The Assad Regime and its Iranian Patron Are No Prize for Russia

How UN Humanitarian Aid Has Propped Up Assad

A Weekly Political News Magazine

Why Russia and China Are Strengthening Security Ties

At UN, Trump Challenges the World to Isolate Iran, Toughens Line on Syria

Issue 1714 - September 21/09/2018

The Assad Regime and its Iranian Patron Are No Prize for Russia

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Issue 1715 - September 28/09/2018

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Chilean female police officers march with puppies, future police dogs, during the celebration parade of Chile›s 208th Independence anniversary, in Santiago on September 2018 ,19. (Getty)

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Dancers perform during a parade on the theme of peace for the 18th edition of the Lyon Dance Biennial on a street in Lyon, eastern France on September 2018 ,16. (Getty)

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The Assad Regime and its Iranian Patron Are No Prize for Russia US Should Use its Leverage to Stop March Toward Israeli-Iranian Collision

by Dennis Ross Russia has made itself the arbiter of events in Syria. Its military intervention and use of intensive bombing allowed it to change the balance of forces on the ground and save the Assad regime. But the Assad regime and its Iranian patron are no prize.

True, the Iranians aim to remove all vestiges of American influence in the Middle East—and that is consistent with Vladimir Putin’s objectives.

However, Iran’s aim of building pressure and threats against Israel does not accord with Putin’s

views. That is one reason that the Russians, at least until now, have given the Israelis a free hand to strike Iranian and Shia militia targets in Syria.

The question is whether this will continue now that the Russians lost a plane and fifteen of their servicemen. It was, of course, not the Israelis who shot the plane down but Syrian surface to air missiles that did so.

Russia’s defense and foreign ministries have blamed Israel because they say it carried out attacks against Syrian targets in Latakia while Russian aircrafts were in the vicinity. When

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An undated photo obtained on September 2018 ,18 shows a Russian IL20-M (Ilyushin 20m) aircraft landing at an unknown location. Russia blamed Israel on September 2018 ,18 for the loss of a military IL20M jet to Syrian fire, which killed all 15 servicemen on board, and threatened a response. (Getty)

Syrian air defenses shot a barrage of rockets in response, they hit the Russian plane. While Putin speaks of many mistakes leading to the downing of the aircraft—a formulation that could include the Israelis, Syrians, and his own forces bearing responsibility—the Israeli military delegation that went to Moscow showed that Israelis planes had, in reality, already returned Israel when the Russian plane was downed.

Two points should be kept in mind at this time.

First, the Russians have put themselves in the middle of the conflict. By this, I refer not just to

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the war in Syria, but also to the collision course that Iran and Israel are on. Iran is determined to create in Syria what it has in Lebanon: control over the government and more than a hundred thousand rockets. And, Israel is determined to prevent that. Until now, the Russians have given both the Israelis and Iranians a free hand.

And, that leads to the second point or question.

Will the Russians now seek to constrain Israeli freedom of action? And, if it does, will Iran now seek to exploit that possible opening to send in more advanced missiles to Syria? Already, the

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Israeli military is suggesting that they will strike as needed against Iranian weapons deliveries and developing military infrastructure.

What is missing in this discussion is the United States. Historically, the Israeli position was that they would deal with any regional threats on their own, but counted on the US to counter or block any actions or threats from countries outside the region.

Today, the Trump administration has not only left the Israelis on their own to counter the Iranians and the Shia militias in Syria, but also to manage the Russians.

The irony is that the Israeli military actions give the US leverage with the Russians. The Trump Administration should use it. It should be conveying to Putin that Russia is now caught in the middle in Syria. The US is prepared to help ease the situation and work with Russia but only if Russia acts to impose a series of red-lines on the Iranians in Syria.

These must include no Iranian/Shia militia military bases in Syria; no further provision of surface to surface missiles to the Syrians or Iran’s forces in Syria; no plants in either Syria or Lebanon that could fabricate advanced guidance systems for the existing rockets in both countries; and buffer zones free of Iranian and Shia militia forces opposite Israel, Jordan and Turkey.

Can the Russians impose such limits? They certainly have the leverage to do so. Consider the effect of the Russians saying that if the Iranians are not responsive or violate these limits, Russia will do nothing to impede Israelis operations; will not turn on their air defense radars during those operations; will provide no air cover to any Iranian, Shia militia or Syrian military actions or moves; and will not permit Iranian or Shia militia forces to be positioned close to Russian bases.

The establishment of mutually understood red-lines might even be used to launch a political process in Syria

Given the tough responses of the Russian defense and foreign ministries to the Israelis over the downing of the plane—which did not abate even after Putin’s more temperate statement suggesting a number of mistakes—it seems likely that Israel is going to face efforts from the Russian military to impose some limits on where, when and how Israel can operate. At a minimum, Israel is likely to be asked to give more forewarning to the Russians before any strikes. Will the Russians really not alert the Syrians and Iranians to such warnings?

Israel’s leaders won’t compromise their ability to prevent the Iranian consolidation of a land corridor through Syria nor will they accept the transfer of qualitatively new weapon systems from Iran that

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Russia's President Vladimir Putin (L) and Iran's President Hassan Rouhani give a press conference after the third trilateral meeting aimed at facilitating peace process in Syria and held at an International Congress Centre in Tehran. (Getty)

pose an unacceptable threat to the Jewish state.

Something will have to give.

My prescription: the Trump administration needs to get off the sidelines and use the leverage it has. It needs to remind the Russians of the risks they might now be running, and that we are willing to work with them in Syria but the price is creating real limits on the Iranians. Yes, the Russians cannot and will not even try to force the Iranians to leave. But they can impose limits— even reciprocal limits in which Israel would stop its strikes in return for Iran’s fulfillment of the aforementioned commitments.

The establishment of such mutually understood red-lines might even then be used to launch a

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The Trump administration has not only left the Israelis on their own to counter the Iranians and the Shia militias in Syria, but also to manage the Russians political process in Syria. Nothing will transform Syria any time soon, but steps that stop the march toward an Israeli-Iranian collision is not a bad place to start.

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At UN, Trump Challenges the World to Isolate Iran, Toughens Line on Syria Beyond familiar rhetoric, the American president suggested a shift in military posture toward Assad’s chemical weapons program

by Joseph Braude* In his annual speech at the UN General Assembly in New York, U.S. President Donald Trump issued a stern message

to Iran, its proxies, and any international elements that enable it. “Iran’s leaders sow chaos, death, and destruction,” he said.

“They do not respect their neighbors or borders, or the sovereign rights of nations.

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Instead, Iran’s leaders plunder the nation’s resources to enrich themselves and to spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond.”

President Donald Trump addresses the 73rd United Nations (U.N.) General Assembly on September 2018 ,25 in New York City.

Rouhani rejected the overtures.

Relatedly, a day before Trump’s speech, the foreign policy chief of the European Union announced that Europe, China, Noting his decision to abrogate the Iranian and Russia had developed a new payment nuclear deal and subsequent “campaign mechanism to allow each other to continue of economic pressure to deny the regime doing business with Iran while skirting the funds it needs to advance its bloody U.S. sanctions. Dubbed the “special agenda,” Trump said that the U.S. “ask[s] purpose vehicle” (SPV), it aims to “assist all nations to isolate Iran’s regime as long and reassure economic operators pursuing as its aggression continues. And we ask legitimate business with Iran.” all nations to support Iran’s people as they struggle to reclaim their religious and The move came shortly ahead of a looming second round of U.S. sanctions to hit Iran’s righteous destiny.” oil sector on November 4.

With respect to other conflicts in the region, some observers drew attention to a American specialists on the dynamics subtle shift in rhetoric on the part of the of Iranian sanctions conveyed doubts President regarding Syria’s use of chemical as to whether the SPV would achieve its weapons. “Rest assured,” he said, “the intended purpose. Behnam Ben Taleblu, United States will respond if chemical an Iran researcher at the Foundation for weapons are deployed by the Assad Defense of Democracies in Washington, regime.” The implication of the use of the told CNBC that the scheme would be term “deployed” instead of “used” is that “instantly stigmatized by the U.S.,” which the U.S. may strike Syria in response to the would proceed to sanction it “much like mere movement of chemical weapons, as it could any other entity attempting to a preemptive measure against a possible conduct trade with Iran. attack.

