The Trampling Outside the Temple Walls (Revelation 11)

The UN said Gaza would be uninhabitable by 2020 – in truth, it already is

As we approach the UN deadline for Gaza’s habitability,it’s become clear that the region is not a ticking time bomb, but rather a slow-motion explosion.

Bel Trew
@beltrew

Just an hour’s drive down the coast from the tourist trap of Tel Aviv is an 8-mile wide strip of polluted land in which two million people have been penned inside it for over a decade.

The journey to Gaza is a galling one: on one side of the separation barrier are sushi bars, malls, beaches and sweeping highways; on the other, dirt tracks snarl through shipwrecked neighbourhoods overseen by Israeli watchtowers. The roads end in a dirty slash of sea; that too is inaccessible.

Five years ago, the United Nations famously predicted that,if the humanitarian conditions didn’t change, Gaza would be uninhabitable by 2020.

This warning has been recited ad nauseam as we approach that deadline.

But the truth is that Gaza has long been uninhabitable. Gaza is not a ticking time bomb – it is a slow-motion explosion.

The enclave has been blockaded by Israel and Egypt since 2007, after Hamas – a militant group that has called for the end of Israel and regularly fires rockets indiscriminately at its civilians – swept to power. Over the last decade, Hamas’s armed wing, together with allied groups like Palestinian Islamic Jihad, have waged three wars with Israel, which the Israelis says justifies the continued blockade.

So synonymous has Gaza become with the misery created by the blockade that people forget there was a time where Israelis drove to lunch there, when Gazans commuted to Israel.

In other words, things have been bad for a while. But over the last year and a half, a new kind of emergency has unfurled.

Since March last year, thousands of Palestinians have marched towards Israel’s separation barrier demanding the right to return to their ancestral lands from which they were forced from or fled during the conflict which accompanied the creation of Israel in 1948.

The Israeli army has killed over 300 Gazans during these rallies and injured 35,000 others,according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). The Israelis, who are likely to be investigated by the International Criminal Court for these attacks, have defended themselves by saying those participating in rallies endanger Israelis lives by hurling explosive and incendiary devices over the separation barrier (kilometres of Israeli land has been burned by firebombs tied to balloons).

Yet either way, over 150 Palestinians have had limbs amputated; a further 200 are expected to over the next few years. Health officials say they do not have the $68m needed to treat the most severely wounded. Gaza has no specialist prosthetic limb centre.

The worst injured therefore need to travel outside of Gaza for treatment. Yet the percentage of medical travel-permits that Israel issues has dropped from 92% in 2012 to on average of just about 60% today, according to the WHO. At the start of the protests, only 18% of permits for those injured during them were granted – likely bumping up the number of amputations required.

The injuries sustained by Palestinians at the rallies have brought the strip’s health system to its knees. Every week more injured flood hospitals, forcing them to clear their wards, cancel scheduled operations (9,000 Gazans are awaiting elective surgeries) and use up their diminishing drug stores (currently Gazan hospitals lack 50 per cent of the essential drugs they need). While the rally organisers have this week said that they will scale back to monthly rallies, the damage has already been done.

This health crisis is compounded by the fact that hundreds of medical workers have fled the strip, while those who’ve stayed have had their salaries cut in half, as the Palestinian Authority and Hamas have been unable to pay them in full.

Nor do Gaza’s medical woes stop at the border. This year, Gazan cancer patients have suffered their worst shortages of medicines, with 63% of the drugs they need unavailable. There is no radiation therapy machine in the enclave.

According to the latest studies by bodies such as the Palestinian Water Authority, the WHO and the NGO Ecopeace, just under 97 per cent of Gazan water is undrinkable, while Gaza’s only natural source of water – the aquifer – is so over-pumped that it is on the cusp of collapse.

