. At the same time they have badmouthed their opponents as "liberal' elitists and internationalists. But when in power Republicans (both federally and at the state level) have done everything they can to break unions, reduce taxes on the richest, and contract out work to outfits which pay minimum wages (often to illegal immigrants) - all policies which benefit corporations and 'capital' over 'labour'. 

I am not sure that it is even possible or even desirable to reverse some of the policies on free trade and immigration. Stopping the foreign wars however would be an unalloyed good.  Trump has stood for a reversal of all three of these policy choices made by the Republican Party and I think this is probably the main reason for his popularity.  It seems that many ordinary Americans, especially of the working class, are waking up to the fact they they have been sold down the river.   They want no more of free trade - witness the opposition to the TPP - and a slowing down, if not a complete stop, to immigration, especially illegal immigration.   Trump too has voiced his opposition to perpetual Middle Eastern wars.

Trump's advantage is that he is independently wealthy and is not beholden to the big money players of the Republican Party.  So he can gladly refute the policies which have made some of these players very wealthy.  Also he feels he doesn't need backing from AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups, so he can steer his own course on the Middle East. 

So it seems to me that many Americans are waking up to the fact that, over the past couple of decades, they have been had.  Many, who incline to the right, don't want to nominate someone like Rubio or Cruz, which would lead to much more of the same (or worse especially in the case of Cruz).  I believe Hillary would be in the same mould too - probably worse with respect to foreign wars.

Trump is an unpleasant, bigoted and racist blowhard.  He is a loudmouth braggart, with no experience of government.  The thought of having him in the White House is truly frightening.  But I think one has to admit that he has touched a chord, and that he has positions which genuinely represent the interests of a large group of Americans, even if he expresses them in a brutish way.  Perhaps, through doing this, in the long run, he will turn out to have changed the course of American politics. 

The Price of Oil - Don't Bet the Farm on it Continuing to Fall!

Today the price of oil dropped below$30 a barrel.  I say "the price of oil" but of course oil comes in many different forms and has many different prices.  But what is usually quoted as "the price oil" is the price of some benchmark grade - usually West Texas light sweet (low sulphur) crude or Brent North Sea crude.  Since the prices usually move in tandem it doesn't really matter what is used as a benchmark, provided of course that it is used consistently.

We now have pundits suggesting that the price might dip to below $20. The drop in price comes with all kinds of consequences.  For us Canadians, it has meant a massive drop in the value of the Canadian dollar and a concomitant rise in everything imported, not least the price of food.  Today the loonie went as low as 68.74 US cents.  Pundits have been rushing to tell us how low it could go - this week several have been saying that it could be at 59 cents by year's end.  

This is all treated as something beyond human control, like bad weather, forest fires or earthquakes.  To some extent the low oil price is due to a glut in production - the US is now producing more than Saudi Arabia, thanks to the relatively new technology of fracking.  Also the drop in price today was attributed in part to the prospect of Iran getting back to producing for the world market.  Of course on the other side of the ledger is reduced demand, or perhaps just the fear of it, with China's phenomenal growth expected to be trimmed by a percentage point or two.

But I think there is much more to this than simply the intersection of supply and demand.  For decades since its creation in the mid-70s OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) has successfully restricted supply to maintain a price considered best for its members.  By far the most powerful member of OPEC is Saudi Arabia, and it was a Saudi decision, announced in June, 2014, to not cut production, that lead on to further drops in price.  

Why did the Saudis do this?  There have been many explanations offered.   The most widely believed seems to be that it is an attempt to drive high cost US shale producers out of the market.  Other explanations have invoked attempts to support the US in its vendetta against Russia, and to make life as difficult as possible for the Saudis' perennial rival, Shiite Iran, who, now sanctions are about to be lifted, plan to re-enter the world oil market.

I don't know enough of the technical details of the oil market, to be sure of this, but I suspect that single-handedly by cutting production, Saudi Arabia could restore the price of oil to a level much higher than it is today - perhaps not back up to $100 a barrel, but perhaps to $50 or $60 where it was when the Saudis announced their 2014 decision.   If this is so then perhaps the Cassandras and Chicken Littles who are warning of $20 a barrel or lower should reconsider.

Why do I say this?  Well for one thing the low price is hurting the Saudis as well as other producers.  They have run serious budget deficits for the last couple of years, not only due to the reduction in revenue, but also due to their wasteful, ill-advised and criminal war in Yemen.  This war seems to be something of a quagmire at present and the costs in weaponry, and mercenary soldiers, who do most the fighting for the Saudis, could grow even higher than today.   The IMF has made warnings about the non-sustainability of recent Saudi budgets, and has warned that they are seriously draining their reserves.  Recently the government brought in some restraint measures, including raising the domestic price of fuel (at a time when the world oil price has dropped precipitously!).  

