LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
August 24/2018
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Turkey-US military ties will endure despite political crisis
Dr. Theodore Karasik/Arab News/August 23/18
Let’s get to the point: Turkey’s military relationship with the US is not going to be vastly changed by the ongoing political punching match between Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Donald Trump over American Pastor Andrew Brunson and an array of other issues. Politics, especially today, is noisy, distracting, and vicious. Military-to-military relations operate on a different tempo than bilateral politics. The Pentagon said there has been no interruption in the military relationship between Washington and Ankara amid a tariff war.
The plight of Brunson, an American citizen held illegally in Turkey since 2016, is driving the current war of words and economics. The White House is clear on the fact that Brunson is being treated as a political prisoner by Turkey and so is sanctioning some of its highest officials.
Ankara tried to raise the deportation of Pennsylvania-based Turkish fugitive Fethullah Gulen and later asked the White house to drop investigations into one of Turkey’s main banks, Halkbank, for breaking US sanctions over the financial institution’s dealings with Iran. This White House is blunt: A real NATO ally wouldn't have arrested Brunson in the first place; and the Gulen issue is completely off limits.
The US Congress is acting in concert with the White House in a sign of unusual unity. Turkey is an F-35 program partner, with key facilities in the country geared specifically for the program and tied ultimately to Ankara’s NATO flank. Turkey is currently slated to receive two of the jets, but Congress is slated to block the transfer as part of the Brunson affair. Just two months ago, despite the growing political crisis, Lockheed Martin formally handed over the two F-35s for Turkish pilots to begin training alongside American pilots in Arizona. These jets are the first of what Ankara hopes will be a robust 100-aircraft fleet.
Moreover, the $716 billion John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 asks the Pentagon to produce a plan within 90 days to outline how Turkey will be phased out of the production chain of the F-35 and how much this change of plan would cost the US and other countries. While that study is being conducted, the American defense sales strategy will need to undergo a rethink if there is a strong trickle-down effect. It is important to point out that Erdogan and Trump will likely be at the UN General Assembly meeting next month.
Despite increasingly toxic Turkey-US relations, the constant is the two countries' military relationship, which will continue despite all the theatrics and Twitter explosions.
Turkey’s dealings with Russia are causing an American headache. The Pentagon is concerned about Turkey’s relationship with Moscow, especially regarding the $2.5 billion deal to purchase and eventually deploy Russia’s S-400 missile defense system. This standalone, non-interoperable air defense missile system adds nothing to Turkey’s defense and is a political card that will allow Russian military personnel into the NATO country to tend to its maintenance and repair. Yet, if Turkey’s economy is suffering for a prolonged period of time, payment to Russia will not come soon — unless Qatar injects more money into Turkey’s ailing economy. The Turkish-US political relationship is also fraying over Washington’s training support for Ankara’s enemies in northern Syria. Turkey is seeking to expel the American-trained and equipped Kurdish forces that were necessary in fighting Daesh. Equally contentious for America and NATO is the airbase at Incirlik. It has been a political pawn since its inception, so whatever occurs with the base and whether there are restrictions is all part of the political theater.
Turkey sees itself as being in a position of power. It is one of the oldest and largest of the NATO forces and sees itself as an ally of the organization, as well as the “tip of the spear” in the fight against Daesh both internally and externally. Now back to the main point: Turkish-US military cooperation continues to deepen in Syria despite the crisis in political relations. The two NATO allies are engaging in joint military patrols in northern Syria’s Manbij region. These patrols are building local capacity for Ankara in terms of transfer of authority and local governance. Turkey likes to show its success in Afrin as a model. Naturally, Manbij has been a point of tension in Turkish-US relations since the Syrian Democratic Forces captured the city from Daesh. Importantly, a large part of the SDF is made up of the Syrian Kurdish militia the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which is considered by Ankara as a terrorist group linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). But that is about to change thanks to the joint Turkish-American patrols. These patrols will create an environment that will lead the YPG to move east of the Euphrates. With this move, Turkey will control a broad swath of northern Syria that might be in better hands than it would be with Damascus, which may be beneficial to Washington in the future. Nevertheless, given the increasingly toxic Turkish-US relationship and its unpredictability, the potential fallout from an accident that is not de-conflicted quickly could ruin immediate military-to-military relations. That is a possibility, but the military bonds between Turkey and the US remain strong. Nowadays assumptions and institutions are constantly shifting — the constant is the Turkish-American military-to-military relationship, which will continue despite all the theatrics and Twitter explosions.
