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The figures are staggering. In what looks like a vast population transfer from a disintegrating Greater Middle East, nearly 200,000 refugees passed through Austria in September alone. About half a million desperate refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere have arrived in Greece since 2015 began (those, that is, who don’t die at sea), and the numbers are only expected to rise. Seven hundred children a day have been claiming asylum somewhere in Europe (190,000 between January and September 2015). And at least three million refugees and migrants from the planet’s war and desperation zones are expected to head for Europe in 2016. Under the circumstances, I’m sure it won’t surprise you that, once the first upbeat stories about welcoming European crowds had died down, the truncheons and water cannons came out in some parts of the continent and the walls began to go up. Nor, I’m sure, will you be shocked to learn that an anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim fervor is now gripping parts of Europe, while far-right parties are, not coincidentally, on the rise.  This is true in France, where Marine Le Pen’s virulently anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-European-Union National Front is expected to make significant gains in local elections this winter (and Le Pen herself is leading early opinion polls in the race for the presidency), while in “tolerant” Sweden a far-right party with neo-Nazi ties is garnering more than 25% of the prospective vote in opinion polls. In Poland, an extreme party wielding anti-refugee rhetoric just swept into power. And so it goes across much of Europe these days.

All of this (and more) represents a stunning development that could, sooner or later, reverse the increasingly integrated nature of Europe, raise walls and barriers across the continent, and irreversibly fracture the European Union, while increasing nationalistic fervor and god knows what else. In the United States, in a somewhat more muted way, you can see similar developments in what’s being talked about here as an “outsider” election, but is, in fact, significantly focused on keeping outsiders separated from insiders. (Just Google Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and immigrants, and you'll see what I mean.) Isn’t it strange how we always speak of the “tribal” when it comes to Africa or the backlands of Pakistan and Afghanistan, but never when it comes to our world? And yet, if these aren’t, broadly speaking, “tribal” responses, what are?

Syrian opposition figures and Gulf commentators dismissed on Wednesday a Russian draft proposal for a process to solve the Syrian crisis, saying Moscow's aim was to keep President Bashar al-Assad in power and marginalize dissenting voices.A draft document obtained by Reuters on Tuesday showed Moscow would like Damascus and unspecified opposition groups to agree on launching a constitutional reform process of up to 18 months, followed by early presidential elections.Russia, which with Iran has been Assad's top ally during Syria's nearly five-year conflict, has denied any document is being prepared before a second round of international peace talks in Vienna this week.The text, obtained by Reuters, does not rule out Assad's participation in early presidential elections, something his enemies say is impossible if there is to be peace."The Syrian people have never accepted the dictatorship of Assad and they will not accept that it is reintroduced or reformulated in another way," said Monzer Akbik, member of the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition."The Russians are now trying to play the game they have been playing since Geneva," he told Reuters, referring to United Nations-led peace talks that collapsed in 2014.

Last week, the UK Guardian newspaper published the results of a 15-month investigation by the Guardian and BBC Arabic. Euphemistically titled ‘James Steele: America’s mystery man in Iraq‘, the video report presents fairly damning evidence that, in the immediate aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq, the US Government and military began to assemble a 10,000 strong ‘Shia militia’ that, under US command, would be used to do three things: Kidnap, torture, murder and maim members of the Iraq resistance and those members of the Iraqi population that supported them. Plants bombs that targeted predominantly Sunni and Shia areas in an effort to divide the population and thereby any unified resistance to the US occupation. Create the impression of a ‘civil war’ in Iraq that could be used by the US and European governments and militaries to justify the continued occupation of Iraq for ‘peace-keeping’ purposes. While the 50 minute documentary is proof enough that Rumsfeld, Cheney, General Petraeus, and all the other NeoCon warhawks and CIA monsters consciously employed the services of former US Army Colonel James Steele in the organisation of death squads against the Iraqi grass-roots resistance (a tactic that he, Steele, had used against resistance movements in South America in the 1970s and 90′s), it panders to the official narrative that ‘sectarianism’ in Iraq was the root cause of the carnage that unfolded.