In the past the Saudi Royal Family has been able to essentially buy off internal dissent by offering jobs, scholarships etc. to dissatisfied parties, especially young people.  But while they face the prospect of more discontent at home, due to their austerity measures, they are constrained in how much they can spend to buy off the opposition. Also there is reportedly serious discontent within the Royal Family, over the direction in which the country is being lead.   Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aged 30, is the Defence Minister and is reportedly behind the rash war in Yemen.  One can easily imagine that there are others in the Royal Family who feel that something has to be done to remove this hothead.  A palace coup is a serious possibility. What this would mean for their oil policy is hard to predict, but it is quite possible that it would lead to a volte-face.

Even without a coup, it is possible that the Saudis will back down on their policy.  There seems to be little sign of it working so far, and it seems to be hurting them more than their rivals in the US.

Beyond the internal machinations of the Saudi government, there is another reason why oil prices might suddenly rise.  This is the possibility of war or serious political instability in the Gulf and wider Middle East.  The Saudis seem to be doing everything that they can to goad Iran into military action - the New Year's execution of the leading Shiite cleric, the breaking off of diplomatic relations etc.  And only this week the possibility of hostilities between the US and Iran raised its head, with the incursion of two US navy vessels into Iranian waters, with the usual lies and contradictions emanating from the US side. Fortunately diplomacy quickly diffused the situation, but one can only imagine, with horror, how someone like Ted Cruz would have reacted if he had been in charge.  Remember there are many (especially NeoCon Israeli supporters) in the US power establishment, who would love an excuse to torpedo the Iran nuclear deal.   I think it is something in the order half of the world's oil supplies pass through the Straits of Hormuz.  In the event of hostilities with Iran this would be shut off immediately.  The price of oil would shoot up faster than it has descended.

Another locus of hostilities could well be Libya.  It has been  predicted (http://atimes.com/2016/01/an-extended-war-coming-to-libya/) that there are plans underway for a US/British/French/Italian invasion of Libya to oust the growing influence of IS in that country. According to the article, the Western powers are waiting for the finalization of the mooted deal between two rival governments.  A new supposedly unified government would then invite the western powers to intervene on its behalf.  Hillary Clinton and all of the Republican candidates (except Ron Paul, and surprisingly perhaps Donald Trump) would jump at the chance for more overseas US adventures.  What effect this would have on the wider Middle East, and on the price of oil is hard to predict.  It is easier to predict that it would end up achieving pretty much the opposite of what was intended.

I hate to say this, but from the point of view of the price of oil, and perhaps the world economy in the short term, the best thing that could happen is a war in the Persian Gulf.  I don't want it to occur  but unfortunately there are many who would.   

There are many reasons why the decline in the world price of oil could be reversed.  Extrapolation is easy - hence the predictions of the continued drop in price.  Predicting future political outcomes is much harder, and I believe that the current low price is, in large part, the consequence of political decisions, which can easily be reversed or thwarted.  So don't bet the farm on a continued slide in the price of oil and in the value of the loonie!

Who has Obama's Ear on Syria?

Seymour Hersh has just published a long article in The London Review of Books in which he claims to reveal some aspects of a major disagreement between various Washington players concerning US strategy in Syria.  In the article Hersh claims that the leadership of the military - the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), under its former Chairman, Martin Dempsey - had a very different idea from the Obama administration on strategy in the war.  In this they were supported by the head of the Defence Intelligence Agency, Michael Flynn.

Obama from the outset has said that for the war to end Bashar al-Assad must first step down.  The US blocked peace negotiations earlier in the war, saying negotiations should not take place, until al-Assad relinquished his presidency.  By making this a pre-condition the US was in effect backing continued warfare and saying that the US would support Assad's opponents until victory was achieved.  Clearly Obama believed that Assad was on the ropes and would eventually be defeated.   But it should have been obvious that there was no way Assad would yield power short of military defeat.  If he were to do so he would soon find himself either dead like Moamar Qadaffi, or on trial in his own country under a new government, like Saddam Hussein, or on a one-way journey to The Hague to face trial at the International War Crimes Tribunal.  

The Obama administration seemed to believe that there was a 'moderate opposition' which could take over government if and when Assad was defeated.  The DIA under Michael Flynn and Dempsey's JCS who had a lot of intelligence on what was happening on the ground knew that this was wishful thinking.  What was actually happening on the ground was that the opposition to Assad consisted almost entirely of jihadi groups such as Islamic State (IS), Jabhat al-Nusra and The Army of Conquest.  All of these are extremist Salafi fighters frequently using terrorist tactics and happily murdering others (Muslim or non-Muslim) who don't share their extreme ideology. The Free Syrian Army, the supposedly moderate group opposed to Assad, had been absorbed into one or other of the various jihadi groups.  Al-Nusrah and IS regarded them as a joke - but also a source of  modern weaponry freely supplied by the CIA.