Meanwhile, President Trump’s UN The nuances of these remarks may have remarks were effectively reinforced by captured less attention in the United States his national security adviser, John Bolton, than in Iran. While Americans focused in remarks at the United Against Nuclear on domestic controversies arising from Iran Summit on the sidelines of the UN alleged sexual impropriety by a nominee to General Assembly Tuesday. “According to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Tehran regime the mullahs in Tehran, we are ‹the Great Satan,› lord of the underworld, master of apparently had its eyes on Trump. the raging inferno,” he said. So, I might President Hassan Rouhani, also in New imagine they would take me seriously York for the UN gathering, gave an when I assure them today: If you cross us, interview to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour our allies, or our partners; if you harm our in which he denied having asked for a citizens; if you continue to lie, cheat, and meeting with President Trump. “Not this deceive, yes, there will indeed be hell to year, nor last year,” he said. “We have pay.” never made such a request for a meeting with the President of the United States.” *Middle East specialist Joseph Braude is the It was the Trump Administration, he said, author of Broadcasting Change: Arabic Media as that had sent eight requests to the Iranian a Catalyst for Liberalism (Rowman & Littlefield). government for a meeting last year — back He is Advisor to the Al-Mesbar Center for Research and Studies and tweets @josephbraude.

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Trump’s Nineteenth-Century Grand Strategy The Themes of His UN General Assembly Speech Have Deep Roots in U.S. History 14

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In his speech before the General Assembly, Trump attacked the multilateralism of the postwar era and emphasized that his top priority is to reclaim national sovereignty so we must protect our sovereignty and our cherished independence above all.” He was dumping cold war water on multilateralism and global governance— and the commentary that followed duly noted just how sharply his message diverged from those of his predecessors.

U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to address the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly on September 2018 ,25 in New York City. (Getty)

by Charles A. Kupchan When U.S. President Donald Trump spoke to the United Nations General Assembly yesterday, he deliberately signaled a definitive break with the internationalist consensus that has guided U.S. grand strategy since World War II. “We will never surrender America’s sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable global bureaucracy,” he proclaimed.

“Sovereign and independent nations are the only vehicle where freedom has ever survived, democracy has ever endured, or peace has ever prospered. And

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But Trump’s brand of statecraft is not in fact out of step with much of U.S. history. Rather, he is discarding the key tenets of U.S. foreign policy since World War II in favor of an older strain of thinking about the United States’ role in the world.

As I argued in the March/April 2018 issue of this magazine (“The Clash of Exceptionalisms”), “America first” has deep roots in the United States’ past. It’s a callback to a time before World War II— to an earlier iteration of American exceptionalism and an older brand of statecraft. The hostility to U.S. participation in international pacts, the economic protectionism, the aversion to democracy promotion, the racially tinged nationalism, the isolationist temptation—these aspects of Trump’s “America first” approach are right out of the playbook that anchored foreign policy for most of U.S. history prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.Since Trump is not known for the depth and breadth of his historical knowledge, he is most likely not basing his foreign policy on a close reading of the United States’ past. But he does seem to have an uncanny ability to play to a heartland base that feels disadvantaged by globalization, immigration, and an expansive conception of international obligations—and which therefore yearns for the United States of yesteryear.

In his speech before the General Assembly, Trump attacked the multilateralism of the postwar era and emphasized that his top priority is to reclaim national

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sovereignty. He went on to aim one salvo after another at international institutions, including the International Criminal Court, the Global Compact for Migration, and the United Nations Human Rights Council. In his speech to the same body last year, his theme was the same: he repeatedly called for a world of “strong, sovereign nations,” each striving to put itself first.

Trump has backed this rhetoric with action. He has pulled out of one pact after another, from the Paris agreement to the Iran nuclear deal. He has appointed a national security adviser, John Bolton, well-known for his hostility to compacts that infringe on U.S. sovereignty. Trump is hostile even to institutions of which the United States is not a member: he supports the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union and aligns himself with populist governments in Italy, Poland, and Hungary that are hostile to the project of European integration.

Trump’s unilateralism is a sharp break with most of the recent past, but that doesn’t make it new.

Until World War II, the United States preferred to go it alone, shunning one international pact after another—including the League of Nations, a brainchild of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. As George Washington put it in his Farewell Address, “The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.”

Trump indeed focuses on the nation’s commercial relations, but he prefers protectionism and reciprocity to free trade. At the UN yesterday, he insisted that trade must be “fair and reciprocal.” Trump has triggered a slew of trade wars by slapping tariffs on imports to protect U.S. manufacturers, and he wants trading partners to provide greater access to U.S. goods.

This too is nothing new. The Model Treaty, drafted primarily by John Adams and approved by the Continental Congress on September 1776 ,17, called for reciprocal, not free, trade with other nations. And tariffs protected the United States’ growing industrial

base from the founding era right through the nation’s emergence as a great power.

Trump’s view of democracy promotion, too, resembles that of an earlier era more than it does the post-World War II consensus. He has backed away from this kind of engagement and called for individual nations to chart their own political course.

As he put it yesterday at the UN, “I honor the right of every nation in this room to pursue its own customs, beliefs, and traditions. The United States will not tell you how to live or work or worship. We only ask that you honor our sovereignty in return.” Trump even seems to have a certain affection for autocracy, preferring Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un to democratic allies such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The founders shared none of Trump’s fondness for autocracy. But they did share his skepticism toward interference in the domestic affairs of other nations: the United States would be a beacon of democracy, but not a crusader. Whether in Latin America in the 1820s or Europe in the 1840s, the United States passed up one opportunity after another to intervene in support of liberal causes. The rationale behind

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Trump’s political ascent clearly rests on his deft ability to appeal to a disaffected electorate by promising to turn back the clock to a more sovereign, whiter, more industrialized, and more geopolitically detached US

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers a speech during the 73rd session of United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, United States on September 2018 ,25. (Getty)

this was clear. Interfering in the affairs of others was inconsistent with U.S. values and risked miring the United States in complicated, distant conflicts.

Trump would agree wholeheartedly.

Trump’s racially tinged conception of American identity and hostility to nonwhite immigrants has similarly deep roots in U.S. history. From the Revolutionary War through the era of Reconstruction, the United States made repeated attempts to annex Canada (all of which failed) in part because it was populated primarily by whites. But during the same decades, Congress turned back one attempt after another to extend the nation’s southward reach— for example, to Santo Domingo, Haiti, or Cuba—in no small part because it recoiled at the prospect of integrating “inferior peoples” into the body politic.

Immigration policy followed suit.

The founders’ isolationism—their belief that the United States was best served by avoiding foreign entantlement—was of a piece with their vision of the United States as an exceptional nation. Preserving the nation’s security and protecting its unique democratic experiment required standing aloof from a dangerous world. Trump has by no means returned the nation to an isolationist posture. The United States has retained

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a global range of strategic commitments during his watch. But Trump’s instincts—and he does govern by instinct—are unmistakably isolationist. He constantly complains that allies are taking advantage of the United States. He has expressed his desire to pull out of NATO, South Korea, Afghanistan, and Syria. He has made good on none of these pledges— apparently his advisers convinced him that the costs of bringing the troops home outweigh the benefits.

But Trump has proved pretty reliable when it comes to delivering on his promises. Let’s see what the rest of his presidency brings.

Trump’s political ascent clearly rests on his deft ability to appeal to a disaffected electorate by promising to turn back the clock to a more sovereign, whiter, more industrialized, and more geopolitically detached United States. Nonetheless, his effort to reorient U.S. strategy using an earlier version of exceptionalism is destined to fail. His isolationist instincts and his attack on multilateralism, globalization, democracy promotion, and immigration have provoked passionate opposition at home and abroad. And for good reason. A grand strategy crafted for the nineteenth century is illsuited for the twenty-first.

Trump has opened an important debate about the United States’ role in the world. But the answer is not to go backwards. What the United States needs is an updated version of exceptionalism for the new times — and a grand strategy to match.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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How UN Humanitarian Aid Has Propped Up Assad Syria Shows the Need for Reform

by Annie Sparrow The international sanctions imposed on Syria since April 2011 are the most comprehensive on record. Nonetheless, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has over the past seven years waged an extraordinarily brutal war on his own people, killing half a million Syrians, displacing millions more, and creating a massive humanitarian crisis in the country.

Why have sanctions been so unsuccessful at stopping Assad’s killing machine? To some extent, the failure can be attributed to the Assad regime’s determination to survive, as well as to military and economic assistance from allies such as Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah. But a big part of the blame lies with the UNled humanitarian effort in Syria. UN agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) have permitted the Assad regime to take control of the 30$ billion international humanitarian response, using donor funds to skirt sanctions and subsidize the

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UN agencies have permitted the Assad regime to take control of the 30$ billion international humanitarian response, using donor funds to skirt sanctions and subsidize the government’s war effort through its new appeals for reconstruction aid.