Gaza has recently built three small desalination plants, but these are insufficient to provide clean water for the enclave. It is building bigger plants, but the projects are delayed amid shortages of power and spare parts permitted to enter Gaza, as well as the funds needed to complete the projects and then pay for it to operate.

A researcher for the Palestinian Water Authority stated that even if Gaza can produce more clean water, its pipe systems and storage tanks are so riddled with disease that people will still get dirty water.

There have been small improvements in the past year, such as to the strip’s notoriously intermittent electricity connection. Yet huge problems remain: Gaza’s sewage plants, for example, still do not function properly, leaving half the strip’s beaches so polluted that they are unfit for use. Youth unemployment has soared to 70 per cent, while a sorely under-investigated mental health crisis continues.

Miraculously, the strip staggers on, propped up by aid agencies; WHO officials have told me that the only thing stopping an epidemic in Gaza is down to it being one of the most vaccinated places on earth. Just a few cases of cholera, for example, and Gazans would fall like dominos.

Gazans’ astonishing resilience to these appalling conditions should not be confused with proof of liveability. This situation is not sustainable – a solution must be found.

Obama’s Betrayal of Babylon the Great andrewtheprophet Uncategorized January 2, 2020 1 Minute

Obama Met With One of the Iran-Backed Militia Leaders in Baghdad Embassy Attack

By Tyler O’Neil December 31, 2019

On Tuesday, members of the Iran-backed militia Kata’ib Hezbollah and their supporters stormed the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Hadi al-Amiri, a member of the Iraqi parliament and former head of the Badr Organization with close ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard, took part in the embassy attack. In 2011, Amiri visited the White House and met with then-President Barack Obama.

“Did you know Badr Corps chief Hadi Ameri, who led today’s raid on the US Embassy in Iraq, was once invited to the [White House] by [Barack Obama]?” asked Iranian news editor M. Hanif Jazayeri. “FYI: Ameri & the Badr Corps get their salary & orders from Iran’s dictator Ali Khamenei.”

Jazayeri also noted that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called on Iraqis to take over the American embassy just two months ago.

Steven Nabil reported seeing Amiri at the embassy-storming along with other Iraqi government officials.

“The storming of the U.S embassy compound in Baghdad is happening in the presence government and paramilitary officials including Faleh Al Fayadh, Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis, Hadi Al Amere and many Militia leaders and some Iraqi MPs,” Nabil tweeted with pictures.

In December 2011, Amiri attended a White House meeting with Obama. He attended the meeting with then-Iraqi Prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and several other Baghdad advisers. Amiri’s presence at the meeting was noteworthy, considering his past with the Badr Corps during the reign of Saddam Hussein.

The Obama White House pointed out that the Bush administration reached out to Iraqis who were close to the Iranian government during Saddam’s rule.

Obama would go on to push the disastrous Iran nuclear deal, offering sanctions relief and secret cash payments in return for promises not to develop nuclear weapons, which Iran never intended to keep.

In March 2015, Amiri praised Iran in the fight against the Islamic State, condemning Iraqis who “kiss the hands of the Americans and get nothing in return.” He celebrated Iran’s “unconditional” support.

Follow Tyler O’Neil, the author of this article, on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.

Protesters in Iraq, Chant ‘Death to Babylon the Great’

Protesters attacked the United States Embassy in Baghdad in response to American airstrikes on an Iranian-backed militia in Iraq. Many of the demonstrators were members of that militia and others.Image by Wissm Al-Okili/Reuters

Protesters Attack U.S. Embassy in Iraq, Chanting ‘Death to America’

By Falih Hassan, Ben Hubbard and Alissa J. Rubin

Dec. 31, 2019

President Trump blamed Iran after demonstrators breached the compound’s outer wall. Tensions are high after American airstrikes killed members of an Iran-backed militia.

BAGHDAD — Protesters broke into the heavily guarded compound of the United States Embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday and set fires inside in anger over American airstrikes that killed 24 members of an Iranian-backed militia over the weekend.