The so-called ‘Shia militia’ used by the American government (with the help and advice of British and Israeli counter-insurgency ‘experts’) were recruited directly by the CIA and people like James Steele to carry out extra-judicial murders of anyone they could loosely identify as ‘resistance’. In order to cloak this strategy, indiscriminate attacks on Iraqi civilians, Shia and Sunni alike, were carried out on a massive scale. Some of these individuals, in another setting, would be called ‘al-Qaeda’. Their usefulness in the employ of US warhawks in the Pentagon was doubly valuable because they both justified continued US occupation and provided ‘proof’ for the American War on Terror mythology, ex post facto, that the US was at war with the perpetrators of 9/11. Whereas before the invasion in 2003 there was absolutely nothing to link 9/11 to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the creation of death squads (real) labelled ‘al Qaeda in Iraq’ (fictitious) ‘made real’ the lie that America and all Western civilization was at war against hordes of irrational and violent Muslims, and became the template for instigating terrorism to suppress popular uprisings in Yemen, Mali and elsewhere. Once they have people violent, they can wear down and manage the national popular resistance, ensuring no opposition to the real strategic objectives (namely the control of Middle Eastern oil). The US forces of occupation, along with their British counterparts, had long experience in what actually happens when you militarily invade and occupy a sovereign nation: the people resist, and not just one ethnic or religious group, but more or less the whole population. There is nothing quite like a foreign occupation for uniting a country.

In Iraq, these US-controlled ‘Shia’ death squads have been operating in much the same way, and while the media is content to portray them as ordinary Shias motivated by religious bias, they are in fact hired thugs who value only the money they are paid by their US masters and the promise of positions of power in a future Iraqi government. Like the rank and file of the ‘Libyan rebels’ and the ‘Free Syrian Army’, these people form the dregs of Arab and Middle Eastern societies. Led by spellbinders who veil their barbaric actions with religious prose, secular leaders in the region, like Ghaddafi and Assad, and Nasser and Arafat before them, struggled in vain to keep them at bay. The reason for this is because the US, Britain, France and Israel have consistently supported – in the form of weapons, money, training and blatant lies – the extremists against the rational voices. Throughout the US occupation of Iraq, the main representative of Shias in Iraq, Muqtada al-Sadr, has repeatedly called for unity among Shia and Sunni Iraqis in the face of foreign occupation and deception in the form of efforts to divide the resistance. These efforts included the bombing of bridges in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities in an effort to prevent communication between Iraqis, the use of widespread terror tactics to force Sunni and Shia Iraqis to flee their homes, and the bombing of religious shrines, either Shia or Sunni, in an effort to create the reality of ‘sectarian strife’. Iraq today is in ruins. The country has been ripped apart socially, mainly by way of the literal ripping apart of tens of thousands of civilians, with many being first brutally and systematically tortured by US-sponsored death squads. Hundreds of thousands more have been summarily murdered, either by the bombs of US aircraft, the bullets of US soldiers, or those ubiquitous and very effective ‘car bombs‘ planted by US and British operatives and their hired thugs.

The Obama administration will be forced this weekend to grapple with major decisions on Syria that it has long resisted making but may now be unavoidable if the president’s diplomatic and military strategies there are to succeed. In a meeting Saturday in Vienna, Secretary of State John F. Kerry will try to build momentum for a Syrian political transition. Allies at the table plan to challenge him to expand the narrow list of U.S.-approved opposition forces fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and to recognize Islamist groups the administration has shunned as extremist. On Sunday and Monday, President Obama will face Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the Group of 20 economic summit in the Mediterranean resort of Antalya. Erdogan said Wednesday that Syria will be a “major topic” at the summit and that he will push his long-standing demand for the creation of a U.S.-protected Syrian safe zone along the Turkish border. Russian President Vladi­mir Putin will also attend the G-20 meeting. Russian bombing of opposition forces in support of Assad has fundamentally altered the equation in Syria, and Putin has his own ideas about political transformation, terrorism and air operations there. The Vienna meeting is the second in as many weeks since Kerry launched a new effort to resolve the Syrian civil war through diplomatic channels. In addition to the humanitarian disaster the conflict has caused, the administration thinks the continuation of the war undercuts its higher priority of defeating the Islamic State in both Syria and Iraq.

