Another Saudi Coalition Massacre in Yemen

A Saudi coalition airstrike on a prison killed at least 60 people and wounded at least 100 more in northern Yemen as part of the coalition’s reprisal attacks after the Houthis claimed drone and missile attacks that hit targets in Abu Dhabi earlier this week:

At least three children are among the dozens of people killed Friday, the humanitarian organization Save the Children said in a statement on Twitter. It noted that “the true number is feared to be higher.”

This follows coalition airstrikes in Sanaa that killed at least 20 civilians. The coalition response to the Abu Dhabi attacks has been consistent with the way they have waged the war from the beginning: reckless and indiscriminate bombing that slaughters civilians. The AP reports on the aftermath of the bombing:

“The initial casualties report from Saada is horrifying,” said Gillian Moyes, Save the Children’s country director in Yemen. “Migrants seeking better lives for themselves and their families, Yemeni civilians injured by the dozens, is a picture we never hoped to wake up to in Yemen.”

Of course, this is a picture that we keep waking up to over and over because the coalition governments are never held accountable and pay no penalty for their outrages. They still receive U.S. support and weapons, and they evidently have no need to worry that relations with the US will worsen if they keep pummeling Yemen with U.S.-made weapons. Once again, the people of Yemen are made to suffer as the coalition lashes out blindly. There were also reports yesterday and today that a coalition airstrike in Hodeidah had knocked out Internet service throughout the country, which has cut off Yemenis outside the country from contact with their friends and relatives.

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Daniel Larison is a weekly columnist for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.

What Would Kennan Say?

Walter Russell Mead does a good job of making Russia hawks look ridiculous:

As the Ukrainian crisis deepens, there is only one option that would stop a Russian invasion – and that is the one that all the serious players in Washington say is off the table: dispatching an American and coalition force to defend Ukraine. Vladimir Putin is not ready for war with the U.S.; informing his gamble is a well-grounded conviction that America is not committed enough to Ukraine to defend it by force.

History may look back on this as a failure of nerve equal to the appeasement of the 1930s.

There is good reason why America is “not committed enough to Ukraine” to go to war for it. The US has nothing at stake there that could possibly justify taking the enormous risks that a war with Russia involves. Even the most aggressive hawks tacitly admit as much when they claim that the current crisis is just a prelude to worse things later. Mead makes the usual references to the 1930s because he can’t make a straightforward argument that Ukraine is important enough on its own that the US has to defend it. Russia hawks know they can’t sell a war for Ukraine, so they have to make it into a war for NATO or world order or something big enough to make their insane proposal seem at least slightly defensible. Their own alarmism confirms that they know the US has no vital interests here.

Mead asserts that putting Western troops in Ukraine to defend it is the “only” option that can stop an invasion. This conveniently ignores the obvious compromise that is much more likely to achieve the goal, and it fails to anticipate how Russia would react to the insertion of more Western forces into Ukraine. The current crisis has been driven in large part by Russian opposition to any Western military presence in Ukraine. Sending a large deployment of troops would be extremely provocative. Something like that could be the match that sets off the explosion.

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Daniel Larison is a weekly columnist for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.

The Insanity of Russia Hawks

Evelyn Farkas, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, goes full alarmist:

The world will watch our response. Any subsequent acceptance of Russian gains will spell the beginning of the end of the international order. If Europe, NATO, and its allies in Asia and elsewhere fail to defend the foundational United Nations principles of sanctity of borders and state sovereignty, no one will. Any appeasement will only beget future land grabs not only from Putin, but also from China in Taiwan and elsewhere. And if the world’s democracies lack the political will to stop them, the rules-based international order will collapse. The United Nations will go the way of the League of Nations. We will revert to spheres of global influence, unbridled military and economic competition, and ultimately, world war. 