The men did not enter the main embassy buildings and later withdrew from the compound, joining thousands of protesters and militia fighters outside chanting “Death to America,” throwing rocks, covering the walls with graffiti and demanding that the United States withdraw its forces from Iraq.

The situation remained combustible, with the crowd vowing to camp indefinitely outside the sprawling compound, the world’s largest embassy. Their ability to storm the most heavily guarded zone in Baghdad suggested that they had received at least tacit permission from Iraqi security officials sympathetic to their demands.

Protesters used a plumbing pipe to break the embassy’s windows. Murtadha Sudani/Anadolu Agency, via Getty Images

President Trump, faced with scenes of unfolding chaos at an American embassy, lashed out against Iran, which he blamed for the protests.

“Iran will be held fully responsible for lives lost, or damage incurred, at any of our facilities,” he said in a tweet. “They will pay a very BIG PRICE! This is not a Warning, it is a Threat. Happy New Year!” He also spoke with Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi about the need to protect Americans and American facilities.

Speaking with reporters in an impromptu exchange Tuesday night at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Mr. Trump said he thought his administration had handled the situation in Iraq “very well.” Asked about the possibility of war, Mr. Trump said, “I don’t think that would be a good idea for Iran,” adding, “I want to have peace, I like peace. And Iran should want peace more than anybody.”

Roughly 750 additional American troops will deploy to the region immediately, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said late Tuesday. “This deployment is an appropriate and precautionary action taken in response to increased threat levels against U.S. personnel and facilities,” he said. The troops are likely to deploy to Kuwait.

Mr. Trump has long called for an end to American conflicts in the Middle East, but has been reluctant to pull troops from the region despite his remarks on the campaign trail.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke by telephone with Mr. Abdul Mahdi and President Barham Salih in separate calls, and “made clear the United States will protect and defend its people,” according to a summary of the call from the State Department. It said that the Iraqi leaders “assured the secretary that they took seriously their responsibility” to safeguard American officials and property.

The State Department said that American personnel were safe and that there were no plans to evacuate the embassy. The ambassador, Matt Tueller, had been traveling and was not at the embassy when it was breached on Tuesday.

The American airstrikes on Sunday have resulted in the most serious political crisis in years for the United States in Iraq, stoking anti-Americanism and handing an advantage to Iran in its competition for influence in the country.

The airstrikes targeted an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia, Kataib Hezbollah, which the United States accused of carrying out a missile attack on an Iraqi military base that killed an American contractor and wounded American and Iraqi service members. A spokesman for the militia denied involvement in the attack.

Guards fired tear gas toward protesters who broke into the United States Embassy compound.Khalid Mohammed/Associated Press

But the size of the American response — five strikes in Iraq and Syria that killed two dozen fighters and wounded dozens of others — prompted condemnation from across the political spectrum in Iraq, and accusations that the United States had violated Iraqi sovereignty. It also drew sharp criticism and serious threats of reprisals from Iraq’s Iranian-backed militias.

The fact that the Iraqi government permitted militia members to enter the fortified Green Zone on Tuesday, allowing the protest to happen, demonstrated Iran’s powerful influence as well as the government’s difficulty in controlling the militias.

But the Iraqi leadership’s success in averting a deeper incursion into the embassy compound and preventing any confrontation with American personnel suggested that the government may have intended to allow the militias to vent their anger with minimal damage.

The United States military made a show of force in response to the turmoil, with helicopter gunships circling overhead. From inside the compound, loudspeakers warned the crowd outside to keep away from the walls.

The Pentagon sent 120 Marine reinforcements to Baghdad from Kuwait, roughly the same number sent to the embassy in 2014, when the Islamic State was threatening Baghdad.

The protest began Tuesday morning when thousands of militia members gathered outside the Green Zone after prayer services for the fighters killed in the American strikes.