ASSAD'S RULES The roots of the UN’s problems in Syria go back to the early years of the civil war. In spring 2012, when the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) began mobilizing to provide aid to Syria, the Syrian governmentinsisted that OCHA centralize all operations in Damascus. The regime cited UN General Assembly Resolution 182/46, the basis of OCHA’s mandate, which states that “humanitarian assistance should be provided with the consent of the affected country” and that “the affected State has the primary role in the initiation, organization, coordination, and implementation of humanitarian assistance within its territory. ”OCHA needed access, so it accepted Assad’s terms. Soon, some 216$ million in humanitarian aid was pouring into the country, an amount that grew to over 3$ billion annually in subsequent years.

A Russian solider stands guards as Syrian Arab Red Crescent vehicles carrying aid wait at the al-Wafideen checkpoint on the outskirts of Damascus neighbouring Eastern Ghouta region before delivering aid to the enclave on March ,5 2018. (Getty)

government’s war effort. The bulk of these billions in diverted funds are from the same Western governments that imposed the sanctions.

The Syrian government’s ability to hijack the most expensive humanitarian effort on record signals a need for the UN to reform its system for providing aid, which defers to sovereign states even when they have declared war on parts of their own population.

It is especially important to accomplish this reform now, before Syria replicates its deadly—and successful—redirection tactics

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Basing its operations in Damascus triggered a cascading set of problems for the UN and allowed the Assad regime to seize control of the relief effort. Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs requires all humanitarian agencies to sign an agreement with the government’s official partner, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, prohibiting field visits and programming without the Red Crescent’s permission. The Red Crescent has long been tied to the Syrian state apparatus, and any hint of its independence was snuffed out after 2011, when the government put Red Crescent elections on indefinite hold, purged independent board members, and dismissed qualified staff. Intelligence agents posing as volunteers also infiltrated the organization, according to ex–Red Crescent volunteers that I spoke with. After these changes, the Red Crescent’s new unofficial policy was to deliver aid according to partisan criteria. Staff and volunteers who violated these rules were detained and tortured, even killed.

The government has also asserted itself through selective issuance of visas to international humanitarian staff—privileging the nationals of allied countries, such as Sudan—and tight control over the distribution of aid and medical supplies, which it withholds not just from areas controlled by the opposition, such

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as Idlib, but also from those such as Eastern Ghouta, formerly under siege but currently ruled by government forces.

To avoid regime control, many international aid agencies preferred to operate cross-border from Turkey or Jordan, working with Syrian partners to access millions of desperate civilians in opposition-held areas. The efficacy of this approach was demonstrated during a 2013 outbreak of polio. The WHO, based in Damascus, kept quiet for months while the government denied that there was an outbreak; Syrian nongovernmental organizations operating cross-border from Turkey, meanwhile, proved that polio had returned to Syria and conducted a successful mass vaccination campaign. Yet the consequences for NGOs of providing effective humanitarian aid outside of Assad’s control were made clear in April 2014, when Mercy Corps was evicted from Damascus.

In July 2014, after Russia agreed to withhold its veto, the UN Security Council formally adopted Resolution 2165, authorizing cross-border assistance—a landmark in prioritizing humanitarian aid over sovereignty. Yet UN agencies, unwilling to upset relations with the government, continued to give preference to their Damascus-based operations, granting enormous leverage to the regime. In a small but telling example of the effects of this leverage, in 2014 the WHO began publishing Assad’s preferred map of Syria, which includes a sizable part of Turkey. More significant, OCHA sanitized its 2016 Humanitarian Response Plan by using government-preferred language: “conflict” instead of “crisis”; “locations listed in relevant UNSC Resolutions” instead of areas besieged by government forces. OCHA also eliminated its mine-clearance programming because it would have operated cross-border, outside of Assad’s control.

PLAYING BALL The UN agencies’ decision to operate out of Damascus, however, has not merely limited the efficacy of their aid delivery: it has also enabled the Assad regime to repurpose

In an effort to maintain good relations with the Syrian government, UN agencies too often give preference to humanitarian aid providers that are under Assad’s thumb

international funds for its own ends.

The relief effort in Syria has involved massive flows of money, particularly for a country that has been economically crippled by years of civil war. An unpublished report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, for instance, suggests that in 2017, the international community’s total humanitarian expenditures inSyria—including both UN and non-UN sources of funding— were equivalent to some 35 percent of the country’s GDP. Early in the war, the regime realized that the scale of this effort would overwhelm the Red Crescent’s capabilities. As a result, in 2013, the government established the Higher Relief Committee, an agency tasked with coordinating UN requests for humanitarian access with key government ministries and the different branches of the intelligence forces. HRC approval is required for any deliveries of aid by the Red Crescent, allowing the government to control who receives relief, where, and when. A 2016 HRC facilitation letter approving a Red Crescent aid delivery from Damascus, obtained by the author from a source within the Syrian aid community, was signed by the Syrian minister of health and officers from the air force and military intelligence agencies, suggesting the long-suspected role of these agencies in directing the humanitarian effort. The Ministry of Health and the heads of the air force and military intelligence are all subject to British, U.S., and EU sanctions.

In addition to controlling aid, the government siphons off large portions of the humanitarian funding to pay for the war effort and to line officials’ pockets. The siphoning process begins with a tax imposed on the salaries of all relief staff, ranging from five percent for the lowest-paid national staff to 20 percent for international staff. The U.S.-sanctioned Ministry of Foreign Affairs also requires organizations that rely on local implementing partners— which UN agencies such as the WHO typically do—to choose their partners from a list of “national NGOs.” This phrase is a

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Syrians, flee the attacks of Syrian and Russian air forces wait in a queue to receive food close to the Bab al-Salameh border crossing on TurkishSyrian border near Azaz town of Aleppo, Syria on February ,10 2016. (Getty)

euphemism for regime-controlled entities, such as Syria Trust (founded and chaired by Syrian First Lady Asma al-Assad), or shell companies disguised as charities, such as Al-Bustan, owned by Assad’s cousin Rami Makhlouf. Both Asma al-Assad and Makhlouf are subject to international sanctions, as is Walid Moallem, the minister of foreign affairs. In May 2017, the U.S. Treasury added Al-Bustanto its list of sanctioned entities.

Yet since the UN does not require its partner organizations to disclose their own subcontracting partners, National NGOs such as Syria Trust can still subcontract Al-Bustan and similar entities, channeling UN funds to regime insiders.

Humanitarian operations have required massive local procurement of goods and services for international staff, providing another avenue for the regime to profit. UN agencies and international NGOs must purchase mobile phones from Syriatel, another Makhlouf company. Similarly, the government compels the UN to house its 150 international staff in the Four Seasons Hotel Damascus, which is jointly owned by the sanctioned minister of tourism and Samer Foz, a regime-allied businessman responsible for seizing displaced persons’ propertyunder Syria’s new confiscatory Law Number 10.

The regime has profited from aid agencies by playing with exchange rates as well. Funds for programming, national salaries, and procurement of local medicines, goods, and services must be paid to the central bank in dollars at the official exchange rate, which is 20 to 25 percent lower than the black-market rate.

The government pockets the difference. A conservative estimate using OCHA Financial Tracking Servicedata is that these manipulations have produced at least 1$ billion in revenue for the regime.

The Assad regime’s use of UN entities to bypass sanctions is exemplified by the WHO’s use of donor funds to purchase blood transfusion supplieson behalf of the Syrian Ministry of Defense, which controls the national blood bank. The WHO thus effectively subsidizes the same ministry that bombs civilians, attacks hospitals, and withholds lifesaving aid in opposition-held areas, even while the Assad regime blames the sanctions rather than its own targeting of civilian infrastructure and hospitals for Syria’s public health crisis.

Damascus’ hold on UN agencies is also reflected in how they prioritize funding. In 2012 and 2013, all UN aid—1.2$ billion— went directly to Damascus. In 2014, of the total 1.2$ billion in UN aid, only 6.5$ million went to international agencies operating cross-border from Turkey, while more than 1$ billion went to the UN agencies in Damascus. This pattern continued in 2015, when Syrian NGOs operating cross-border received less than one percent of the total UN aid budget for Syria.

The best estimateis that only between two and 18 percent of UN aid actually reaches needy Syrians. That aid, moreover, rarely goes to those most in need: the Syrians suffering in opposition-

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held areas, often under siege. Rather than helping at-risk civilians, the bulk of the aid has bolstered the Syrian government. The paradox and sad irony is that the driving forces behind sanctions against the Syrian government—the EU, the United States, and the United Kingdom—have also been the biggest funders of the humanitarian response that has undermined those sanctions.