A new Russian attack on Ukraine would be illegal and destructive, but we should be very wary of claims that it will have such massive effects. Major powers have waged illegal wars against other countries many times since the end of WWII, but somehow the international system did not come crashing down as a result. The “principles of sanctity of borders and state sovereignty” have been violated on many occasions over the decades, and in many cases our government was the one doing the violating, but the “rules-based international order” didn’t vanish because the rules have sometimes been broken. Hawks have to exaggerate the stakes like this, because if they didn’t they would never be able to sell their extreme policies.

Farkas’ warning has to be so extreme because she is calling for going to war against Russia:

The horrible possibility exists that Americans, with our European allies, must use our military to roll back Russians – even at risk of direct combat.

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Daniel Larison is a weekly columnist for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.

Hawks Still Don’t Understand the Limits of American Power

Walter Russell Mead wants you to know that Things Are Happening in The World and Biden has not somehow magically stopped them from happening:

Last week Russian troops fanned out across Kazakhstan; the Myanmar junta sentenced Aung San Suu Kyi to four more years in prison; and China transferred a senior official from Xinjiang to lead the People’s Liberation Army’s garrison in Hong Kong. Two things are clear. First, America’s geopolitical adversaries aren’t impressed by the Biden administration. Second, the administration’s attempts to make a priority of human rights and democracy have so far failed to reverse or even to slow the retreat of democracy around the world.

One might wonder what it is that the US could or should have done to prevent these events, but Mead will not give you any answers. He cherry picks a series of events from different countries, imagines that they form a pattern, and then concludes, as he concludes almost every week, that it proves that “adversaries aren’t impressed by the Biden administration.” Mead does not attempt to explain what the administration might have done differently to “impress” them, nor does he consider whether the events he mentions are in America’s power to change or even influence. He simply lists things and inevitably lays blame for them at Biden’s door because he has “failed to reverse or even to slow the retreat of democracy around the world.”

Reading Mead columns is like opening a time capsule from the mid-2000s. The references may be more recent, but the mindset of the writer remains mired in the hubris of the Bush era. It used to be that almost every hawkish pundit and analyst viewed the world in this simplistic, ridiculous way, but there are still some, including Mead, that interpret every undesirable or neutral event as a “failure” of American leadership and/or a setback for the cause of democracy. According to this view, the agency and interests of other states are at best secondary considerations when trying to explain why anything happens in the world. If an adversary does something we don’t like, it is because they are insufficiently in awe of the president’s resolve. The possibility that some things are beyond America’s reach or that things happen for reasons unrelated to how American power is perceived continues to elude people with this worldview.

Consider Mead’s first three examples. Presumably these are the examples Mead finds most compelling because he leads off his argument with them. First, Russia has sent troops into Kazakhstan (at the request of the Kazakh government) in response to the recent unrest and violence that broke out across the country in the last week. What does this have to do with what Putin thinks of Biden or his foreign policy? As far as I can tell, nothing at all. Russia has moved to shore up Tokayev in what appears to be at least partly an intra-elite battle for control inside Kazakhstan. Maybe Putin is “impressed” by Biden, and maybe he isn’t, but the decision to send troops into Kazakhstan has nothing to do with Biden or the United States. Strike one.

What about the Tatmadaw’s new sentencing of Aung San Suu Kyi? This would appear to be a purely internal move related to their consolidation of power. Are we supposed to believe that the junta in Naypyidaw would have refrained from adding to her sentence if Biden had done something differently? If so, what is that something? Once again, Mead will not so much as hint at what that might be. Strike two. Finally, the Chinese government appoints an official that had served in Xinjiang to govern Hong Kong. I can see how this is bad news for people in Hong Kong, but I cannot for the life of me see how the US government under any president could have influenced Beijing’s personnel decisions inside their own country for the better. Strike three. Mead saw some things in the headlines and tried to shoehorn them into a “Biden is failing” narrative. He should have chosen his examples more wisely.

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Daniel Larison is a weekly columnist for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.