While few of them were armed, many were members of Kataib Hezbollah and other fighting groups that are technically overseen by the Iraqi military. Kataib Hezbollah is separate from the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, although both groups are backed by Iran and oppose the United States.

When the protesters pushed toward the entrance to the Green Zone, a heavily guarded district of government offices and embassies in central Baghdad, the Iraqi security forces did not stop them.

Their accession to the protesters was a marked contrast to their treatment of the antigovernment protesters who have been demonstrating outside the Green Zone for months. Those protesters were met with tear gas and bullets and have not been able to enter the Green Zone.

Once at the embassy, the protesters on Tuesday used long poles to shatter security cameras. They covered the compound walls with anti-American graffiti and set a guardhouse on fire.

Protesters outside the embassy.Ameer Al Mohmmedaw/Picture Alliance, via Getty Images

After breaking open a compound entrance, dozens of men entered and lit more fires while embassy security guards watched them from the embassy roof and fired tear gas.

One group of protesters ended up separated from United States troops by only a pane of glass, according to a video shared on social media. It was not immediately clear how many Americans were inside the compound, but officials said they sheltered in place and were unhurt.

The embassy complex, which opened in 2009 and cost an estimated $736 million to build, covers 104 acres, nearly as big as Vatican City, the world’s smallest country. By 2012, nearly 16,000 people worked there — most of them contractors, but also diplomats, military personnel, intelligence officers and aid workers — but the staff declined sharply over the following years.

The embassy and an American consulate in Erbil, in northern Iraq, now have a combined staff of 486 people, with the majority in Baghdad.

The scenes there on Tuesday stirred memories of the seizure of two searing, politically consequential events in recent American history: the seizure of the embassy and 52 hostages in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution in 1979, and the assault on a United States diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012.

As a congressman, Mr. Pompeo became a political star among Republicans for blistering criticism of Hillary Clinton, then the secretary of state, over the Benghazi attack, which killed four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

Mr. Trump also had Benghazi in mind, calling the Baghdad attack “the anti-Benghazi.”

The protesters eventually left the Baghdad compound, but some climbed on top of adjacent buildings, where they planted militia flags. Iraqi police and military personnel eventually arrived at the scene, but they did not disperse the protesters.

The Iraqi interior minister, Yassin al-Yasiri, said in an interview near the embassy that American attacks on an Iraqi militia had invited trouble.

“These are the dangerous ramifications of this strike,” he said. “What happened today is the danger that we were afraid of, and that the Americans should have been afraid of.”

While the protesters carried the flags of Iraq and a range of militia groups, the most prominent was that of Kataib Hezbollah, the group targeted by the United States.

A spokesman for Kataib Hezbollah, Mohammed Muhi, said his group intended to erect tents in the street in front of the United States Embassy for an opened-ended sit-in to pressure the Americans to leave Iraq.

“We will not leave these tents until the embassy and the ambassador leave Iraq,” Mr. Muhi said.

About 1,000 militia members remained camped out in front of the embassy overnight.

The upheaval comes at a critical time for Iraq and for the United States’ role in the country. Mass protests in recent months against poor governance have weakened the government and underscored the criticism of Iraqis who feel that Iran has too much sway over the country’s politics.

At the same time, Iran and the United States have been competing for political influence in the aftermath of the battle against the Islamic State, which once ruled large areas of Iraq.

Iraqi militias, known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, were formed in part to help fight the Islamic State in tandem with the national security forces, a battle that effectively put them on the side of the United States.

They have since evolved into a powerful military and political force with a significant bloc in Parliament. Some of the militias are backed by Iran and use their power to help advance its interests in Iraq.

A U.S. Army Apache helicopter dropped flares over Baghdad’s Green Zone on Tuesday.Ahmad Al-Rubaye/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The United States has about 5,200 troops in Iraq, down from a peak of 170,000 in 2007, in addition to a number of civilian contractors. The troops are stationed primarily at a base in Anbar Province, northwest of Baghdad, and at another in the Kurdish-controlled north of country. Their task is to train Iraqi security forces and help prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State.