TIME FOR A CHANGE If ever there were a situation in which UN agencies should break with their traditional deference to sovereignty, it is in Syria. It is time for them to reconsider their pact with the devil and examine whether their presence in Damascus is doing more harm than good.

UN agencies continue to justify their decision to work with the government on the grounds that, in purely numerical terms, most people in need live in government-controlled areas. Yet the agencies remain unable to access the people in greatest need, such as those who remain in Eastern Ghouta after the government’s takeover earlier this year.

Today, by far the biggest remaining area of need is oppositioncontrolled Idlib Province in northwestern Syria, home to three million civilians. Assuming that the UN Security Council renews the cross-border authorization contained in Resolution 2165, UN agencies will be permitted to reach these civilians directly from Turkey, without working through, let alone subsidizing, the Syrian government. If the agencies remain in Damascus, they will be barred from helping the civilians of Idlib as the regime and its allies proceed with their bloody campaign to retake the province.

As the war winds down and the Syrian government begins to plead for reconstruction aid, the importance of the UN agencies’ independence will only grow. If the Assad regime wants international assistance to rebuild the cities it has played a central role in destroying, it should have to do so on radically different terms, with international donors demanding sole authority to select local partners, flatly refusing to submit to the government’s methods of extracting aid money for its own purposes, and requesting an independent forensic audit to determine how the UN has spent its billion-dollar budget in Syria, following the model the Global Fund, an international financing organization.

The lesson of Syria is that the humanitarian impulse is not enough.

For too long, UN agencies have escaped scrutiny by waving the flag of good intentions. But we can no longer be blind to the horrible results that those good intentions have produced in Syria.

If the UN cannot radically improve the terms on which it operates in the country, it should get out, until Assad’s unspeakably brutal regime no longer imposes itself on the Syrian people.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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Why Russia and China Are Strengthening Security Ties Is the U.S. Driving Them Closer Together?

by Alexander Gabuev Early last week, Russia concluded Vostok2018-, its largest military exercise since the fall of the Soviet Union. It wasn’t just their size, however, that made the recent war games so groundbreaking. For the first

time in history, 3,200 Chinese troops trained alongside some 300,000 Russians in eastern Siberia. Previously, the Kremlin had issued invitations to take part in such exercises only to formal military allies such as Belarus.

Yet when asked at a press conference if the exercise made him worry about a possible Russian-Chinese

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military alliance, U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis was dismissive. “I see little in the long term that aligns Russia and China,” he said.

Mattis’ view echoes the Western conventional wisdom, which holds that mistrust between Russia and China is too deep to form meaningful strategic bonds.

Yet this view is dangerously wrong. The deepening of military ties between these two former rivals is real, and a stronger strategic partnership between Beijing and Moscow could, given time, upend a half century of U.S. military planning and strategy.

BUILDING THE BOND Vostok2018- was the culmination of a shift in Russian strategic thinking about China that gained momentum after 2014. Even before that, however, Moscow saw clear reasons for deeper engagement with Beijing. For one, both Russia and China care a great deal about preserving peace and tranquillity along their shared -2,600mile border. After a bloody two-day clash in 1969, both countries poured enormous resources into a costly military buildup along the border. In the 1980s, they moved to demilitarize border regions and ultimately settled a long-standing territorial dispute in 2004.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin (C) reviews a military honour guard with Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) during a welcoming ceremony outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on June 2018 ,8.

At present, both countries see their major security challenges elsewhere, and their shared desire to avoid creating yet another adverse relationship has been a stabilizing factor for relations. The Kremlin has its hands full with the wars in Syria and Ukraine, the impact of a growing NATO presence along its western border, and the ongoing U.S. defense buildup. For its part, China’s leadership faces growing tensions with Washington over security and trade issues, and various territorial disputes are straining relations with Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, and other neighbors. Meanwhile, Beijing continues to pursue its long-standing goal of regaining control over Taiwan.

A second factor driving Russia and China closer is their economic interdependence. Russia is primarily an exporter of raw materials and tends to lack access to both advanced industrial technologies and capital. China, on the other hand, is a vast consumer of commodities, particularly oil and gas, and at the same time has catapulted itself into the ranks of technologically advanced nations with an abundance of capital to invest abroad. On paper, China looks like the perfect trading partner for Russia. Although Moscow was slow to tap into opportunities provided by the Chinese market, the global financial crisis of 2008 accelerated outreach. As

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China’s attempt to buy Russia’s loyalty with generous loans will likely succeed, since the Kremlin no longer believes a better relationship with the United States will materialize in the near future a result, China has been at the top of the list of Russia’s trading partners since 2010.

Last but not least are shared political goals. Both regimes value stability, predictability, and the preservation of their hold on power above all else. And both countries, as permanent members of the UN Security Council, share a desire to shape the international order in a way that places sovereignty and limits on foreign interference in domestic affairs at its heart. This is visible in debates on various areas of global governance such as norms in cyberspace and control over the Internet, where Beijing and Moscow regularly support each other.

FROM MISTRUST TO ENTENTE Despite these shared interests, the Kremlin continued to view China with apprehension until quite recently, primarily because of the demographic imbalance between Russia’s sparsely populated Far East and the bordering provinces of China. These provinces are home to some 120 million people, some of whom made their living as guest workers in Siberia. The Kremlin feared that if the Chinese migrants continued to flock to and settle down in Siberia, acquiring Russian citizenship in the process, the trend would lead to loss of territory in the long run. Another reason for anxiety was China’s theft of sensitive Russian military technology, such as the design for Su27- fighter jets (the Chinese copy is labeled J11-B), which led to the slowing of arms sales in 2005. Finally, the rapid growth of Chinese influence through measures such as the Belt and Road Initiative has given Moscow cause for concern in Central Asia, which Russia has long considered to be in its phere of influence.

The 2014 annexation of Crimea and the conflict in eastern Ukraine that followed dampened these concerns dramatically. Shunned by waves of Western sanctions, the Kremlin turned to Beijing for financial resources, technology, and export markets for Russian

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olitics

goods. Before doing so, however, the Russian government conducted an interagency study on the potential risks of closer engagement with China.

The results helped mollify the Kremlin’s previous concerns and demonstrated that many of them were actually overblown. For instance, although the Chinese population in Russia had been unofficially estimated at more than two million, the government discovered that it doesn’t exceed 600,000, with over half of Chinese migrants located in European parts of Russia with the greatest employment opportunities, not the Russian Far East. Rising wages in China caused by a shrinking work force and high GDP growth rate, combined with the contraction of the Russian economy and devaluation of the ruble in 15–2014, have made Russia increasingly less attractive for Chinese workers.

The Kremlin also concluded that the Chinese arms industry is advancing by leaps and bounds thanks to massive investment in indigenous R&D. In less than a decade, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will have little need for Russian-made systems, giving Russia a narrow window of opportunity to sell arms to China. Finally, Moscow came to believe that the growing economic footprint of China in Central Asia is inevitable. Deeper Chinese penetration into the region actually reduces incentives for these countries to seek export routes to Europe that might bypass Russia and create additional pressure on Russian exporters in its core market. Moscow is happy to live with Beijing making inroads into Central Asian economies as long as it formally respects the Eurasian Economic Union, a Moscow-led trade bloc that gives Russian companies preferential access to markets in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and doesn’t challenge Russia’s self-proclaimed role as the region’s main security provider.

As a result of this shift in approach, Russia’s economic dependence on China has been growing since 2014,

Russia’s economic dependence on China has been growing since 2014, and Chinese banks have provided lavish loans for Russian state–owned companies and sanctioned officials

and Chinese banks have provided lavish loans for large Russian state–owned companies and the members of Putin’s entourage who are on various sanctions lists.

This attempt to buy Russia’s loyalty is likely to succeed, since the Kremlin no longer believes a better relationship with the United States under President Donald Trump will materialize. The U.S. Congress’ near unanimous passage of a new wave of sanctions against Russia in August 2017 convinced many in Moscow that so long as Putin remains in power, relations with Washington will not improve.

Washington’s hostility to both regimes has been a major factor in the improving Russian-Chinese ties.

The new U.S. National Security Strategy lumped China and Russia together for “attempting to erode American security and prosperity,” as did the Department of Defense’s new Cyber Strategy. Growing U.S. concerns about China and Russia predate the Trump administration, but they encourage the leaders of both countries to seek common ground. The massive Chinese-Russian exercise last week is a clear message to the United States and Europe: if you continue

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Russia's President Vladimir Putin (L), China's Defense Minister Wei Fenghe (C) and Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu watch the parade of the participants of the Vostok2018- (East2018) military drills at Tsugol training ground not far from the Chinese and Mongolian border in Siberia, on September 2018 ,13. (Getty)

Given their economic interdependence, mutual interest in a peaceful shared border, and similar worldviews, Russia and China on paper look like natural partners Peninsula. They also improve trust and informal connections between senior officials—not unlike the ways Washington officials bond with their counterparts in Europe and Asia.