The DIA and JCS were extremely worried about what would happen if Assad's Syrian Arab Army were defeated.  They feared a situation, which at best would be one of chaos, like that prevailing in Libya, or much worse the take-over of Syria by extreme murderous jihadis, who would gladly slaughter, by the the thousands, those who did not share their extreme views - Alawites, Christians, secular Sunnis etc.   

The DIA passed on their intelligence and concerns to the White House and State Department but got no response.  General Dempsey and the JCS chose a different way of dealing with the head-in-the-sand approach of the Administration. According to Hersh's informant, rather than challenge the policy head on, they chose to surreptitiously pass intelligence to al-Assad's military intelligence.  They did this by sharing intelligence they had gathered on the jihadi militias with other intelligence services (Germany, Russia and Israel) they knew or strongly suspected would pass the information onto Assad. Apparently they passed intelligence on the whereabouts, strength and aims of the various jihadi militias.  

Russia's entry into the war complicated matters for the Obama administration.  To the JCS it appeared obvious that US policy should be to ally with Russia to combat IS.  But the Obama Administration took a different view and regarded Russia as an enemy. Right from the start of Russia's involvement, the US (and the mainstream media) accused them of bombing not IS, but other combatants of Assad, who the US claimed were 'moderates' (see my earlier blog post Foul.  Your bombing our jihadis!).  This didn't change even when IS claimed responsibility for downing the Russian civilian airliner in the Sinai.  In fact there seemed to be an element of gloating in the US media's response to this terrorist action.  There was no attempt to explain why IS would retaliate against Russia if the Administration claim that Russia was not targeting IS were true.  

Another aspect of the war, which the DIA reported to the Obama administration, was the duplicitous behaviour of supposed NATO ally Turkey, which was allowing arms and recruits to freely cross its border with Syria to supply and support IS and Jabhat al-Nusra.  In fact we now know it was going much further in supporting IS by allowing convoys of tankers of stolen oil to enter Turkey where it was sold on the black market.  Obama is well aware of Turkey's behaviour and yet continues to publicly support its president, Erdogan, as was evident in his condemnation of Russia after Turkey had shot down a Russian plane.  

For some reason Obama is reluctant to challenge Turkey even though the US is well aware of Turkey's duplicity.  He is reported to have told Erdoğan’s intelligence chief at a tense meeting at the White House "We know what you’re doing with the radicals in Syria". Nonetheless he is apparently not prepared to do more. 

So why is Obama persisting in his apparently wrong-headed policy? There seems to be a little movement on the demand that Assad must step down before peace talks.  Secretary of State John Kerry after his recent meetings in Moscow has allowed that peace talks should begin, even while Assad remains in power.  But on US hostility to Russia and support for Turkey, nothing seems to have changed.  Similarly the claims of a so-called 'moderate opposition' continue.  British Prime Minister Cameron, who faithfully follows the US line, recently claimed seventy to eighty thousand such fighters.

The former head of JCS, Martin Dempsey, has retired and in his place Obama appointed General Joseph Dunford, who is reliably anti-Russian.  In October Dunford dismissed the Russian bombing efforts in Syria, telling the Senate Armed Forces Committee that Russia ‘is not fighting’ IS. He added that America must ‘work with Turkish partners to secure the northern border of Syria’ and ‘do all we can to enable vetted Syrian opposition forces’ – i.e. the ‘moderates’ – to fight the extremists. 

So who is giving the advice to Obama?  The role of the CIA is unclear. They have certainly played a big part in moving arms to anti-Assad groups.  But I suspect that besides the CIA the usual suspects are shaping policy.  By the usual suspects I mean the neocons, who have been responsible for so much bad policy in the Middle East.    In an earlier blog I quoted Andrew Sullivan

The closer you examine it, the clearer it is that neoconservatism, in large part, is simply about enabling the most irredentist elements in Israel and sustaining a permanent war against anyone or any country who disagrees with the Israeli right. That's the conclusion I've been forced to these last few years. And to insist that America adopt exactly the same constant-war-as-survival that Israelis have been slowly forced into... But America is not Israel. And once that distinction is made, much of the neoconservative ideology collapses.

One has to ask, in whose interest is continuing warfare in Syria?  It is certainly not in the interest of the European countries, who are being flooded with desperate refugees and threatened by terrorism.  Nor is it the interest of Russia.  But to those states who are implacably opposed to Iran, ongoing conflict is just the ticket.  A 'rational' though evil policy for them is to keep Iran's allies, Assad and Hezbollah, tied up in fighting, and bleed them to the maximum extent.  So Israel and Saudi Arabia were no doubt quite happy with the way things were going, before Russia intervened.  Turkey under the megalomaniac Erdogan seems to be more motivated by the prospect of gaining territory in northern Syria, and at the same time preventing Kurdish forces from doing the same.  

But is it really in the interests of the US to keep the fighting going? General Dempsey and the former JCS and Michael Flynn and the DIA didn't think so.  But they have been ousted and others are now in control.  Whose interests are they serving?  