After years of military and political investment in Iraq, the United States finds itself in a position where few powerful Iraqis are willing to stand up for it and its role in the country.

Condemnation of the American airstrikes continued on Tuesday. Mr. Abdul Mahdi, the Iraqi prime minister, announced an official three-day mourning period for the men killed in the strikes, which he called an “outrageous attack.”

In a statement, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry reiterated the government’s condemnation of the strikes, but called on protesters to stay away from foreign embassies.

“Any attack on foreign embassies or representatives will be firmly prevented by the security forces and punishable by law with the most severe penalties,” it said.

Falih Hassan reported from Baghdad, Ben Hubbard from Beirut, Lebanon, and Alissa J. Rubin from Paris. Edward Wong and Thomas Gibbons-Neff contributed reporting from Washington.

Ben Hubbard is the Beirut bureau chief. He has spent more than a decade in the Arab world, including Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Yemen. @NYTBen • Facebook

Alissa Johannsen Rubin is the Baghdad Bureau chief for The New York Times.  @Alissanyt

A Lack Of Vigilance Before The Sixth Seal (Revelation 6)

Faults Underlying Exercise Vigilant Guard
Story by: (Author NameStaff Sgt. Raymond Drumsta – 138th Public Affairs Detachment
Dated: Thu, Nov 5, 2009
This map illustrates the earthquake fault lines in Western New York. An earthquake in the region is a likely event, says University of Buffalo Professor Dr. Robert Jacobi.
TONAWANDA, NY — An earthquake in western New York, the scenario that Exercise Vigilant Guard is built around, is not that far-fetched, according to University of Buffalo geology professor Dr. Robert Jacobi.
When asked about earthquakes in the area, Jacobi pulls out a computer-generated state map, cross-hatched with diagonal lines representing geological faults.
The faults show that past earthquakes in the state were not random, and could occur again on the same fault systems, he said.
“In western New York, 6.5 magnitude earthquakes are possible,” he said.
This possibility underlies Exercise Vigilant Guard, a joint training opportunity for National Guard and emergency response organizations to build relationships with local, state, regional and federal partners against a variety of different homeland security threats including natural disasters and potential terrorist attacks.
The exercise was based on an earthquake scenario, and a rubble pile at the Spaulding Fibre site here was used to simulate a collapsed building. The scenario was chosen as a result of extensive consultations with the earthquake experts at the University of Buffalo’s Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (MCEER), said Brig. Gen. Mike Swezey, commander of 53rd Troop Command, who visited the site on Monday.
Earthquakes of up to 7 magnitude have occurred in the Northeastern part of the continent, and this scenario was calibrated on the magnitude 5.9 earthquake which occurred in Saguenay, Quebec in 1988, said Jacobi and Professor Andre Filiatrault, MCEER director.
“A 5.9 magnitude earthquake in this area is not an unrealistic scenario,” said Filiatrault.
Closer to home, a 1.9 magnitude earthquake occurred about 2.5 miles from the Spaulding Fibre site within the last decade, Jacobi said. He and other earthquake experts impaneled by the Atomic Energy Control Board of Canada in 1997 found that there’s a 40 percent chance of 6.5 magnitude earthquake occurring along the Clareden-Linden fault system, which lies about halfway between Buffalo and Rochester, Jacobi added.
Jacobi and Filiatrault said the soft soil of western New York, especially in part of downtown Buffalo, would amplify tremors, causing more damage.
“It’s like jello in a bowl,” said Jacobi.
The area’s old infrastructure is vulnerable because it was built without reinforcing steel, said Filiatrault. Damage to industrial areas could release hazardous materials, he added.
“You’ll have significant damage,” Filiatrault said.
Exercise Vigilant Guard involved an earthquake’s aftermath, including infrastructure damage, injuries, deaths, displaced citizens and hazardous material incidents. All this week, more than 1,300 National Guard troops and hundreds of local and regional emergency response professionals have been training at several sites in western New York to respond these types of incidents.
Jacobi called Exercise Vigilant Guard “important and illuminating.”
“I’m proud of the National Guard for organizing and carrying out such an excellent exercise,” he said.
Training concluded Thursday.