Enhanced trust between Russian and Chinese militaries may lead to growing cooperation and coordination in cyberspace, particularly when it comes to probing vulnerabilities in U.S. military and civilian communication systems. At a minimum, Russian and Chinese counterintelligence agencies are now believed to share sensitive information on CIA operations that are being conducted against them.

to pressure us with sanctions, tariffs, and military deployments, we will join hands and push back.

A DANGEROUS PARTNERSHIP The Chinese-Russian security partnership has its limits, and it is important not to lose sight of them. Moscow and Beijing aren’t seeking a formal alliance, at least for now. Beijing doesn’t want to be dragged into a military confrontation with the United States as a result of belligerent or unintentional Russian missteps in the Middle East or Europe. By the same token, Moscow doesn’t want to be forced take sides if China clashes with other strategic Russian economic partners such as Vietnam or India.

Even in the absence of a formal NATO-style ChineseRussian security pact, however, it would be a mistake for Washington and its allies to ignore the consequences of increased military partnership. Exercises such as Vostok2018- improve interoperability between Russian and Chinese forces that could come in handy in regional hot spots such as Central Asia or the Korean

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Right now, however, what matters to Beijing most is the increased flow of sophisticated Russian weaponry that will radically improve the PLA’s near-term combat capabilities. The advanced S400- surface-to-air missile system that China purchased from Russia in 2014 and began installing earlier this year can allow Beijing to control all of Taiwan’s airspace, making defense of the island a much more challenging task for the Taiwanese air force and U.S. military planners. The S400- will also help China achieve its goal of establishing an Air Defense Identification Zone, a space in which the Chinese military will have the authority to identify and control all foreign civilian aircraft, in the contested waters of the East China and South China Seas. Chinese purchases of the Su35-, Russia’s most advanced fighter jet, will serve the same purpose.

Conventional wisdom in Washington and other Western capitals ignores the degree to which shortsighted U.S. policies are pushing Russia and China closer together. Now would be a good time for U.S. policymakers to rethink a policy that antagonizes—at times needlessly—both of the United States’ principal geopolitical rivals and to think more creatively about how to manage a new era of increased competition among great powers.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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conomy

Yes, Iran’s Economy Is Suffering But It’s Not All About the U.S. How Will Iranians Respond to the Currency Crisis?

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Although Trump has hurt the Iranian economy, the unexpected depth of the rial’s decline owes less to U.S. policy than to poor decision-making acute hardships may ease or disappear as Iran adjusts to the new situation. Iran’s foreign exchange market needs to be understood on its own terms in order to avoid the common mistake of equating the fall of the rial in the free market with economic collapse, rising poverty, and increasing protests that can weaken the regime.

DID TRUMP CAUSE THE CRISIS? In the months after January 2016, when the JCPOA went into effect, the optimism in Tehran was palpable. European executives filled five-star hotels in search of investment opportunities, and airport taxi services upgraded their fleets to better suit their foreign customers. During the Iranian fiscal year in 17–2016 (March 2016 to March 2017), Iran’s economy grew by 12.5 percent, even with some U.S. sanctions still in effect.

Iranian students protest at the University of Tehran during a demonstration driven by anger over economic problems, in the capital Tehran on December ,30 2017. (Getty)

by Djavad Salehi-Isfahani Iran’s currency, the rial, has lost two-thirds of its value in the last six months, much of it after the United States formally withdrew from the nuclear agreement in May. In Washington, the fall of the rial is widely seen as a consequence of U.S. sanctions and a sign of economic collapse that could bring down the Iranian regime.

While the first claim is generally true, it is overstated, and the second is based on false assumptions.

Although U.S. President Donald Trump has hurt the Iranian economy, the unexpected depth of the rial’s decline owes less to U.S. policy than to poor decision-making in Tehran and structural weaknesses in Iran’s economy. A proper understanding of the factors that deepened the crisis suggests that the country’s

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But by mid2017-, it became increasingly clear that the JCPOA was “on life support” and that Iran would not renegotiate the deal. The specter of sanctions took the wind out of the economy’s sails. Even before Trump announced that he would abandon the JCPOA, Western executives began packing their bags. For large international companies, the risk of losing access to U.S. markets far outweighed uncertain profits in Iran. Gross fixed capital formation fell, GDP growth slowed, manufacturing output dropped, and other sectors stayed flat. The exception was oil production, which increased last quarter as buyers rushed to get their last shipments of Iranian oil before U.S. sanctions hit the oil sector in November.

While a negative economic shock from the reimposition of U.S. sanctions was inevitable, several policy mistakes intensified the crisis. The most obvious of these was the decision to keep the exchange rate constant for the past six years, from 2012 to 2018, during which time Iran’s prices nearly doubled relative to those of its trading partners. This resulted in 100 percent overvaluation of Iran’s currency, which hurt non-oil exports and employment.

Overvaluation is normal in oil-exporting economies like Iran’s. It usually takes an external shock to correct the exchange rate to the benefit of exporters, as sanctions did in 2012 (when the rial fell by 200 percent) and as they are doing again now.

The Iranian government made a second mistake by publicly

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conomy

minimizing the threat of sanctions and their effect on the rial. Instead of assuring investors that the government was aware of the problem and had plans to deal with its economic consequences, officials called the run on the rial a bubble engineered by shady characters inside and outside Iran and pointed to Iran’s trade surplus and its abundant foreign exchange reserves. The assurances rang hollow for Iranians who had lost their savings in the 2012 crisis, when government denial was followed by a 200 percent devaluation. Wealthy and middleclass Iranians responded by converting their rial holdings into foreign currencies and gold, some to protect their savings and others to take it out of the country.

Iran’s Central Bank assisted this flight from the rial by delivering “bags of dollars” (President Rouhani’s description) to licensed money changers, or sarrafis. The government explained this as an attempt to assure investors that the rial was stable and remained a convertible currency. But it made little sense for the government to sell off its scarce reserves, and investors, taking advantage of the government’s mistake, bought all the gold and foreign exchange that the Central Bank was offering.

In April 2018, the Rouhani government fixed the value of the rial at 42,000 per dollar, a devaluation of only ten percent, and shut down the market for foreign exchange altogether, forcing traders into the black market. This, too, was a mistake. Ironically, since U.S. sanctions did not formally come into effect until August, 2018, for several months it was Iran’s own government that had disrupted the country’s foreign trade.

WILL THE CURRENCY CRISIS CAUSE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE AND WIDESPREAD POVERTY? Negative external economic shocks are not uncommon in developing countries. They usually start with a currency crisis, which then spreads to the rest of the economy. The mechanics of this transmission are quite different in Iran, where, thanks to oil, the government is the principal earner of foreign currency, than in countries like Argentina and Turkey, where this is not the case.

While a negative economic shock from the reimposition of U.S. sanctions was inevitable, several policy mistakes intensified the crisis

In both Argentina and Turkey, for example, private banks owe large dollar-denominated debts to foreign lenders. After a shock, these debts quickly become more expensive to service and repay. To prevent bank failure, the government raises interest rates, which hurts output, or extends credit to the banks, causing inflation.

Curiously, unlike those of Argentina and Turkey, Iran’s currency crisis may help its banking system. This is not because Iranian banks are healthier—to the contrary, they have been insolvent for years—but because their large debts are in rials, and inflation can erase them. The banks had been suffering from the collapse of Iranian real estate prices five years ago. But devaluation has set off very rapid inflation, likely to surpass 50 percent this year, which will increase the value of real estate and other assets that banks own.

Similarly, devaluation affects incomes in Iran differently than it does those in a typical country. The Iranian government can allocate the foreign exchange it earns from oil to subsidize specific sectors or population groups. In Argentina and Turkey, the government is a net buyer of foreign exchange, so it cannot do that. This is why speaking of the exchange rate in Iran, as is

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worth about 100$ per month for a family of four (in Purchasing Power Parity dollars). The cash transfer program, established in 2010 by former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, did a lot to help poor and middle-class Iranians weather the crisis in 2012.

Rouhani’s policy has been to gut that program, letting the value of the monthly transfers decline by about three-quarters since 2012, and essentially replacing them with transfers from welfare institutions, one of which is a religious charity. The new arrangement shortchanges the lower middle class, which does not fall under official protection. The anger of this group was on display during the protests that engulfed smaller urban areas of Iran last January.

