Biden's Bombs: What's the Bigger Picture?

 

    It didn’t take Joe Biden long to show the world that whatever the surface-level differences in his foreign policy approach from that of his predecessor Donald Trump, U.S. imperialism is a bipartisan affair.

    Barely just over a month into his term, Biden announced on Thursday that his administration had conducted its first airstrikes in the Middle East, targeting militias of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi) on the Syrian-Iraqi border. Biden justified his military aggression by citing that the militias in question, Kait'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada and Kait'ib Hezbollah, were said to be responsible for a rocket attack on U.S. military personnel in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, just over a week before.

    In stark contrast to former President Trump’s airstrikes on Syrian government positions in April 2017, or the January 2020 targeted assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani that was approved under Trump’s watch, there was a very different reaction on behalf of the liberal foreign policy establishment to Biden’s strikes.

    For example, Biden’s White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, one of many recycled faces from the Obama administration that has returned to a central position after a four-year hiatus, had tweeted in after aftermath of Trump’s targeting of Syria’s Shayrat Airbase on April 7, 2017, “What is the legal authority for strikes? Assad is a brutal dictator. But Syria is a sovereign country.”

    Yet when questioned about the legal authority for Biden’s strikes and if they contradicted her previous comments, Psaki responded that there was “a massive difference in both policy and law" between these two incidents, justifying the strikes by saying that apparently the United States was responding in self-defence. To this end, she cited that Biden invoked Article II of the Constitution that stipulates the President is Commander-In-Chief of the military, and has the authority to take military action to protect U.S. personnel. This interpretation was then questioned by a wide range of members of Congress, many of whom said the strikes lacked legitimacy because they required Congressional approval.

    Biden was also reminded of the fact that in January of last year, he had called Trump’s assassination of General Soleimani “a hugely escalatory move in an already dangerous region”. In light of the decision he took on Thursday to target components of the Popular Mobilization Forces, it would seem that Biden has forgotten these previous comments, and that bombing campaigns constitute exactly the kind of escalation he had referred to.

    So what exactly is the bigger picture at play here? Given that Biden said the militias he targeted are “Iranian-backed”, does he really want to restore a semblance of improved relations with Iran? What do his recent comments and actions vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia – Iran’s arch regional enemy – have to do with everything? Why is Turkey likely pleased at the airstrikes even while being displeased with some U.S. moves in Syria? What about the Kurdish forces who have partnered with the U.S. in Syria, but have a contradictory relationship with them regionally?

    Maximum Pressure on Iran, A Slap on the Wrist for Saudi Arabia

    For an incoming President who has pledged that he wishes to see the U.S. return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or Iran nuclear deal of 2015 that was brokered while Biden was Vice President, it would appear that such strikes do little to clear the way for a resumption of talks. This is because, as Biden’s words made clear, they should be taken as a warning shot toward Iran.

    To be clear, the PMF are not militias directly overseen by Iran, but are actually based in Iraq and consist mainly of Iraqi nationals. Many of these militias are, however, largely Shia-dominated, and thus pledge their loyalty to many of the ideas of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Ironically, the United States worked with many of these groups during the campaign against the Islamic State, including most importantly the final battle against the group in Mosul in 2017. On the other hand, parts of the PMF have also worked alongside the Syrian government in its war against Islamist factions across the border.

    In light Biden’s aggressive strikes, it should hardly be seen as surprising that Iran rejected a European Union offer to come back to the table with the United States on Sunday, with foreign ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh saying, “There has been no change in the U.S. position and behaviour yet, and the Biden administration has not only not abandoned Trump’s failed policy of maximum pressure, it has not even announced its commitment to fulfilling its responsibilities in UN Resolution 2231.”  

    Indeed, Biden has previously stated that U.S. sanctions on Iran that were introduced under Trump wouldn’t be lifted before Iran returned to the bargaining table – as if it was Iran that had pulled out of the deal and not the United States. Certainly, this reeks of hostility, imperial hubris, and hardly shows any measure of goodwill. In many ways, Khatibzadeh is spot on – there has been a general line of continuity in the “maximum pressure” approach that was employed by Trump, even while Biden theoretically cracks the door open to some vague notions of rejoining the JCPOA.