**Dr. Theodore Karasik is a senior adviser to Gulf State Analytics in Washington, D.C. He is a former RAND Corporation Senior Political Scientist who lived in the UAE for 10 years, focusing on security issues. Twitter: @tkarasik
Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News' point-of-view

America’s Iran sanctions complicate Iraqi politics
Talmiz Ahmad/Arab News/August 23/18
Iraq’s caretaker Prime Minister Haider Abadi has had a difficult fortnight. On Aug. 7, US President Donald Trump reinstated sanctions on Iran following America’s withdrawal from the nuclear agreement. The president’s executive order banned the use of US dollars by Iran and barred imports of Iranian vehicles, graphite, aluminum, steel, coal and software used in industry. These are a precursor to the more stringent sanctions on Iran’s oil sales, shipping and financial transactions that will be enforced from Nov. 5.
But the reverberations of this announcement have already been felt in Iraq. Abadi immediately made a convoluted statement: He rejected the idea of sanctions in principle but said that Iraq “will abide by them to protect the interests of our people.”
These remarks led to a storm in Iraq. The PM was sharply criticized by the country’s president, the head of the Kurdistan Regional Government, his own Da’awa Party, and a wide range of Shiite political parties and militia. Iranian media was equally harsh, while Tehran also cancelled a proposed visit by Abadi.
While some regional Arab commentators welcomed Abadi’s position and criticized the “rabid campaign” against him, others saw him as the “most prominent victim” of US sanctions and said his posture was “muddled and compromising.”
On Aug. 13, Abadi tried to regain some lost ground when his spokesman clarified that Iraq would only abide by those sanctions that covered dollar-related transactions with Iran. And this week it has been reported that Baghdad will send a delegation to Washington to ask for exemptions from the sanctions.
The announcement of US sanctions came as Iraq’s various political alliances jostled to form a government following the May elections. The manual recount of votes declared on Aug. 9 has shown hardly any change in the results announced earlier. Thus, though the Sairoon coalition led by Muqtada Al-Sadr continues to lead the pack, it has only 54 seats in a 329-member house. It is followed by the pro-Iran Fatah coalition with 48 seats, Abadi’s Nasr group with 42 seats, and former Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki’s State of Law alliance with 25 seats.
Since the elections, both Iran and the US have been attempting to influence the government formation. While Iran would like to retain its predominant influence in Baghdad, particularly through its sectarian affiliates, the US is seeking to undermine this link and secure a government that is closer to Washington and the Gulf states. The announcement of US sanctions came as Iraq’s various political alliances jostled to form a government following the May elections
The sanctions announcement has highlighted Iraq’s sharp sectarian and political divisions. The US is supporting Abadi’s prime ministership in the new government, set up in association with the Al-Sadr-led alliance, which explains Abadi’s half-hearted acceptance of the sanctions announcement. The negative response to his statement and the strong pro-Iran positions of several groups, such as those of Fatah and Al-Maliki, also reflect their electoral calculus, commencing with neutralizing Abadi’s ambitions. This led Abadi to hurriedly moderate his stance, though it might not improve his fortunes.
Al-Sadr has been projecting himself as an Arab nationalist, but he has been careful not to alienate Iran and has also been in discussions with the Fatah Alliance, which is largely made up of the Iran-backed Al-Hashd Al-Shaabi that was in the vanguard of the fight against Daesh. Al-Sadr could also opt to remain in opposition. Whatever the shape of the new government in Iraq, US sanctions have affirmed that Iran’s influence in the country will remain undiminished.
*Talmiz Ahmad is a former Indian diplomat.