THE FUTURE IN THE BALANCE The resumption of U.S. sanctions has dealt a severe blow to Iran’s economy, but this cannot really be measured by the extent of the decline in Iran’s currency. What happens to Iran’s economy depends largely on how employment and real incomes respond to the devaluation. Even then, how the Iranian public will respond to economic hardship remains the greater unknown: Will Iranians urge their leaders to give in to U.S. demands, as the Trump administration hopes, or will they give up on electoral politics and relations with the rest of the world, as Iran’s hardliners hope?

Iran President Hassan Rouhani gives a speech inside the Malaysia Prime Minister Najib Razak office during official visit on October ,7 2016 in Putrajaya, Malaysia. (Getty)

routinely done, is misleading. Currently, Iran has three different exchange rates. First is the rather thin free market rate, which, according to a Central Bank official, accounts for only three percent of the currencies traded. Last week, this rate hovered around 140,000 rials per U.S. dollar. Second is a market in which licensed exporters and importers trade. The rate in this market in recent weeks has been around 90,000 rials per dollar. Finally, the government sells as much as half of its foreign exchange earnings at a much lower rate of 42,000 rials per dollar, in order to import basic household necessities and goods needed for industrial production.

Because of these multiple exchange rates, devaluation does not affect all sectors equally. Since April 2018, while the free market exchange rate has fallen by more than 60 percent, the Consumer Price Index has increased by only 16 percent. Hence, it is misleading to measure the rate of decline in living standards by the fall in the free market value of the rial.

Iran’s poverty rate is generally low by international standards— less than ten percent, according to a World Bank study. Some eight million Iranians receive allowances from two welfare agencies, and about 50 million receive monthly cash transfers

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Iran’s government has responded to worsening economic conditions with programs that offer the poor greater protection from the worst consequences of the sanctions. But the larger economic problem remains high youth unemployment. A third of men and half of women under 30 with college degrees are unemployed. A cheaper rial can help the government create jobs by increasing the demand for Iran’s non-oil exports.

But there is a limit to job creation so long as U.S. financial sanctions block Iran’s access to global banking. Iran now depends on the European Union, China, and Russia to deliver access to global markets, as these powers try to salvage what is left of the nuclear deal to which they are parties. Whether these powers can open a lifeline for the Iranian economy remains an open question.

Back in 2012, when a similar crisis engulfed the country, Iranians blamed the Ahmadinejad administration for its incompetence and its hostile stance toward the West. They continued to hope that by electing a more moderate administration, they could reverse four decades of isolation. Millions of Iranians voted in the last two presidential elections for globalization and normalizing relations with the West. If the outcome of those hopes appears to be nothing but hardship and betrayal, odds are that Iranians will heed their country’s strongest voices—the ones calling for giving up on the West and turning inward and eastward instead.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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nvironment

All Climate Politics Is Local After Trump›s Paris Withdrawal, Subnational Groups Have Stepped Up

by Angel Hsu and Amy Weinfurter President Donald Trump’s announcement of the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris agreement on climate change last summer triggered an important public debate. Although many lamented the move as a major climate setback, others disagreed and called for calm, on the theory that if U.S. cities, states, and businesses continued to reduce

their emissions the United States could still meet its carbon reduction commitments, even without backing from Washington. Sure enough, thousands of municipalities, companies, universities, and civil society groups reaffirmed their support for the Paris agreement in the wake of Trump’s announcement, and many set their own climate goals.

The Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco earlier this month put this debate over

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When cities, regions, and companies act together alongside national governments to reduce emissions, the potential impact is much greater environmental rollbacks?

We, along with co-authors from NewClimate Institute and PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, set out to answer these questions in a new report launched prior to the summit. We examined close to 6,000 individual city and region pledges and more than 2,000 business commitments from ten of the world’s highest-emitting regions, as well as 21 collective pledges (often referred to as international cooperation initiatives) made by a mix of private sector, civil society, city, regional, and national government participants. We found that these pledges, if realized, would deliver significant carbon mitigation on a global scale.

A picture taken on November 2017 ,16 shows a replica of the Statue of Liberty emitting smoke from the torch created by Danish artist Jens Galschiot and displayed at the Rheinaue park during the COP23 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany. (Gett)

the significance of local and private-sector climate initiatives back in the spotlight. The summit was a platform for dozens of new announcements and pledges from municipal, state, and business leaders, including plans for zero-waste cities and zero-emissions buildings. Yet skeptics will ask: Are these pledges significant? Will they lead to significant emissions reductions that counteract some of the inaction by national governments, including the Trump administration’s series of

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Combined, the individual commitments would mitigate an additional 1.5 to 2.2 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent—an amount roughly double Canada’s annual emissions—above what national policies alone would achieve by 2030. When cities, regions, and companies act together alongside national governments in international cooperation initiatives, the potential impact is much greater, ranging from 15 to 23 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent mitigation—enough to reduce annual global emissions by approximately one-third by 2030, putting the world on track to achieve the Paris agreement’s goals of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

Profound reductions are particularly promising in efforts to tackle greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide, from sectors like waste and agriculture.

The Climate & Clean Air Coalition, an international cooperative initiative, is working to reduce emissions of potent greenhouse gases such as methane, which has a global warming potential 20 times higher than that of carbon dioxide. Improved land use could bring about even greater carbon reductions.

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nvironment

For example, the Bonn Challenge—a -56member international cooperative initiative—has set a goal of restoring 350 million hectares of degraded and deforested land by 2030.

In the United States—which has emitted more carbon than any other nation in history—state, local, and business leaders have stepped up as the national government has backpedaled. More than 3,000 mayors, governors, CEOs, and university presidents have signed on to the We Are Still In movement, pledging to honor the country’s climate change commitments articulated in the Paris agreement.

Across the United States, more than 100 companies have set meaningful targets to reduce their emissions and more than 90 U.S. cities and counties have adopted goals of using 100 percent renewable energy. In total, we found that U.S. city, state, and business pledges could provide at least half of the emissions reductions needed to meet Washington’s former Paris agreement commitment. If enacted, these pledges could lower U.S. emissions by 670 to 810 megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year by 2030, an impact on par with retiring over 160 coal-fired power plants. The reductions are coming from over 900 companies, 19 states that account for just under half of the country’s population, and nearly 100 cities that represent 13 percent of the country’s population. Together, these actors contributed 38 percent of the country’s total carbon footprint in 2015. They have all made commitments that specifically pledge to cut emissions or shift to renewable energy.

There are, however, other countries included in our

In the United States - which has emitted more carbon than any other nation in history- state, local, and business leaders have stepped up as the national government has backpedaled

analysis whose city and business commitments do not add up to the same kind of additional impact as those from the United States. Individual city and company contributions from China, for example, showed far less than we expected, given the country’s status as the world’s number one greenhouse gas emitter. We evaluated pledges by 22 Chinese city and regional actors and 140 Chinese companies, which will contribute up to 155 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent mitigation above what current national policies alone would achieve by 2030—a mere fraction of the total for U.S. cities, regions, and companies. One reason for the low local reductions numbers is China’s vertically integrated environmental governance system. Most of the country’s climate and energy policies are set by the national government and implemented at local levels through binding targets, making these top-down policies much stronger drivers of climate action than participation in international climate change initiatives and reporting platforms.

Examining the national-level emissions data for

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Mayor of Bonn AshokAlexander Sridharan, former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and COP 23 President Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama of Fiji attend the COP23 UN Climate Change Conference, in Bonn, Germany, November 2017. (Reuters)

China, it is clear that the country is on track to meet its Paris targets years ahead of schedule, largely due to its explicit policy demands on cities to deliver emissions cuts.

For all the impressive state and local initiatives in the United States, then, China’s example shows that national policy matters. Moreover, the Trump administration’s efforts to weaken or eliminate federal domestic climate policies could threaten some of the gains made by subnational jurisdictions and non-state actors. The Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan—which would have prompted states to enact policies to cut power plants’ greenhouse gas emissions—is now stuck in legal uncertainty. Trump also aims to reverse the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, which gradually ratchet up vehicle fueleconomy requirements nationwide. The current administration’s strategy would remove the ability of California—and 12 other states—to retain their current Zero Emission Vehicle deployment

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and stricter emissions standards, which set more ambitious goals than national policies. It could also stifle innovation in the auto industry, putting a damper on the ability of both states and the private sector to create climate change solutions.