“It’s a philosophy based on momentum,” said British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, one of the participants. “You get people together, you force them to make some forward movement, keeping them at it, keeping their noses to the grindstone, keep them in a locked room.” Kerry, Hammond said, “wants to make some further significant progress this week.” The plan is for the rapid-fire meetings to continue until success is achieved. “But if he can’t deliver,” a senior administration official acknowledged, “there will maybe be one more after this and it will fizzle. We just don’t know. I’ve seen Kerry pull rabbits out of hats before.” The official was one of several who spoke on the condition of anonymity about internal administration discussions. Before the first Vienna meeting at the end of October, Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, agreed that they would set aside the issue that most divided them — whether Assad could be part of a negotiated transition to a new Syrian government. In addition to U.S. allies in the Middle East and Europe, the 19 attendees also included Assad-backer Iran, invited for the first time to participate in international discussions over Syria. The Syrian opposition and representatives from Assad government were not invited and will not attend the Saturday meeting. The assumption by participants is that if they can reach agreements among themselves, it will eventually be easier to convince the combatants that a deal is viable and to push them toward making compromises that may be necessary.

While Kerry is seen as open to expanding the list of acceptable organizations, “I don’t know if the White House will sign off on it,” an administration official said. Any cease-fire would include an exemption for bombing raids against the Islamic State and likely Jabhat al-Nusra, a complication in the case of the latter because its forces in northwest Syria are co-mingled with other opposition groups. While the United States has rarely targeted that part of the country, Russian airstrikes have centered on the area. “Basically, they want a free pass to keep hitting people,” said the administration official, noting that the Russians might claim they were targeting only Jabhat al-Nusra while continuing to bomb Assad’s opponents.

Micah Lee: What are some operational security practices you think everyone should adopt? Just useful stuff for average people. Edward Snowden: [Opsec] is important even if you’re not worried about the NSA. Because when you think about who the victims of surveillance are, on a day-to-day basis, you’re thinking about people who are in abusive spousal relationships, you’re thinking about people who are concerned about stalkers, you’re thinking about children who are concerned about their parents overhearing things. It’s to reclaim a level of privacy. The first step that anyone could take is to encrypt their phone calls and their text messages. You can do that through the smartphone app Signal, by Open Whisper Systems. It’s free, and you can just download it immediately. And anybody you’re talking to now, their communications, if it’s intercepted, can’t be read by adversaries. [Signal is available for iOS and Android, and, unlike a lot of security tools, is very easy to use.] You should encrypt your hard disk, so that if your computer is stolen the information isn’t obtainable to an adversary — pictures, where you live, where you work, where your kids are, where you go to school. [I’ve written a guide to encrypting your disk on Windows, Mac, and Linux.] Use a password manager. One of the main things that gets people’s private information exposed, not necessarily to the most powerful adversaries, but to the most common ones, are data dumps. Your credentials may be revealed because some service you stopped using in 2007 gets hacked, and your password that you were using for that one site also works for your Gmail account. A password manager allows you to create unique passwords for every site that are unbreakable, but you don’t have the burden of memorizing them. [The password manager KeePassX is free, open source, cross-platform, and never stores anything in the cloud.]

The other thing there is two-factor authentication. The value of this is if someone does steal your password, or it’s left or exposed somewhere … [two-factor authentication] allows the provider to send you a secondary means of authentication — a text message or something like that. [If you enable two-factor authentication, an attacker needs both your password as the first factor and a physical device, like your phone, as your second factor, to login to your account. Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, GitHub, Battle.net, and tons of other services all support two-factor authentication.]