The U.S. Will Spend Billions in Syria—Just Not on Rebuilding It
Krishnadev Calamur/The Atlantic/August 23/18
When President Donald Trump said on Twitter this weekend that the United States had ended “the ridiculous” $230 million in civilian funds it provides for Syria, he seemed keen to emphasize the savings to the U.S. He did not add that the United States will continue spending billions of dollars in the country to fight isis. The stabilization funds—for projects like irrigation and demining—could have helped the U.S. preserve an element of its influence in the high-stakes diplomatic game being played out in Syria. Russia, Iran, and the Kurds are battling to maintain their gains in the country; Turkey is working to ensure the Kurds lose theirs; and Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates are invested in ensuring that Iran doesn’t emerge dominant in yet another Arab state. Russia, for example, is reportedly stepping up its aid and reconstruction efforts now that its ally Bashar al-Assad has regained control over much of the country.
And it’s Assad’s near-victory that makes U.S. involvement in civilian reconstruction a fraught proposition—implying as it does American support on de facto behalf of a regime the U.S. has twice bombed for using chemical weapons against civilians. Announcing the withdrawal of aid on Friday, the State Department spokeswoman emphasized that its mission in Syria was counterterrorism, not reconstruction, and that the Saudis would pick up the funding slack. In a conference call with reporters on Friday, State Department officials said the amount of U.S. funding withdrawn had already been offset by $300 million in contributions from U.S. allies, including Saudi Arabia. Heather Nauert, the State Department spokeswoman, said on the call: “The entire reason that the United States is involved in Syria is … for the defeat of isis.” (The U.S. is still providing humanitarian assistance to Syria, with nearly $8 billion spent since the conflict started in 2011.)
isis, which at the height of its powers in 2014 controlled a significant area in the region that straddles Syria and Iraq, has now been pushed out of about 99 percent of the territory it held, according to Brett McGurk, the special presidential envoy for the global coalition to counter the Islamic State. Yet fighting them remains significantly more expensive than the just-ended civilian-aid program—the Pentagon is set to receive $15.3 billion in fiscal year 2019, which begins October 1, for the purpose. That figure is a slight increase from the amount of money spent this fiscal year, $13 billion. But as Anthony Cordesman, a defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, noted, the increase is “almost solely because of the expanding effort to create more effective forces in Iraq.” The U.S. has about 2,000 troops in Syria, who train, advise, and assist forces that fight isis; another 3,765 U.S. troops remain in Iraq serving the same purpose.
While isis might have been pushed out of nearly all of the areas it controls in Syria, it is Assad’s forces, backed by Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, that have retaken much of that territory, as well as many of the areas once controlled by anti-Assad rebel forces—and nearly all of the country’s population centers. The areas Assad’s forces haven’t retaken, such as the rebel-controlled Idlib province in the northwest, are firmly in Assad’s crosshairs.
By withdrawing the civilian funds, the Trump administration will likely help delay the return of millions of Syrians displaced by the conflict. The overwhelming majority of those displaced live in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan. More than a million have also made their way to Europe. The U.S. has resettled about 20,000 Syrians since the conflict began in 2011, including 56 in 2017 as of July 31. In Moscow, Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, accused the U.S. of “trying to artificially slow down the process of the refugees’ return by refusing to participate in the restoration of infrastructure in Syria.”
As Syria starts shifting from conflict to reconstruction, a process that is expected ultimately to cost hundreds of billions of dollars, the U.S. says it won’t support international funding unless the United Nations unequivocally says there is progress in the political process in Syria. “We have been very clear, as clear as it is possible to be, with the government of Russia that there will be no international reconstruction assistance for Syria without the irreversible political process validated by the UN,” David Satterfield, the top U.S. diplomat for the region, said in the same conference call with Nauert. “There should be no ambiguity about that.”
Nor should there be any ambiguity about the fact that the U.S. military will remain in the region for some time. McGurk said on the Friday call that the U.S. is preparing the final phase of its plans to defeat isis.
“That will be a very significant military operation because we have a significant number of isis fighters holed up in a final area of the Middle Euphrates Valley,” he said. “And after that, you have to train local forces to hold the ground to make sure that the area remains stabilized so isis cannot return. So this mission is ongoing and is not over.”