FROM SYRIA TO SOUTH KOREA, A NEW WORLD IS EMERGING

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(Twits posted on X in the last few days)

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This a very interesting article that acknowledge the current multipolarity of the word. At the present moment, a two-polar world would refer to a world divided mainly between America and China. A tri-polar world, if weighted country by country, would refer to America, China and India, in that order. The European Union is important, of course, but it is also a loose confederation of sovereign states, economically rich but not always politically coherent. The same could be said about the Arab League or the African Union, by the way. Other sovereign powers are important, like Russia, Japan or Brazil, for instance, but the first two have demographic weaknesses, and all three are not really in the same league as the United States, the People's Republic of China or the Republic of India in terms of effective power or potential power.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/india/india-will-carve-its-own-path

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Here is another sign that Bangladesh is falling more and more inside China's orbit. Of all India's neighbors, only tiny Bhutan is really on its side.

https://x.com/RealBababanaras/status/1866867612698939485

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Here is an interesting question: was the South Korea president's attempt to impose martial law upon his own country the result of America's meddling in its political process? Those who remember what happened to the rightfully-elected socialist president Salvador Allende in Chile, just before the US-engineered coup that killed him and forced general Pinochet's rule upon that South American country knows not to underestimate America's tendancy to put its own national interests above those of any other country or nation. The familiar expressions "coup d'État" and "raison d'État" are of French origin, of course, but they have been adopted and used quite often by anglophone governments, enough to raise suspicion when that kind of attempted coup happen. The SK main opposition formation is open to more trade with Bricsian countries, while the conservative majority is not. Is that enough for the Biden administration to try to locked in SK on its side for decades, the way it tried to do with Australia by using AUKUS and its overpriced nuclear submarine program? If so, it shows how afraid it is of the BRICS countries in general and of China in particular.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/11/north-korea-calls-south-dictatorship-martial-law

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The United States, Israel, and Turkiye are all rejoicing openly because of Assad's swift departure and the victory of... hum... well... ISIS. The Islamic State in Syria has finally got want it wanted: an Islamic State in Syria. Politics made for strange bedfellows, it has often been said. It is quite true. Still, the Palestinians continue to be massacred by the tens of thousands by an Israel that does know what to do with them and tend to see them as mere animals to be disposed of and killed at will, like target practice. The Israeli state still occupies the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and, now, southern Lebanon (one more time). It also used the opportunity to absorb an additional slice of Syrian soil, a small parcel that was patrolled by the United Nations and was created to separate Israel from Syria. Trump 2.0 is likely to make things even worse, with unconditional support for Israel, no matter what it does or who it kills. Trump 1.0 gave its approval to the annexation of the Golan Heights and remains eager to keep the support of "Our Marvelous Evangelicals", as he called them with the eagerness and blindness of a salesman ready to sell his own mother to get one more vote. Trump is a pragmatist and not a war-lover. He is a money-lover, though, and his main goal is to make America rich again. The trade wars he unleashed in his first term didn't work as planned, and the second wave, probably even larger, are likely to fail again. Syria is whole again, under ISIS, with many exceptions: the southwest Israeli-held Golan Heights, the northeast Kurdish-held areas, the northern Turkish-held areas, and the small (but well-located) US military base at the border with Jordan. How long will that configuration last? Peace must have a chance, especially for a land as devastated as Syria's territory is and a population as war-weary and war-stressed as the Syrians have to be. Will ISIS succeed in holding together the land it now rules? Will Syria implode again? Will an ISIS-run Syria turn into a Sunni religious state, making Syria a danger to Israel? Russia is busy, but the Ukrainian war may be over in a year or two. Iran is licking its wounds, but it is not down and out and has apparently decided to give itself a nuclear arsenal. China and the other Bricsian countries, including India, still wish to be able to trade with -and gain better access to- Africa's incredible potential, both human-wise and resources-wise. The Arab countries can now add Syria to the list of Muslim countries wrecked by Western intervention, along with Lybia, Afghanistan, and Irak. How long will they be willing to foot the bill for reconstructing Syria? How long until they start to see Israel for what it really is, deep down: a militarized state, just like Sparta and Prussia were in their time. It is a democracy, but then, only as long as you are a Hebrew-speaking Jew. If you are an Arabic-speaking Palestinian, whether Muslim or Christian, you may as well not exist, you're just a low-life piece of s... Palestinians' daily oppression and deprivation of political rights is today's apartheid. Let's hope the two states' solutions will come to be, one day, possibly through age-old opprobium, expulsion from the UN, economic boycott, and political isolation (the probable humbling of America through the policies of newly-reelected Trump 2.0 can certainly play a role in that). Open war has ceased in Lebanon and now in Syria, but not in the Gaza Strip. What about the Palestinians living there, about to be annexed in sections, and about those in the West Bank, being prepared also to be annexed to Great Israel, from the river to the sea? What about Palestine?

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/turkey/how-turkey-won-syrian-civil-war