India and Pakistan Are Edging Closer to the First Nuclear War (Revelation 8 )

India and Pakistan Are Edging Closer to War in 2020

Two crises dominated South Asia in 2019, and each one stands to get worse next year.

Michael Kugelman

December 31, 2019, 10:12 AM

Indian Border Security Force personnel (dressed in brown) and Pakistani Rangers (dressed in black) take part in the Beating Retreat ceremony at the India-Pakistan border in Wagah on Dec. 26. Narinder Nanu/AFP via Getty Images

Turmoil is never far away in South Asia, between disputed borders, acute resource shortages, and threats ranging from extremist violence to earthquakes. But in 2019, two crises stood out: an intensifying war in Afghanistan and deep tensions between India and Pakistan. And as serious as both were in 2019, expect them to get even worse in the coming year.

Afghanistan has already seen several grim milestones in the last 12 months that attested to the ferocity of the Taliban insurgency. Casualty figures for Afghan security forces and civilians set new records. It was also the deadliest year for U.S. forces since 2014.

Ironically, violence soared even as there was unprecedented momentum toward launching a peace process. U.S. President Donald Trump, eager to exit Afghanistan, stepped up efforts to secure a deal with the Taliban that would give him the political cover for a troop withdrawal. U.S. negotiators and senior Taliban representatives held multiple rounds of talks, and by September the two sides were finalizing a deal that centered on a withdrawal of U.S. troops coupled with a commitment by the Taliban to renounce ties to international terror groups.

However, in September, Trump abruptly called off talks, giving a recent Taliban attack on a U.S. soldier as the reason. The likelier explanation, as I wrote for Foreign Policy back then, was the administration’s recognition that the emerging accord with the Taliban—which didn’t call for any type of cease-fire—was a lousy deal for Washington and Kabul.

The suspension of talks didn’t last long. Trump announced plans to scale up offensives against the Taliban, but this was more of a bargaining tactic than a battlefield redirection. Washington wanted to increase military pressure on the Taliban so that the insurgents would make more concessions at the negotiating table—such as the cease-fire they had refused to agree to earlier. Indeed, several days after Trump made a surprise Thanksgiving visit to Afghanistan, talks resumed—and this time with U.S. negotiators aiming to get a Taliban commitment to reduce violence against U.S. troops.During the last few days of December, media reports revealed that the Taliban had agreed to a temporary ceasefire to clear the way for a deal with the United States. The Taliban, however, rejected these reports.

Meanwhile, 2019 was a dangerously tense year for India and Pakistan—two rivals that are both neighbors and nuclear states. In February, a young Kashmiri man in the town of Pulwama staged a suicide bombing that killed more than three dozen Indian security forces—the deadliest such attack in Kashmir in three decades. Jaish-e-Mohammad—a Pakistan-based terror group with close ties to Pakistan’s security establishment—claimed responsibility. India retaliated by sending jets across Pakistan-administered Kashmir and launching limited strikes, for the first time since a war in 1971. Soon thereafter, Pakistan claimed it had carried out six air strikes in Kashmir to showcase its might, and it also shot down an Indian fighter jet and captured the pilot. The confrontation, which de-escalated when Islamabad announced the pilot’s release several days later, represented the most serious exchange of hostilities in years.