    It’s also instructive to see how Biden has dealt with Saudi Arabia thus far in his presidency. In contrast to Trump, his administration has announced measures to end Washington’s support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen, which since 2014 has fueled the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe. This crisis, which has driven growing condemnation and disgust at the use of U.S. arms deployed by the Saudis in a campaign of genocidal proportions, certainly pushed Biden to announce the cancellation of half a billion dollars in arms deals in early February, and the removal of the Houthis from the terror list – a decision that Trump had made in his final days in office.

    But it is also clear there will be no real realignment from the Biden White House on the Saudi Arabia-Iran rivalry. He may have been pressured into a reappraisal of some of the fine print in the U.S. relationship with Riyadh, including speculation that his administration might announce further cuts to the Saudi offensive military arsenal provided by Washington (the supposed defensive arsenal is likely to remain unaffected). But recent decisions reveal that at the end of the day, human rights actually have little to do with the calculations taken by Biden on a global scale. Imperialism does.  

    It was announced on Friday – just after the bombing raids on Syria -- that U.S. intelligence has found conclusively that  Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman had directly approved the 2018 murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi that took place at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Strangely – or perhaps more unsurprisingly for those who realize the magnitude of U.S. hypocrisy on the global stage – the White House announced that there would be no sanctions leveled against the Crown Prince.

    Jen Psaki justified this decision on the basis that “We believe there is more effective ways to make sure this doesn’t happen again and to also be able to leave room to work with the Saudis. That is what diplomacy looks like.” This, however, seems rather unconvincing given the hardline taken by the U.S. toward not only Iran, but also the rather liberally dished out sanctions employed by Washington toward its political opponents. After all, sanctions against Russia are supposedly forthcoming for the poisoning and imprisonment of Russian journalist Alexey Navalny, yet the execution and dismembering of Khashoggi seems to not warrant such a response.

    The conclusion writes itself: Saudi Arabia is too important a partner in the ongoing war against Iran to risk a collapse of the alliance.

 

    U.S. Policy in Syria and Iraq, Contradictions of Kurdish Forces

    In regards to U.S. maneuvers and ambitions in the region, Biden’s strikes on Syria need to be seen through as wide a lens as possible.

    For some analysts and observers of the region, Biden’s strikes are seen as beneficial to Kurdish-led forces that make up the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), as they have been allied to the United States militarily since 2015 in fighting against the Islamic State. The fact that Deir ez-Zor, where the airstrikes took place, is effectively the line of demarcation between the SDF and the Syrian government’s forces, which include its allies in the PMF, shows that Washington certainly wants its presence to be felt in the eastern part of the country.

    Trump’s blatantly robber rhetoric to keep some U.S. forces in Syria to “protect the oil” in late 2019 saw American troops move away from historically Kurdish lands to clear the way for a Turkish invasion there, as well as reveal quite openly that what interests the U.S. is always primarily access to resources.

    The question thus begs itself: do airstrikes like those employed by Biden prove actually beneficial to the Kurdish forces in Syria or their allied components in the region, especially given that U.S. policy has already validated (for decades, in fact) the fact that it cares little about Kurdish national oppression?

    It needs to be understood that the Kurdish liberation movement, which falls under the umbrella of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), has several components which often hold contradictory alliances.

    The principle and founding member if the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), deemed a terrorist organisation by the U.S. and many western powers. Recently, NATO again went to war against the PKK in northern Iraq when Turkey engaged in a failed campaign in the Gare mountains in mid-February. Turkey was routed there by the forces of the PKK and its allied communist militias in the People’s United Revolutionary Movement (HBDH).

    Another component is the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in northern Syria, which is responsible for the People’s and Women’s Protection Units (YPG and YPJ) that are the dominant forces within the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). These two are perhaps the most well-known, and often arouse curiosity and confusion given the contradictory U.S. positions toward them, which often entail military support but a lack of political support.