On Clocks and Sundials, Sunsets and Solstices.

If you put a vertical stake in the ground, and observe every day, the time when its shadow points due south, you may come up with a surprising result.  If your clock is accurate enough you will find that the interval between the so-called "solar noon" from one day to the next is not exactly twenty-four hours.  In fact you will find that it varies from day to day.  

What this means is that "solar time" (i.e. time measured on an sun dial) and time as measured by a terrestrial clock - say a pendulum clock or the digital watch on your wrist are not exactly the same.  We'll come to the reason for this in a moment.  But first let me show you the magnitude of the difference.  It varies throughout the year.  The following shows the difference between the two.

The horizontal axis is the day of the year.  The vertical axis is the difference (in minutes) between clock time and solar time.  Above the horizontal axis the clock is ahead of the sundial and below the axis it is the other way around.  So now in mid-December the clock is slightly ahead of the sundial, but soon it will change (on December 25 to be precise) and then will be behind (until 15th April).  The relationship between solar time and clock time captured in the graph is known as the Equation of Time.  

Now for the explanation.  Those with a mathematical background might suspect that the above graph is the sum of two sine functions with different phases, amplitudes and periods, and indeed that is what they are.  That is because the phenomenon is due to two causes.  

The first is that the earth's orbit is elliptic and not circular.  This means that the velocity of the earth varies throughout the year as it orbits the sun.  It is fastest at the two "pointed ends" of the ellipse which occur in mid-winter (3rd January) and mid-summer (3rd. July) and slowest on the "flat ends" in Spring and Fall.   The consequence of the variation in earth's speed is that the time from solar noon to solar noon varies. This is because when the earth is travelling faster it will take more time to complete a rotation to face the sun (because the earth has moved around the sun - from position 1 to position 3 in diagram below) than it would when it was travelling slower i.e the distance from 1 to 3 is greater in January and July than in March and September, so the angle to the sun is from 1 and 3 is greater in the former than the latter. 

This implies that in mid-summer and mid-winter, the interval between solar noons  should be larger than in the Fall and Spring. This yields the larger amplitude sinusoid (period one year).  

The other reason for the difference relates to the tilt of the earth (which gives rise to the seasons).  I won't go into details, which can be found in Wikipaedia at 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equation_of_time

This is the reason behind the second, shorter period (six month), sinusoid.  

When these two sinusoids are summed one gets the equation of time graph above.

Apparently the variations in solar time were known to the ancient Babylonians (see Wiki article)  and Ptolemy tabulated the equation of time.  Ptolemy lived in Roman Egypt and was born about 100 CE.  In the Middle Ages various Islamic astronomers made improvements to Ptolemy's tables, especially the contribution due to the earth's tilt. 

One consequence of the difference between solar time and clock time is a fact which the very observant may have noted at this time of year. It is that the time of sunset has been gradually getting later since December 8 here in Victoria, BC (since Dec. 11th in London) even though the shortest day is not until 21st. of the month.  On the other hand, the time of sunrise will continue to get later until early in the New Year.  

In the December, up to the 25th, solar time is earlier than clock time, but with the difference diminishing as the month progresses.  This means that sunrises and sunsets are earlier than they would be if the earth's orbit were circular.  This pushes the earliest sunset to occur before the solstice (December 21st.) and the latest sunrise to occur after the solstice.

I am filled with admiration for the astronomers and mathematicians, both ancient and more modern, who worked all of this out.  The motion of the celestial spheres has been a continuing area of inquiry for some of the greatest mathematical minds of the ages. Apparently since time of Kepler (around 1600) many luminaries have studied planetary orbits and their  stability including

Laplace, Lagrange, Gauss, Poincaré, Kolmogorov, Vladimir Arnold, and Jürgen Moser.  

A heavenly galaxy of stars indeed!  

IS as a Millenarian Sect

I have been reading a long and interesting article about Islamic State (IS, ISIL, ISIS, Daesh) by Graeme Wood.  It appeared in the March issue of The Atlantic but is still available online: 

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

Graeme Wood is a journalist (Canadian) and not a scholar of Islam, but he seems to have delved quite deeply into Islamic theology and history.  One thing that struck me in his article is the importance of apocalyptic thinking in the beliefs IS espouses.

Most of the major religions have millenarian or apocalyptic strains. The coming of the Messiah and the End of Days is a central tenet in Jewish belief.  When, in my younger days, I attempted to read the New Testament, I was struck by how much Jesus believed that the End of Days was nigh and preached that the Children of Israel better get their act together, because Judgement Day was coming.  This part of Jesus's teaching seems to has been conveniently forgotten, probably because it was obviously incorrect, the world having persisted.