Then, in August, India revoked the autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir, the India-administered part of Kashmir, and declared it a new territory of India. New Delhi also imposed a security lockdown in Kashmir that included the detention of hundreds of people and a communication blackout. For Islamabad, which claims Jammu and Kashmir as its own, the move amounted to a serious provocation, if not a hostile act. Pakistan retaliated by expelling India’s envoy from Islamabad and suspending trade with New Delhi. Undaunted, in the weeks that followed, senior Indian officials—including the defense and foreign ministers—turned their attention to Pakistan-administered Kashmir, which New Delhi has long claimed, and suggested they eventually planned to reclaim it.

Bilateral relations remained fraught over the last few months of the year. Islamabad issued constant broadsides against New Delhi for its continued security lockdown in Kashmir. By year’s end, an internet blackout was still in effect. Then, in December, India’s parliament passed a controversial new citizenship law that affords fast-track paths to Indian citizenship for religious minorities—but not Muslims—fleeing persecution in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. The new law angered Islamabad not just for excluding Muslims, but because of the implication—accurate but not something Islamabad likes to admit—that Pakistan persecutes its Hindu and Christian communities.

These prolonged tensions often overshadowed what was arguably the biggest story in both countries in 2019: economic struggle. India suffered its biggest economic slowdown in six years, and Pakistan confronted a serious debt crisis. The two weren’t unconnected: Given the inability of New Delhi and Islamabad to fix their economies, both governments arguably sought political advantages from the distractions of saber rattling.

Against this tense backdrop, the opening in November of a new border corridor that enables Indian Sikhs to enter Pakistan visa-free to worship at a holy shrine, which in better times could have been a bridge to an improved relationship, amounted to little more than a one-off humanitarian gesture.

Bad as these crises are, they are poised to get worse next year.

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<img src=”https://foreignpolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/gettyimages-484947432.jpg?w=800&h=533&quality=80&#8243; alt=”Indian police try to detain supporters of the hardline faction of the All Parties Hurriyat Confrence (APHC) as they clash during a protest following the house arrest of APHC leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani in Srinagar on August 23, 2015. Geelani was placed under house arrest shortly before attempting to leave his residence to address a seminar organised by the APHC. Police used tear smoke shells and water cannons to disperse hundreds of supporters protesting Geelani’s arrest. AFP PHOTO/ Tauseef MUSTAFA (Photo credit should read TAUSEEF MUSTAFA/AFP/Getty Images)” class=”image -fit-3-2″>

Crisis Mode in South Asia

The good news for Americans is that a U.S.-Taliban deal likely isn’t far off; both sides are fully invested in a troop withdrawal. For Trump, the importance of troop departures will grow as the U.S. presidential election draws closer, and especially because the Washington Post’s release in December of the “Afghanistan Papers”—documents that feature senior U.S. officials admitting failure in the war—will likely solidify U.S. public opinion in favor of winding down America’s role in the 18-year war.

However, any U.S.-Taliban deal will do little to reduce violence, other than halting attacks on U.S. troops. In other words, the war will continue.

A U.S.-Taliban accord would clear the path for an intra-Afghan dialogue between the Afghan government, other political stakeholders, and the Taliban that aims to produce a cease-fire and an eventual political settlement that ends the war.

The path to intra-Afghan dialogue, however, is fraught with obstacles. Afghanistan held a presidential election in September. The preliminary results—released in December—showed President Ashraf Ghani in the lead, but with barely the 50 percent of votes needed to avoid a second round of voting with the second-place finisher, his bitter rival Abdullah Abdullah (who rejected the results). The close margin suggests that when final results are announced, the loser won’t accept them.

This means Afghanistan is unlikely to have a new government in place for at least another few months, and even longer if the final results are different from the initial ones and require a second vote. Due to winter weather in Afghanistan, a runoff likely wouldn’t occur until the spring. Without a new government in place, it beggars belief that Afghanistan could launch a process to establish an intra-Afghan dialogue, much less negotiate an end to the war. And even if and when an intra-Afghan dialogue is launched, the hardest of sells will be required to convince the Taliban to lay down arms and agree to share power within a political system that it has long rejected and vowed to overthrow by force.