    A third force within the KCK that will increasingly be important to regional dynamics is that of the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS). The YBS was trained and equipped by both the PKK and the YPG in the aftermath of the Yazidi genocide of 2014. Turkey still considers the YBS to effectively be a rebranded version of the PKK. To add to the confusion of the Kurdish liberation movement’s tenuous alliances, the YBS is also a member of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) that were targeted by the U.S. airstrikes, forming part of Regiment 80. In recent weeks, other PMF brigades have also been deployed to Sinjar to counter what appears to be imminent Turkish aggression on the area.

    If we add to this complex equation the fact that the United States was the chief broker of the October agreement on the status of Sinjar between the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) that calls for the removal of the YBS and PMF from Sinjar, and that the U.S. is a long-term ally to the Erbil-based Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) that is a vehement opponent of the KCK, we can see that Washington can in no way be seen as a real ally to the Kurdish liberation movement, but only to comprador movements.

    If Turkey moves forward with an attack on Sinjar is they have indicated, Washington may oppose it in words as detrimental to the fragile security of Iraq. However, given that the PMF would be at the receiving end of this, there would likely be few tears shed by Biden’s administration or the Pentagon, even if this means that a sister-militia of the YPG that has worked with the U.S. comes under fire.

    When asked for a comment for this story, a YBS member who had previously served in the anti-fascist struggle against ISIS in Syria with the YPG said, “The U.S. will not come to our aid. The U.S. typically goes after oil. This is known.”

    All this means that the KCK is in a difficult paradox in the region, with one of its components temporarily allied to Iranian-backed forces, one for the moment to the U.S., one largely independent (the PKK), and yet another (the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan, or PJAK), operating a low-level insurgency against Iran.

    This web is indeed a complicated one, yet one thing that should be clear is that any further meddling by the U.S. in the region cannot be beneficial to the cause of peace or to finding a political solution to the nearly decade old Syrian crisis. U.S. airstrikes or troop deployments only serve to deepen already existing divides.

    The SDF and the leadership of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) – although not having a monolithic view on the question – generally have taken a line of wanting to continue a relationship with the U.S. in the age of Biden. Unfortunately, some overtures and concessions from the AANES look very much like a deepening of this relationship is in effect, blurring the lines between whether the administration in these areas liberated from the Islamic State – and within that the Kurdish areas freed from Arab chauvinism – can endure in being called a liberation movement.

    It appears as if they see these moves as necessary to maintain a bargaining chip in negotiations with the Damascus government, especially given the chauvinist rhetoric the latter often employs, including little in the way of conceding that there may need to be some overhaul of the mechanisms of national oppression the Syrian state has for decades employed that has rendered Kurdish autonomy a historical necessity.

    Also, the AANES is certainly troubled by the fact that Russia appears amenable to Turkish pressure to grant them further territorial gains in northern Syria, possibly at the expense of the Kurdish forces. These moves, taken to try repositioning Turkey to the extent possible away from its NATO allegiance, may not constitute imperial dominance such as those undertaken by the U.S. They do, however, make it appear very much to the AANES and Kurdish, Assyrian, Arab and other residents of northern Syria, that they are trapped in a game of great power rivalry where the interests of the people take a backseat to those of foreign military forces.

    At the same time, who can doubt that for the Syrian government, U.S. forces operating on their territory without their permission looks very much like a blatant violation of its sovereignty? If a genuine political solution is to be found, it won’t occur under the auspices of Washington, or even with their presence.

    The U.S. Remains the Main Obstacle to Peace

    For this purpose, all anti-imperialist and progressive forces – including genuine supporters of the Kurdish national liberation movement – should have a sober analysis of the situation. Especially for those living in the United States, their primary political demand with regard to the Middle East should be the withdrawal of all U.S. forces, given that their presence has never aided in the establishment of peace.

    Biden’s airstrikes reveal that despite largely cosmetic differences in approach, foreign policy decisions taken in Washington share more in common regardless of whether they are undertaken by imperialism’s liberal or conservative wings. Millions no doubt reacted with a sigh of relief when Trump lost the election – but to a large extent, the face of the empire matters considerably less than the inevitable hostility of that empire that exists independently from whoever may be Commander-in-Chief at the moment.