And then after Jesus's death when the label of Messiah (or Christ) was pinned upon him, some Christians adopted a form of apocalyptic thinking, exemplified in particular in the Revelation of St. John.  For him Armageddon was on its way.  Interestingly the word Armageddon derives from an actual place, Megiddo, now in Israel.  It was an important location in a narrow pass through which the trade route from Egypt to Assyria passed.  There were a number of major battles there in ancient times.  

In Christian eschatology (end of times beliefs) of the Book of Revelation,  written by John the Divine, in exile on the island of Patmos, Jesus will return to earth and defeat the Antichrist (the "beast"), the False Prophet and Satan the Devil all together in the Battle of Armageddon.  After various other wild events, dreamed up in the lurid imagination of John, and involving a lot of fire and brimstone, Jesus will reign and the righteous will be saved.  

Mohammed, the Prophet, was well aware of Christian and Jewish beliefs, so it is not surprising that in Islam, there is a hadith  (writings claiming to be direct quotes of The Prophet) dealing with the End of Days.  It claims that Mohammed said that 

The Last Hour would not come until the Romans land at al-A’maq or in Dabiq. An army consisting of the best (soldiers) of the people of the earth at that time will come from Medina (to counteract them).

Dabiq is a city, now in northern Syria, close to Aleppo.  "Romans" was thought to refer to the Byzantines (the Second Rome) but others now think it refers to Christians in general.  According to the Prophet's prophecy, after the defeat of these Romans, the forces of Islam will go on to conquer Constantinople.  A messianic figure The Mahdi (remember General "Chinese" Gordon's expedition to Khartoum in Victorian days) will be instrumental in these victories and will reign for some years (variously 7, 9 or 19)  before the final Day of Judgement and the return of Jesus Christ.  

The name Dabiq has been adopted by IS for its propaganda magazine.  Apparently in 2014 when its troops captured the city and its surrounding plains there was wide rejoicing among its members, in belief that the decisive battle would soon come to pass.  Also in IS's propaganda messages there have been many references to Dabiq, whose significance has been missed by Western journalists. 

I gather from Graeme Wood's article that in the Muslim world belief in this End of Days is considered to be a somewhat vulgar indulgence by the masses.  In some ways this is not so different from the Christian world where believers in 'The Rapture' and their close cousins Armageddon survivalists ('Preppers'), are viewed with disdain by educated Christians and establishment churches.

Apocalyptic  considerations played no part in Al Qaeda's thinking. Both bin Laden and his number two Ayman Zawahiri were from elite Sunni families and looked down on lowbrow apocalyptic speculation. Apparently in Iraq in 2008 there was a lot of talk of the Mahdi and jihadi groups there were making tactical decisions based on their estimates of when the Mahdi was to be expected.  When Osama bin Laden was appraised of this he had to write to them and order them to desist.  It was from the jihadi groups (especially Al-Qaeda in Iraq) fighting in Western Iraq that IS emerged when it split from Al-Qaeda.  

Al-Qaeda is in many ways like an underground political organization with very clear earthly goals, albeit ones to do with the political revival of Islam.  This is not true of IS which sees itself as fulfilling prophecy. And part of that prophecy has to do with the End of Days.  This has lead some strategists to suggest that a way to defeat IS is to amass a huge modern western army in the vicinity of Dabiq, more or less inviting IS to do battle there.  It is claimed that it is a bait that they would not be able to resist. And when the western forces decisively defeat the IS forces, its credibility would be irreparably destroyed.

This could be true.  But I think Western leaders are very wary of sending more ground troops to Muslim countries.  Past experience suggests that when one dragon is slain, its blood only goes to fertilize the ground for the emergence of another more fearful and monstrous dragon.  

Graeme Wood suggests that in the long run IS might be defeated on a spiritual level by a quietist form of Salafi Islam.  These Salafis are just as unbending as IS in their literal belief in the Koran and in the divine word of the Prophet.   But their main emphasis is personal purification and compliance with the Koran.  In some respects they are like the Ultra-Orthodox Jews, who reject the legitimacy of the Israeli state, but go to extreme lengths to make sure their daily behaviour complies with 'The Law', even to the extent of having non-observant neighbours enter their homes on the Sabbath to turn on light switches. Mohammed preached against chaos, especially generated by discord between believers.  IS generates exactly this sort of chaos and discord and the quietist Salafis reject this behaviour.

Whether or not IS loses the spiritual battle only time will tell. Personally I can't see it happening.  The allure of fighting and dying in a righteous cause is much more appealing to the young than the non-ending rigours of an extreme ascetic life.   But at the same time I can't see how IS can continue if it stays rigidly attached to the very literal interpretation of 1400 year old scripture.  It is as if extreme Christian fundamentalists succeeded in obtaining absolute power in the USA - something that so far has only happened in the fiction of authors like Margaret Atwood.  An unbending attachment to scripture could not be sustained for long.  Compromises with the real world would have to be reached.  But this would lead to some weakening of the internal belief of the leadership and members.  Not only would it weaken the drive of the organization, in the case of IS it would lead the leadership open to the charge of takfir or apostasy, which would then make it the duty of other believers to overthrow the takfiri leadership.