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An interesting assessment of the security aspects of the new Syrian government. There is an analogy with the 1979 Iranian revolution. The pro-US Shah was ousted by his own people and sought refuge in Morocco, first, and then America. What replaced the secular Palhavi dynasty was a religious government, much like the secular FLN in Algeria gave way to a religious regime. It was the same phenomena again in Turkiye, Ataturk having had a secular leaning and a somewhat pro-Western mindset, as opposed to present-day Erdogan. The new governement is facing real challenges and a difficult environment. It is composed of two Sunni factions linked to el-Qaeda and ISIS. How will they share power between them? There is a real possibility that the Alaouite heartland may sought one day to detach itself from central control in Damascus. If it does, it may be helped by the fact that it is close to Lebanon. The status of the two Russian bases on the coast is not clear. Will they be removed by Russia? Is Damascus strong enough to removed them by force? As for the Kurds, they are protected by the Americans and enjoy the revenue of two important resources, oil and wheat, both crucial for a devastated economy. They will certainly sought help from the Kurds who control a very autonomous Kurdish territory in Northern Irak. Both those groups may both be helped in turn by Iran, if only to counter Turkiye, whose relations with Kurds in general are none too good, especially those living on its own soil, but not only. In fact, two of the four Kurdistans in that part of the world may one day become linked together, possibly along with the adjacent Iranian Kurdistan, creating a nucleus for the descendants of the ancient Medes. The US base on the border with Jordan is visibly there to help Israel, not Syria. The evolution of the new Syrian authorities may have an impact on its continuous presence. The southern Sunni faction has links with the Jordanian kingdom. It may also be the recipient of Saudi Arabian kingdom's attention. The Gulf monarchies, too, may be more at ease with that faction than with the most important northern one. Israel has gained a respite on both its northern fronts, the one in Lebanon and the one in Syria, but the Israeli war is not over as long as the Palestinian massacre is going on in the Gaza Strip.

https://www.usnews.com/news/world-report/articles/2024-12-11/how-the-fall-of-assad-will-reshape-the-middle-east?src=usn_tw

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The setback in Syria will probably lead Iran to get closer to Russia and China. In fact, Tehran may well decide to go ahead with the development of a domestic nuclear arsenal as a defensive measure against Israel's own nuclear capability. Chat échaudé craint l'eau froide. For China, Iran and European Russia make for a useful bulwark dividing Eurasia into two parts, along the axis Arkhangelsk / Armenia / Abadan. China is thus safe on its far away landward side, while the growth of the Chinese navy (and airforce) protect the Middle Kingdom on its seaward side. It should always be kept in mind that China is essentially a landpower, not a seapower like Japan. It was invaded and conquered twice from land, first by the Mongols, then by the Manchus, each of these people creating their own dynasties, but it never was conquered from the sea. If China get back its Taiwanese province one day, by force or through more peaceful means, it will consolidate its position facing the Pacific Ocean, piercing the first island chain and gaining thus a direct access to Earth's largest body of water. Both Hainan province and Taiwan provinces are insular, meaning that its southeast maritime façade would be well protected, especially with the series of fortified islands that have been created in the South China Sea. As for the northeast maritime façade, any hostile moves by Japan may cost it the Ryukyus archipelago, a group of islands that used to constitute a Chinese protectorate a few centuries ago.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Maximum-pressure-revival-may-push-Iran-closer-to-China-and-Russia

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Plain English: the Taiwanese China-friendly Kuomintang has the same fear as the BRICS-friendly South Korean opposition, that is to say American meddling in the political process, Allende-style.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Taiwan-opposition-seeks-new-rules-on-martial-law-after-South-Korea

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Fighting is still going on: the Turkish-backed SNA took Manbij from the American-backed Kurdish-dominated SNL. It must be said that Kurdish-Turkish relations have often been tense in the past and still are in Syria, at least for now. Visibly, things are still in flux in Syria. The Alaouites political positioning toward the new Sunni power emerging in Damascus is unclear. The new government didn't lose any time in ordering forces ordered toward the Russian bases near Latakié and Tartus, with a two-pronged advance. At the same time, it was shrewd enough to use that opportunity to cut off the Alaouites from both the Turkish and the Lebanese border. It apparently avoided reaching inside the Alaouite homeland, not a good sign for what may come in the next few weeks or months... The mandate of the new Prime Minister will run until the end of winter, till March, probably to ensure continuity and stability of government in a stressed period. The next Trump administration will start at the end of January, and the new Syrian's strongman, certainly backed by the Biden administration, even if very discreetly, probably hopes for the same favor from the Trump 2.0 administration. The two old baathists republics are nor more in a single generation, with the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003, and now the fall of the Assad dynasty in Syria in 2024. Ir mean that the three Arabic-speaking states of the Fertile Crescent are in ruins if you include Lebanon. The only exception is the Jordanian kingdom, the backer of the southern rebels, and whose territory gave access to the small American base that temporarily disappeared from the Economist map of yesterday, and also provide its personal and equipment with a possible way out if needed one day, while neatly completing the network of American and Israeli military bases that tightly covers that section of the Middle East. The vital importance of airpower was demonstrated one more time in this part of the Israeli War. It was (and still is) important in the Gazan campaign and the Lebanese campaign, and even more so in the Syrian campaign. Again, Russia's preoccupation with the Ukrainian War had the result of diminishing the potential impact of Russian airpower in Syria, while Iran remained vulnerable in that area. That fact will not go unnoticed in Moscow and in Tehran, or maybe even in Beijing, the would-be powerbroker of the Middle East. With fighting still going on in Gaza, in the southwest of Israel, and also near the Turkish-Kurdish line of contact, in the north of Syria, the fuse of the proverbial powderkeg is still lit, blood is still flowing by the liter, and the Israeli War can not be said to be over.

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2024/12/12/syria-has-exchanged-a-vile-dictator-for-an-uncertain-future

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The more time goes by, the more it look that the South Korean crisis is the result of a botched US-engineered attempt to derail that country's legislature, prevent a pro-BRICS opposition from eventually replacing the current conservative government, and create a martial law regime that would have facilitate the formation of a military governement in place of the present civilian government. Democracy is only convenient for Washington when it is in its own best interest. That is why it never was able to accomodate itself to a Castro-run Cuba, an Allende-run Chile or a Sandinista-run Nicaragua.

https://johnmenadue.com/south-koreas-martial-law-fiasco-legitimation-crisis-in-the-imperial-vassal-state/

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PLUS:  @charles.millar3 (X-Twitter)