This added uncertainty comes at a critical time for the global response to climate change. Individual countries’ current pledges under the Paris agreement provide just one-third of the emissions reductions needed to meet the agreement’s overall goals and prevent disastrous levels of temperature rise. By 2020, national governments will be asked to update their Paris pledges, and will hopefully take into consideration what their cities, regions, and companies can contribute. Washington may have walked away from these commitments, but if the initial response to Trump’s withdrawal is any indicator, subnational groups are unlikely to back down.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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it

Iasias Afwerki: Leader of Eretria’s Revolution The Only Leader Eritreans Have Ever Known Majalla - London Iasias Afwerki was born in 1946 in Asmara, which was, at the time, under British administration. In 1962 it was annexed by Ethiopia.

Afwerki studied engineering in Ethiopia at the University of Addis Ababa, but he left the university in 1966 to join the ELF. Mr Isaias was among the first group of fighters to travel to China in 1967 for military and ideological training. On his return he, along with others, agitated for change within the ELF but then went on to form a new party, the Eritrean People›s Liberation Front. During Ethiopia’s own revolution in 1974, Isaias led the highlanddominated Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF). In 1987 he was elected secretarygeneral of the EPLF. After years of military struggle, the EPLF defeated Ethiopian troops in May 1991. A provisional government was put in place with Isaias at the head, and a referendum on Eritrean independence from Ethiopia was planned for the future.

After a decades-long David-and-Goliath struggle, Eretria held the referendum in 1993 and Eritreans voted overwhelmingly

in favour of independence. The next month Isaias was elected president of Eritrea by the National Assembly as well as chairman of the aforementioned body, giving him control of both the executive and legislative branches of government. On May 24 he officially proclaimed Eritrea’s independence. Mr Isaias remains the only president the country has known.

In the early years he was hailed as a new type of African president. Then-US President Bill Clinton referred to him as a «renaissance African leader». In the years that followed, Isaias gradually consolidated his power over virtually every aspect of Eritrean life, serving additionally as commander in chief of the army and as chairman of the country’s sole political party, the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), as the EPLF renamed itself in 1994. He cancelled the 1997 presidential elections despite having blasted fellow heads of state for staying in power for too long at an Organisation of African Unity summit in Cairo in 1993.

Eritrea is still being ruled without a constitution.

After a three-year-long drafting process, the

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country›s constitution was ratified in 1997, but it has not been implemented to this day. The president, in his Independence Day address of 2014, promised that the country would draft another constitution. But four years on, this has still not happened.

Political and media watchers report that private media is almost non-existent and foreign journalists are usually refused access – except recently when a number of them gained formal entry.

Isaias oversaw an unexpected transformation of the country’s contentious relations with Ethiopia in 2018. Outreach by Ethiopia’s new prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, in June regarding ending the long-standing border war between the countries led to a flurry of diplomatic activity, including reciprocal visits by Isaias and Abiy in July. Diplomatic and commercial ties between Ethiopia and Eritrea were reestablished, and on July 9 the two leaders issued a joint statement declaring that the state of war between their countries was over. Given that Isaias had long used the conflict with Ethiopia as an excuse for the repressive conditions in his country, many wondered how the recent changes would affect the lives of Eritreans.

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ulture

How «Murphy Brown» Revival Finds New Targets in the Trump Era Hit Left-Leaning Sitcom Set in TV Newsroom Makes a Return After 20 Years

by Gary Levin The “Murphy Brown” gang is back, and you can thank Donald Trump.

The hit sitcom set in a TV newsroom, which spanned the Reagan, Bush and Clinton presidencies with a decidedly left-leaning bent, returns to CBS as a Trump-era palliative.

Although creator Diane English flirted with a brief revival when Sarah Palin ran for vice president in 2012, “we wouldn’t have brought back the show if Hillary (Clinton) had won,” says Candice Bergen, who stars as strong-willed Murphy. “All of us felt that now, we had a lot of things to say, and Murphy can address those things in a way that most shows couldn’t.”

Adds English: “We felt like it was something that would make a new version of the show very relevant. It’s time to give a voice to the resistance.”

Early episodes of the show tackle in-the-moment subjects that were unknown when the series left 20 years ago: the #MeToo movement, fake news, DACA «dreamers,» viral tweets and even an Alexa-

like personal assistant who becomes Murphy’s latest short-lived secretary, preserving a signature of the original series.

“We left them in a completely different era on so many levels” in 1998, English says: The press was «revered,” not condemned as «fake news,» and “the internet was barely functional.”

So Murphy, who left the «FYI» newsmagazine but “hates being on the sidelines,” Bergen says, reteams with nervous nebbish producer Miles Silverberg (Grant Shaud), Frank Fontana (Joe Regalbuto) and still-perky Corky Sherwood (Faith Ford) to launch the cable-news hour “Murphy in the Morning,” aided by Pat Patel (Nik Dodani), a millennial who teaches the aging gang the ways of social media.

Their modern set is joined by recreations of hangout Phil’s Bar and Murphy’s Georgetown townhouse, as production shifted to New York, where Bergen lives. Tyne Daly plays Phyllis, who inherits the bar from her brother, Phil (played by the late Pat Corley), while Murphy shares her home with allgrown-up son Avery (Jake McDorman), who, in

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Pictured L-R: Behind the scenes with Tyne Daly as Phyllis, Grant Shaud as Miles Silverberg, Faith Ford as Corky Sherwood, Candice Bergen as Murphy Brown, Joe Regalbuto as Frank Fontana, Jake McDorman as Avery Brown, and Nik Dodani as Pat Patel Photo: (CBS. All Rights Reserved)

the season premiere, gets his own show as the liberal voice of the conservative Wolf network and competes in Murphy’s new time slot.

“He was on the campaign trail. He saw some of the blind spots that the Democratic party didn’t see in the 2016 election,” McDorman says. “He has a motivation to try to listen to the right and find a common ground, while Murphy is more of an elite. And he calls her out on that privilege.”

Retired anchor Jim Dial (Charles Kimbrough) also returns for three of the new season›s 13 episodes, but younger viewers might not remember him, or the series, which is unavailable on streaming networks – thanks to music-clearance fees for the original show›s many Motown songs. Only the first of its 10 seasons are on DVD, though CBS All Access has, for a limited time, 18 of its 247 original episodes.

The 1988 series pilot tapped into the scandal around presidential candidate Gary Hart’s affair that ended his campaign. Now the challenge is greater: “How do you top a president making secret hush-money payments to porn stars?” English asks.

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Early episodes of the show tackle in-the-moment subjects that were unknown when the series left 20 years ago: the #MeToo movement, fake news, DACA «dreamers,» viral tweets Aside from memorizing dialogue, “the greatest difficulty for me was not crying all the time,” Bergen says. “I’m just so overwhelmed by the circumstances.”

Shaud had his own reservations. “What’s a -57year-old freaking out on the job gonna look like?” he wondered. But the characters are «written so well, I was relieved,” he says. With the cast and seven original writers intact, “It’s just the same; it doesn’t feel any different.

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The Art of Pain Therapy Art Therapy Can be an Effective Way to Help Manage Pain Harvard Health If you deal with pain from an injury, surgery, or just daily life, you may want to make some art.

Art therapy is a form of expressive therapy that taps into parts of the brain involved in the creative process. And this can help modify your response to emotional and physical concerns.

While art therapy can be used for almost any type of pain, it has a growing role in chronic pain management.

“Art therapy does not replace the need for pain medication, but it can be used as an effective complement and reduce perceptions of pain experiences,” says Kelsey A. Skerpan, an art therapist with Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital. “It can help people better manage the symptoms of stress and anxiety that accompany pain, which assists with the recovery process and improves quality of life.”

relax and alter your mood, so the pain doesn’t control your emotional state.

A study in the February 2018 issue of The Arts in Psychotherapy looked at almost 200 people hospitalized for a medical issue or surgery. The researchers found that participating in art therapy for an average of 50 minutes significantly improved their moods and lowered levels of pain and anxiety.

“When people are in pain, they often lose their sense of control since their pain dictates what they can and cannot do,” says Skerpan. “Engaging in art therapy helps them reclaim ownership in their lives in terms of what art they choose and the steps they take to create something unique.”

RECLAIMING OWNERSHIP

Art therapy is not to be confused with regular art classes.

While they share a common goal of creating art, art therapy involves working with a registered or board-certified art therapist who guides you through the creative process while exploring how it relates to your pain.

Art therapy helps lower the perception of pain by moving your mental focus away from the painful stimulus. It is not simply a distraction, but rather a way to teach you how to

For instance, you may focus on making a piece of art that represents what your pain looks like on that particular day and then discuss how the pain is connected to the different

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lines, shapes, and colors you create. “Processing art like this can help people further explore their condition, which may encourage them to talk more about how making art affects them, their mood, and their pain,” says Skerpan.