Si Vis Pacem, Don’t Listen to Joe Lieberman

Geoff Ramsey urges Biden to change the stagnant Venezuela policy that he inherited from Trump:

As he usually does, Joe Lieberman is banging war drums:

A great Roman general said a long time ago, “If you want peace, prepare for war.” That is wise counsel worth following with Russia and Iran in 2022.

Hawks love to cite this phrase, which is originally traced back to Vegetius. He was not a “great Roman general.” He was the author of a military treatise written sometime in the late fourth or early fifth century. The exact wording from the treatise says, “He, therefore, who desires peace, should prepare for war.” This axiom often serves as a default justification for whatever harebrained hardline policy hawks want to promote at the moment.

Hawks usually interpret this phrase in the most combative and militaristic way possible. It does not have to be read this way, but this is the way that hawks choose to read it. For someone like Lieberman, it is not enough simply to prepare for war. He wants the US to seek conflict and rule out every path that might lead away from war. We see this in his recommendations for Russia and Iran policy: the US must concede nothing, it must increase its demands, it must throw more weapons into both regions, and it must ratchet up tensions with more threats of US military action as well. These are not recommendations to be prepared. They are a blueprint for stoking conflict.

Lieberman is the chairman of the poorly-named United Against Nuclear Iran, so it is no surprise that this is the Iran policy he wants. He is also an equal-opportunity militarist. He will endorse the same bankrupt coercive policies against pretty much any country that is at odds with the US Just as he did when he was a senator, Lieberman wants to pick fights with all potential adversaries at the same time. It doesn’t occur to him that taking a hard line against Russia and Iran simultaneously might overstretch US resources and put the US at a disadvantage in both regions.

Read the rest of the article at Eunomia

Daniel Larison is a weekly columnist for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.

Biden’s Stagnant Venezuela Policy Has To Change

Geoff Ramsey urges Biden to change the stagnant Venezuela policy that he inherited from Trump:

After 11 months in office, the administration has not significantly altered US policy. Indeed, in January 2022, Biden will almost certainly reemphasize the Trump administration’s recognition of the opposition coalition led by Guaidó as Venezuela’s legal government. Regardless of the constitutional questions at stake, it remains unclear how this will advance democracy in Venezuela, and members of Guaidó’s own circle have issued calls to revise this strategy.

In the absence of a clear plan, the broad strokes of US policy toward Venezuela remain unchanged – with slightly more rhetorical emphasis on the need for a political solution. Neither the State Department nor the White House has detailed how the United States will actually ensure successful negotiations to resolve the country’s crisis.

There are few US policies more in need of changing than this one. The US pursuit of regime change in Venezuela has been a flop from the start, and intensifying sanctions have only worsened conditions in the country. Next month will be the third anniversary of the USrecognition of Guaidó as the interim president, and he is as far removed from taking office as he has ever been. For some reason, the Biden administration has been continuing with the charade of pretending that an opposition politician with no official role and no control over anything is the “legitimate” president of the country. Even his own would-be foreign minister has lost confidence in Guaidó and quit, and this defection reflects the fractured nature of the opposition. It is one of the many oddities of American regime change policies that our government retains more confidence in a failed opposition leader than many of the people in the opposition.

“Maximum pressure” sanctions on Venezuela have been particularly harsh, and they have been imposed on a country that was already suffering from severe economic and humanitarian crises. Maduro has tightened his grip on power, and he and his allies appear to be firmly entrenched. Far from pushing Maduro out, “maximum pressure” has caused him to hold on to power for dear life. The military has not turned on Maduro so far, and it seems unlikely that the top military leadership will abandon him anytime soon. The Trump administration jumped on the regime change bandwagon because they thought they were pushing on an open door and would be able to achieve a quick win that they could use to pander to voters in Florida. Instead, Venezuela is in even worse straits than it was then, there is no realistic prospect of a change in political leadership in the foreseeable future, and US meddling has strengthened the forces it was supposed to be weakening. You could hardly ask for a clearer example of a complete failure of US policy than this.

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Daniel Larison is a weekly columnist for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.