I imagine that, like in every other organization, there is a spectrum of beliefs within the IS leadership.  The Caliph, Al-Baghdadi appears to be at one end of the spectrum - a true believer.   But I wonder about its military leaders.   They are said to be former officers of Saddam's Baathist army.  I don't know, but I can't picture these military men, who served Saddam, as extreme Salafis.  I suspect they are more driven by motives of power and revenge.  But at present they see their best strategy as going along with the extreme religious leadership. Who knows what might happen if the tide turns against IS, militarily. Will the religious leadership still put up with the Baathist soldiers?  Or will the soldiers try to take over the organization?  To me it seems that in the long run IS could be a victim of its own ideology.  But in the meantime it could cause an awful lot of  chaos and killing.  

Since Wood wrote his article IS seems to have adapted its tactics somewhat.  It seems to have followed Al-Qaeda's tactics of terror attacks on western targets, at least sponsoring, if not organizing, attacks in Beirut, Paris and the bombing of the Russian airliner.  So maybe it is not so constrained by prophecy and the Islamic texts as Wood suggests.  If true this is bad news for the rest of us.  

Sonofabitch Bashar al-Assad.

Sheldon Richman  has an interesting article here
(http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43597.htm) entitled "Why Assad Isn't Our Son of a Bitch"

The statement "He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son a bitch" is attributed to Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) in 1939 referring to Anastasio Somoza dictator of Nicaragua, and the first of three Somozas to rule that country.  Of course the US has a long record of supporting brutal dictators (our sons of bitches) often after having helped install them into power.  In Latin America they are too myriad to list but they go back to the nineteenth century with Porfirio Diaz in Mexico and later including Pinochet in Chile, Noriega in Panama, Batista in Cuba and Papa Doc Duvalier in Haiti.  In Asia, Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan and the Philippines have all been ruled by US backed dictators.  In the Middle East of course there have been Saddam Hussein, Ali Abdullah Saleh (in Yemen) and Hosni Mubarak and now Abdel Fattah el-Sissi in Egypt.  And once upon a time, Bashar al-Assad, like his father Hafez al-Assad was one of "our sons of bitches".  

If you recall, in 1991 Assad pere (Hafez) backed the US-led coalition against Saddam Hussein in the First Gulf War, offering 100,000 troops. Syria was a very useful ally for the Coalition, because the support of a major Arab nation helped to lend the whole enterprise legitimacy in the Arab world.  Then following 911, Assad fils (Bashar) offered "intelligence" cooperation with the US and its allies.  What this meant in practice was that Syria acted as a contractor for US intelligence  - offering torture services for which the CIA or other agencies wanted a cutout.  Ask Meir Arar, a Canadian of Syrian birth, who was kidnapped while passing through JFK in New York and "rendered" to Syria where he was imprisoned and tortured.

So for a long time the Assads were "our sons of bitches".  But this changed in 2011 with the "Arab Spring".  Violence broke out at one or more demonstrations.  Who started it is not entirely clear, but the government responded with a very strong hand.   Soon al-Assad found he was the subject of sanctions by the US Government.  Other governments rapidly followed suit.

An important question is why did al-Assad go from being "our son of a bitch" to a pariah?  This was before the Syrian Army had started its arial campaign using barrel bombs and the like.  Was it simply because President Obama was a man of principle and champion of democracy and could no longer stand the brutality of dictators like al-Assad?  Hardly likely given the support it still lends to odious regimes such as that of el-Sissi in Egypt, or the royal family in Saudi Arabia.

In his article Richman suggests that the answer is Iran.  After the disaster of the Iraq War, Shiite Iran's influence in the region waxed considerably.  This caused considerable concern to the major Sunni powers, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.  They feared the emergence of a "Shia Crescent", running from Iran through Iraq and Syria to south Lebanon where Hezbollah has its roots.  I think this is one reason for the US dropping al-Assad, but I think the real reason lies with Israel.

Israel has long planned for the overthrow of any rival power in the Middle East. This has all been spelled out in the document 1996 A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, commissioned by Benjamin Netanyahu.   Among other things it called for the removal by force of Saddam Hussein and the destabilization of Syria.    With the the help of the Israeli fifth column of  Neocons in the US security establishment President G. W. Bush was persuaded that his manhood demanded the invasion of Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein.  If that had gone successfully no doubt he would have been persuaded by the mantra "Real Men go to Tehran".   But it didn't work out.  At least not for the United States.  Iran became stronger as a result of a Shiite government taking power in Bahgdad.  

Furthermore Israel was humiliated by Hezbollah when it invaded Lebanon (again) in 2006.  The Shiite Hezbollah receives armaments from Iran (via Syria).  Israel clearly wanted to cut off this supply route and deal a stinging blow to Iran.  