Find an art therapist A registered art therapist (ATR) or a board-certified art therapist (ATR-BC) has earned a master’s degree and undergone supervised training in the field.

CHOOSE YOUR CREATIVE OUTLET You don’t have to be an artist to benefit from art therapy.

The type of art you do doesn’t matter either. In fact, Skerpan encourages people to consider all kinds of artistic expression, including printmaking, mixed media, woodworking, and ceramics.

“You could revisit something you enjoyed in the past, or an

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You don’t have to be an artist to benefit from art therapy. The type of art you do doesn’t matter either art form you are interested in learning more about,” she says.

Typical sessions are weekly and last 30 to 60 minutes. The length and number can change as needed. While sessions are often individual at first, they may expand into a group support setting, which offers a chance for people to share their experiences.

You should approach art therapy like any other type of therapy, says Skerpan. “Give it a few sessions, but don’t worry if you don’t click with the therapist. Simply try someone else.

Eventually you can find someone who meets your needs.”

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Secrets of the Solomons From War to Wonderland in 75 Years

by Anne Z. Cooke

Guadalcanal. C›mon, let›s say hello.»

If it weren›t for the potholes, cavernous pits slowing us down on the road to Honiara, in the Solomon Islands, I might have missed the sign on the tree, «Dolphin View Cottage.» But Andrew, our guide, knew the road by heart.

Beyond the bungalow, Guyas› two teenagers lounged on a picnic table, playing with their pet cockatoo. Behind them the beach sloped down to Iron Bottom Sound, the World War II graveyard where -50odd American and Japanese ships lie at rest. Across the water, Savo Island shimmered on the horizon.

«That›s Guyas Tohabellana,» he said, waving at a stocky, dark-skinned man in rumpled shorts, a faded T-shirt and flip flops. «He works here in

For a couple of minutes, the two men chatted, speaking Pijin so quietly I couldn›t make out

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Sixteen-passenger Twin Otters, work horse of Solomon Island Air interisland flights, keeps the engines running while passengers returning to Honiara climb aboard.

Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands.

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the words. Then Guyas turned to me and we shook hands.

«You›re from America!» he said, switching to English and lighting up. «Do you like it here?

Have you been to Gizo and seen the beautiful coral reefs? Yes, my grandfather was a coast watcher during World War II, a spy you›d say, reporting Japanese movements to the Americans. He watched the battle of Savo Island from right here.»

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A name and a handshake are de rigueur in the Solomons, deep in the South Pacific. Being American counts, too, especially here, where 5,800 Americans were killed or injured fighting the invading Japanese.

«We›re known for two things,» said Ellison Kyere, from the tourist office, when my partner Steve and I met him for lunch at the Lime Lounge Cafe, in Honiara. «For the battle sites and for scuba diving, under the water. It›s time to tell the story of island life on land.»

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A tall order, indeed. The islanders, mostly Melanesian, are scattered over 347 of the country›s 922 islands, speaking both Pijin and one of the country›s 75 different languages.

Some are farmers; some work for the government. Some wear grass skirts and use shell money for barter; others are proud to count head hunters among their ancestors. A few own speed boats; most paddle to market in a «mola,» a homemade dugout canoe.

We took the overnight Fiji Airways flight from Los Angeles to Fiji›s Nadi airport, changed planes, then flew on to Henderson International Airport, in Honiara, the capital city. I›d brought my phone so I took advantage of the airport›s «tourist special,» a SIM card good for 75 minutes, for just U.S. 1.30$. And we booked a guide for the next day›s city tour.

We were still jetlagged the next morning when Andrew pulled up in a shiny black SUV. «All our cars are Japanese and they›re all secondhand,» he apologized. «Never get new ones.

And the Japanese are building an overpass and paving the street and it›s taking forever,» he added as we inched along past grimy storefronts and vegetable stands overflowing with greens, tomatoes and squash.

«That one, where everybody shops, is owned

The trip - now nicknamed «Solomons 101» - began in earnest when we flew north to airfields at Gizo, on Ghizo Island, and Munda, on New Georgia, both in the Western Province, the gateway to equatorial rain forests, volcanic mountains, blue lagoons and sandy beaches.

by a Chinese company,» he said, nodding at a big-box department store, the kind we›ve seen in other third-world countries, there to pave the way to building and mining contracts.

I looked for something I could brag on - an American-built hospital or a college - but we›d already turned away, heading to the Memorial Garden cemetery, the American War Memorial and Bonegi Beach, famous for wreck dives.

«That›s Bloody Ridge,» Andrew said, parking the car on a grassy hump of land.

Standing there, imagining the chaos of battle, it felt unreal to be gazing out over sleepy fields while at my feet, still visible, were the foxholes

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Privacy, a one-to-one guest-to-staff ratio and seven luxurious bungalows are the reason «The Royals,» Will and Kate, stayed at Tavanipupu Resort while touring the former British Empire›s colonies and protectorates.

(TNS)

where 40 U.S. Marines died.

The trip - now nicknamed «Solomons 101» began in earnest when we flew north to airfields at Gizo, on Ghizo Island, and Munda, on New Georgia, both in the Western Province, the gateway to equatorial rain forests, volcanic mountains, blue lagoons and sandy beaches.

Met by a skiff and driver, we were off, speeding over a shimmering blue lagoon, to Fat Boys Resort, an all-inclusive, palm-thatched lodge built over deep water, with five bamboo-walled guest bungalows perched on the shore. Our base camp for the next few days, the lodge was a short boat ride to Kennedy Island, where we

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went ashore to see where Lt. John Kennedy and his PT109- crew hid after a Japanese vessel sank their ship. And close enough to a string of shallow reefs to spend a couple of hours snorkeling, before landing for a grilled-lobster picnic.

«The rising ocean is washing the island away,» said Sam, the boat captain, when I asked why one of the trees, its roots submerged in saltwater, seemed to be dying. «People used to think the trees had a disease,» he told me. «Now they know its global warming.»

It was party time the next day at Gizo›s Friday market. Families in dugout canoes docked at

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the waterfront, buyers crowded the aisles, coins changed hands, sellers hailed their friends and old ladies filled their shopping bags. Everyone smiled, asking where we were from and posing for photos.

Ngali nuts - the holy grail of snacks here in the islands - were in season, so I stocked up with a half-dozen folded-leaf packages. Green taro leaves competed with slippery spinach (Malabar spinach), purple bananas, carrots and betel nuts, commonly chewed here, an affordable substitute for coffee or cigarettes.

«What do they taste like?» I asked an older man with red-rimmed eyes (the clue), who offered me a seat in the shade. «Do they make you feel relaxed?» I ventured to ask.

«Oh, no, they give you energy!» he said, smiling, showing me how he folded the nut and leaf together with a pinch of slaked lime (ash from burned clam shells). «One or two of these and I want to get up and work all day.»

Flying on to Munda, on our next leg, we checked into the Agnes Gateway Hotel, on the waterfront, a Spartan set of rooms and cottages advertised in scuba magazines. Signing up for a tour to Skull Island, we met boat captain Billy Kere, -30ish and friendly, and a «descendant of the Roviana headhunter clan,» as he told us. Heading for deep water, pounding over incoming waves, we finally docked at tiny Skull

The islanders, mostly Melanesian, are scattered over 347 of the country›s 922 islands, speaking both Pijin and one of the country›s 75 different languages.

Island, just big enough to hold piles of rocks and rows of ancient skulls, victims of long ago battles.

«Don›t worry, the head hunters are gone,» said Billy, chuckling. «It›s all about love nowadays.

But not then,» he added. «If you sinned? Your head came off.»

Going on to Lubaria Island, the PT-boat base where Kennedy and his crew were stationed during the war, we went ashore to visit the

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Market day on Marapa Island brings regional families together to buy, sell and visit. (TNS)

barracks and look at the monument. Ata, the keeper, produced a carved wood bust of the youthful Kennedy, which he hides at night.

«It›s been stolen and recovered twice,» he said, leading me to a group of rusty cannons. The real surprise was the modern bathroom.

Two days later, as our adventure wound down and we boarded a -16seat Twin Otter for the flight back to Honiara - an aerial tour over islands, bays, coral reefs, rain forests, volcanos,

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waterfalls and mountains - I suddenly realized how much we›d missed. The Solomon Islands, spectacular, varied and pristine, with an annual visitor count of just 24,000, remains one of the world›s last untamed destinations (www. visitsolomons.com.sb). The roads aren›t awfully good, especially in the country. But potholes or no, we›ll be going back.

This article was originally published in the Tribune News Service.