We should armor ourselves using systems we can rely on every day. This doesn’t need to be an extraordinary lifestyle change. It doesn’t have to be something that is disruptive. It should be invisible, it should be atmospheric, it should be something that happens painlessly, effortlessly. This is why I like apps like Signal, because they’re low friction. It doesn’t require you to re-order your life. It doesn’t require you to change your method of communications. You can use it right now to talk to your friends.

The FSA, once viewed by the international community as a viable alternative to the rule of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has seen its power wane dramatically this year amid widespread desertions. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Aleppo, Syria's largest city where many FSA soldiers are leaving the group, citing inadequate pay, family obligations and poor conditions. In the past month, Russia's bombing campaign against Syrian rebel groups and the FSA's rejection of Russian invitations to participate in negotiations have further weakened it, raising questions about the group's place in any future settlement. On Wednesday, reports of a new Russian 'peace plan' were revealed. The eight-point proposal cites a constitutional reform process lasting 18 months that would be followed by presidential elections. According to the plan, 'certain Syrian opposition groups' should participate in the Vienna talks, expected to take place next Saturday. 

The FSA began suffering battlefield setbacks as early as 2013, including some to Islamist rebel groups in northern Syria. This prompted some members of the US House Intelligence Committee and the Obama administration to lose faith in the FSA. A new US-backed alliance of rebel groups, called the Democratic Forces of Syria, was launched this year and only includes groups focused on fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which is waging war against both the regime and several rebel groups throughout Syria. The new Democratic Forces of Syria alliance does not include the FSA, which is concentrating on fighting the Assad regime. But observers say that US support has not yet waned. "I don't think that the US has moved away for groups it has previously supported," said Ammar Waqqaf, a member of the British Syrian Society and a frequent media commentator on Syria. However, its exclusion from the Democratic Forces of Syria may lead to further isolation for the FSA. Waqqaf noted that "the US badly needs someone on the ground whom it can support and could mount some sort of a serious challenge to ISIL, hence the formation of new groups, including the Democratic ones".  

While no one, not even the White House, expects much movement on the Israeli-Palestinian issue to emerge from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current trip to Washington, another theater of conflict on Israel’s borders became a subject of discussion with US leaders

Netanyahu raised the issue of the Golan Heights, albeit obliquely, in his Monday meeting with US President Barack Obama, the Haaretz daily reported, citing sources familiar with the meeting. The Israeli leader hinted that given the ongoing war across the border in Syria and the jihadist militias and Iranian-backed forces slowly taking over the country, Israel now seeks American recognition of its annexation of the Golan Heights. Israel claims the western Golan Heights, which it captured from Syria in the 1967 Six Day War and took steps to formally annex in 1981. The plateau is considered a critical strategic asset for Israel because it overlooks the towns and villages of much of the Galilee. The issue was raised briefly by Netanyahu, the sources said, while the two leaders were speaking about the situation in Syria generally.

Netanyahu reportedly said he was doubtful that peace talks underway in Vienna between various outside powers and several factions in the Syrian war would result in reunifying the wartorn country. That reality, he said, “allows us to think differently” about the future status of the Golan, which several American administrations have seen as a key part of any future Israeli-Syrian peace. Obama did not reply to the Golan reference, and Netanyahu declined to answer reporters questions about the issue on Tuesday. The idea of raising the Golan issue at this time has been raised by several Israeli public figures close to Netanyahu.

Several African nations, first and foremost South Africa, have signaled that AU member States have no advantage from being bound by the Rome Statutes and the International Criminal Court (ICC). The development comes in response to what a growing number of African policy makers denounce as the ICC’s selective prosecution and the ICC being an impediment to conflict resolution.