The best opportunity for Israel to hit at Iran was by destroying the al-Assad regime in Syria. Not only would it be one in the eye for the Iranian regime, it would also cut off Hezbollah from its weapons supply. So with the help of its faithful Neocon friends in Washington, Israel was able to persuade the Obama administration that it was time to cut Assad loose.  Obama was locked in a bitter struggle with Netanyahu over the nuclear deal with Iran, and probably felt he didn't want another conflict with Israel on his hands, especially since he was facing re-election.  So the US ditched its faithful son of a bitch and backed the opposition in Syria, even to the point of backing very nasty jihadi groups like Al Nusra (Al Qaeda in Syria)

I can see no reason why Iran should be considered a real threat to the USA.   But I think the following comment from Andrew Sullivan (on NeoConservatism) explains why it acts that way and wants al-Assad gone.  

The closer you examine it, the clearer it is that neoconservatism, in large part, is simply about enabling the most irredentist elements in Israel and sustaining a permanent war against anyone or any country who disagrees with the Israeli right. That's the conclusion I've been forced to these last few years. And to insist that America adopt exactly the same constant-war-as-survival that Israelis have been slowly forced into... But America is not Israel. And once that distinction is made, much of the neoconservative ideology collapses.

The results of NeoCon policies have been nothing short of a disaster on an epic scale.  I predict that one day historians will not be kind in their assessment of the policies and actions of this bunch of immoral warmongers.  

Turkey, Russia, France and the US.

Since the shooting down of a Russian jet by a Turkish F16 fighter, several things, which some commentators have talked of before, are becoming more apparent and indeed are becoming part of the mainstream discourse.  Perhaps the most obvious is that the interests of the outside powers involved in the Syrian civil war, differ in many respects and indeed in a lot of cases are downright contradictory.  Let me summarize what I see as the goals and strategies of the main players.

Turkey.  It should be clear by now that Turkey has no interest in defeating IS (ISIL, ISIS, Daesh).  Indeed all of the time that IS is fighting the Syrian Kurdish forces (YPG) Turkey will support IS, as it has been doing throughout the conflict.  It continues to allow weapons, supplies and jihadi fighters to cross its frontier into Syria.  At the same time it allows convoys of tankers, loaded with crude oil produced in IS held territory  to cross the frontier in the other direction.   

Turkey's ambitions seem to be (a) the defeat of the Assad regime in Syria; (b) dismemberment of Syria; and following from that Turkish seizure of territory in northern Syria, ideally to include Syria's second city of Aleppo.  The aim of this putative annexation is not only territorial aggrandizement, but also, and perhaps mainly, to prevent the Syrian Kurds holding a contiguous strip of land on the southern side of the Turkish border, the northern side of which is  home to a  large number of Turkish Kurds.   At present Turkey has only demanded a "no-fly" zone in northern Syria, with the claim that it would be a place where refugees could safely shelter.  Erdogan has been trying to sell this idea to the EU, which quite reasonably wants to stem the flow of refugees, through Turkey and Greece.   It is true that Turkey has a serious problem with refugees, but at present it seems to be using the refugees mainly as a tool to coerce EU support for its no-fly zone (plus extorting the huge cash payment, which Angela Merkel offered, along with the carrot of eventual Turkish entry into the EU).  Things seemed to be swinging in Turkey's direction until Russia entered the fray.

Russia.  Russia has had cordial relations with Syria dating back to Soviet times and the reign of Assad pere (Haffez).  It has long had a naval base on Syria's Mediterranean coast, indeed its only such base on the shores of the Mediterranean.  The possibility of the Assad regime falling and a US backed regime taking its place has no doubt caused considerable concern in Moscow.  So this is an important reason why Russia has backed the Assad regime.  Another reason I believe is that it is profoundly worried about Washington's proclivity for instigating regime change in countries not on its side.  It has seen this happen in Iraq, Libya and Ukraine and perhaps not unreasonably sees itself as a potential target if these activities are not checked.  I believe Russia felt that it had been tricked and betrayed over Libya when it voted in the UN Security Council for air strikes to protect civilians in danger and found instead that NATO carried on an air war to oust the Qaddafi regime.  

Russia also has a genuine fear of jihadi extremists growing in power in Syria.  It has a very large Muslim population and is surrounded all along its southern border by Muslim states.  It has fought jihadis twice in wars in Chechnya and against the US backed mujahaddin in Afghanistan.  It fears the growth of IS and its potential for turning attention northward to Russia, especially as numbers of Chechen, Uzbek and other Central Asian jihadis are reportedly fighting in Syria. 

Russia has international law on its side when it says that the Assad government is the recognized government of Syria, and it is fighting against an insurgency at the invitation of that legitimate government.  