Consequently, Afghanistan in 2020 is likely to see a withdrawal of U.S. forces before a peace agreement is in place—a demoralizing outcome for already struggling Afghan forces that would deliver another boost to the Taliban and further increase violence.

Meanwhile, the underlying tensions between India and Pakistan remain sharp. Pakistan arrested dozens of Islamist militants this past year, but New Delhi wasn’t convinced Islamabad was taking strong and “irreversible” steps against India-focused terrorists and their networks. And New Delhi’s actions in Kashmir in 2019 represented worst-case scenarios for Islamabad.

The two nuclear-armed nations will enter 2020 just one big trigger event away from war. The trigger could be another mass-casualty attack on Indian security forces in Kashmir traced back to a Pakistan-based group, or—acting on the threats issued repeatedly by New Delhi in 2019—an Indian preemptive operation to seize territory in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

The two nuclear-armed nations will enter 2020 just one big trigger event away from war. The trigger could be another mass-casualty attack on Indian security forces in Kashmir traced back to a Pakistan-based group, or—acting on the threats issued repeatedly by New Delhi in 2019—an Indian preemptive operation to seize territory in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

In either scenario, escalation would be swift. Bilateral relations are much worse than they were during last February’s confrontation. Ever since its resounding reelection victory last spring, India’s ruling party has pursued its Hindu nationalist agenda in increasingly aggressive fashion—which gives it no incentive to go easy on Islamabad. Pakistan, not wanting to show weakness, will not give in easily.

The doomsday clock for the next India-Pakistan war is at a minute to midnight. Diplomatic intervention from Washington and other third parties, and cooler heads on both sides, may keep it from ticking further forward. But it’s hard to see a path to unraveling such tightly knotted tensions—or to solving Afghanistan’s unending conflict.

Michael Kugelman is Asia Program deputy director and senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. He can be reached on Twitter @michaelkugelman and at michael.kugelman@wilsoncenter.org Twitter: @michaelkugelman

Antichrist urges US to pull out soldiers from Iraq

Muqtada al-Sadr urges US to pull out soldiers from Iraq

TEHRAN, Dec. 30 (MNA) – The leader of the Sadr movement, Muqtada al-Sadr, announced readiness to send away the American soldiers from Iraq, threatening that Iraqis will act “another behavior” if American forces do not withdraw from Iraq.

Mehr News Agency

TEHRAN, Dec. 30 (MNA) – The leader of the Sadr movement, Muqtada al-Sadr, announced readiness to send away the American soldiers from Iraq, threatening that Iraqis will act “another behavior” if American forces do not withdraw from Iraq.

“We have previously warned against the consequences of engaging Iraq into regional and international conflicts. We have said that Iraq and its people no longer tolerate such reckless measures,” Sadr said on Monday.

He added: “If we had cooperated previously to remove the occupier through military resistance, he would not have perched on the chest of Iraq. If we cooperated in order not to endorse the humiliating agreement, what happened would not have happened.”

“Today I am ready to throw out occupiers through political and legal ways, is there anyone to help?”

He underlined that Iraq’s security should be provided by its own security forces.

He explained: “The occupation, led by Trump, took advantage of the corruption in Iraq on the one hand and the large gap between politicians and the people on the other hand.”

We do not let Iraq to get stuck in political disputes and military challenges, he added.

The Iran and Iraq Horns Unite (Daniel 8:8)

Iraq’s Sadr Says He Is Willing to Work With Iran-Backed Rivals to Oust U.S. Troops

By ReutersDec. 30, 2019

BAGHDAD — Iraqi Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said on Monday he was willing to work with Iran-backed militia groups – his political rivals – to end the United States military presence in Iraq through political and legal means.

If that does not work, he will “take other actions” in cooperation with his rivals to kick out U.S. troops. Sadr’s militia fought U.S. troops for years following Washington’s invasion and toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003.