In its arial campaign in Syria Russia has targeted groups fighting against the Assad regime, not just IS.  This has seriously upset the US, who maintain the fiction of a "moderate opposition" and especially of Turkey, who sees its close relationship with the Turkmen militias fighting along the Turkish border, being disrupted.  The fiction that these are "moderates" was exploded with the publication of video of their fighters chanting "Allahu Akbhar" over the half-naked body of the Russian pilot they had recently machine gunned as he descended in a parachute.  

That the shooting down of the plane was carefully planned in advance seems beyond doubt.  Emre Uslu, a Turkish writer, here (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43532.htm)

describes how the Turkish public was primed through a media campaign in the days before the downing of the jet.  The fact that there were Turkish TV news crews on hand to film the shooting down and the fact that the government had radar traces at the ready, all lead to the same conclusion of a well-planned event.

The United States.  Whether the US knew in advance of the shooting down is not known.  However it does seem unlikely that Turkey would do something like this without first informing the US, especially as the Turks immediately called for NATO support.  There certainly would be many factions in US power circles who would like to see Russia discomfited.  Russia's intervention into Syria had upset US calculations as much as it had upset Turkey's.  The US policy in Syria seems to be disingenuous at best.  It has backed the idea of regime change from the start and the CIA has been supplying weapons and support to opposition groups.  There are even claims that the CIA was behind the first violent protests against the government to which it responded rapidly and brutally.  At first the US seemed to believe that there was a non-extremist opposition to Assad which would take power once the government was toppled.  But as the war progressed whatever moderates there were seemed to be overwhelmed and subsumed into the more determined and violent jihadi groups.  David Cameron may claim to believe that there are 70,000 "moderates" fighting the Syrian Arab Army, but very few others do.  

But it seems that the CIA was prepared to continue arming opposition groups, even when they knew they were of the jihadi persuasion. They even knew of the emergence of IS and did nothing to prevent it, indeed may have encouraged it.    A Pentagon secret document of 2012 (declassified under pressure from Judicial Watch) states 

“…there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist Principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion.”

It seems to be the same strategy that the US had used with the mujahaddin in Afghanistan i.e. arm any group, no matter how unsavoury, as long as they are the enemy of our enemy.  This policy came back to bite in Afghanistan, with the emergence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and it seems to be doing the same in Syria/Iraq with IS.  Indeed it was only when IS started murdering US and other foreign citizens in the most barbaric fashion, that the US felt obliged to take any action against IS.  But it has been doing in it in a most disingenuous way, for example allowing IS convoys of oil tankers to regularly transit to the Turkish border.  While there is no doubt many different opinions within the US government on how to proceed, it seems to me that defeating and replacing Assad is still the dominant one.  Enough bombing of IS is done to prevent a public outcry, but I don't think Washington wants the complete defeat of ISIS because it is an enemy of Assad.  Also I believe that there is large contingent of Israeli fifth columnists within the US power structure (the Neocons) who are happy to see an ongoing war in Syria in which the Assad government and its Hezbollah allies are seriously weakened.  Indeed it seems that Israel has the permanent annexation of the Golan  in its plans, and has been clandestinely supporting IS. In October an Israeli colonel was captured by Iraqi forces fighting with IS in the Salahuddin province of Iraq.   This article gives details including name, serial number etc. 

               http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43544.htm

No doubt the anti-Assad faction in the US were very unhappy when French and Belgian terrorist conducted their attacks on Paris and IS claimed to be behind it.  People started demanding the destruction of IS, and some wondered publicly why the US and its NATO allies had not been more successful in defeating it.  Which leads us to France.

France.  Until the November 13 attacks on Paris, France seemed to be squarely on the same side as Turkey and the US - the defeat of Assad was their main goal.  But the attacks seemed to have concentrated the minds of M. Hollande and his government.  Now they realize that their real enemy is IS, not Assad.  President Hollande has stepped up French bombing of IS and has dispatched France's aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean to add to the fire power. He has agreed with President Putin to coordinate French and Russian arial actions against IS.  Furthermore some members of the French government have stated publicly that the Syrian Arab Army of Assad could be of considerable use in fighting IS.  No doubt this is not what Washington wanted to hear, and certainly not what President Erdogan of Turkey wanted to hear.  

With the Paris attacks the world is waking up to the fact that IS is a much bigger menace than the Al Assad regime.  The latter has not declared jihad on Christendom, nor has it bombed civilian airliners or sponsored terror attacks in European and Middle Eastern capitals. Indeed the Syrian regime possesses a sizeable battle-hardened army which, with arial support and in alliance with Kurdish factions could no doubt defeat IS and deprive it of all territory.  Will it happen?   I doubt it.  The CIA and other Washington warriors don't like to lose. Will Erdogan get his "no-fly" zone.  Again I doubt it, not with Russia now fully committed to fighting against his plans.  It looks like the war could go on for quite a while longer, but I can't help feeling that it is swinging against the US-Turkey-NATO-Saudi side.