South Africa’s governing African National Congress is trailblazing a development that could result in South Africa’s and eventually African Union (AU) member States’ withdrawal from the Rome Statute and the International Criminal Court (ICC). This month, former South African President Thabo Mbeki gave a lecture at the 2015 Tmali Alumni Forum that reflects a growing consensus among African nations. That is, that the ICC is notorious for selective prosecution, and especially for the prosecution of African and other political leaders and nationals from States with a policy that opposes the western neo-colonialist discourse.

Mbeki would also stress that the ICC is an impediment to conflict resolution on the African continent. Mbeki stressed the example of the ousted Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo. Gbagbo was ousted by a clearly French-backed coup d’état in 2010. Gbagbo has since been extradited to The Hague.

One thing you might have noticed of late is that Washington seems to be preparing the US public for the possibility that the Pentagon is going to put “boots on the ground” in Syria and by “boots on the ground,” we mean more than 50 “advisors.”  Indeed, it’s the same story in Iraq and as we noted after the release of helmet cam footage depicting an ISIS prison raid in the northern Iraqi town of Huwija late last month, releasing battlefield GoPro shots is probably i) an effort to convince whatever partners the US has left in the Mid-East that Washington is still effective at “fighting” terror, and ii) a prelude to stepped up ground ops.  That assessment was confirmed when the Pentagon suggested it would send Apache gunships and their crews to Baghdad. Of course Iraq poured cold water on that idea when spokesman Sa'ad al-Hadithi told NBC News that "this is an Iraqi affair and the government did not ask the U.S. Department of Defense to be involved in direct operations. We have enough soldiers on the ground." Yes, enough Iranian soldiers, and so, as we noted earlier this month, the US will either need to go through Erbil to get more US boots in Iraq or else just shift the focus to Syria where putting combat troops into battle risks lining up American soldiers to enter into direct combat with the Quds and Hezbollah and may even risk an “accident” whereby Russia bombs an American position because the Pentagon lied to The Kremlin and said the US wouldn’t be operating near Aleppo. 

Well, on Tuesday, we got the latest hint that a large scale (not to mention prolonged) ground operation is in the offing as the  U.S. Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James told reporters that air power alone cannot “defeat ISIS.” Here’s Bloomberg:  The U.S.-led military coalition fighting Islamic State militants is weakening the group’s hold in Iraq and Syria even after Gulf Arab allies scaled back airstrikes, though ground forces are needed to retake territory, senior U.S. Air Force officials said.   The coalition’s air campaign has killed thousands of fighters, including key leaders, and pushed back militants by hitting control and training centers as well as equipment and storage areas, U.S. Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James told reporters Tuesday. Occupying or governing land will require “boots on the ground” including the Iraqi army, Syrian opposition fighters and Kurdish forces, which the U.S. is trying to train and equip, she said.   "It’s going to take years" to fight Islamic State, James said at the Dubai Air Show. "Ultimately, this area requires a political solution as well."

"Ultimately it cannot occupy territory and very importantly it cannot govern territory," she told reporters at the Dubai Airshow. "This is where we need to have boots on the ground. We do need to have ground forces in this campaign." James cited the "Iraqi army, the Free Syrians and the Kurds" as forces to support in the fight against IS. Ok so first - and we're not going to go into the whole story here because we've covered it exhaustively - these two things are not compatible and someone in The Pentagon needs to explain the contradiction: The U.S. has moved A10 jets from Kuwait and tankers from Qatar to Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base  James cited the "Iraqi army, the Free Syrians and the Kurds" You can't fly from Incirlik in support of troops fighting with the Kurds. It won't work. Erdogan will lose his mind. Someone in Washington needs to explain why the US thinks that's feasible.  But more importantly, note that James mentions "occupying [and] governing territory."  Who said anything about "occupying and governing"? Does the US now intend to "occupy and govern" Syria even as the Russians and Iranians expand their campaign?  Finally, what's this about "years"?  It seems to us that James is saying the US needs to invade Syria in an Iraq-style takeover bid. We're that will go splendidly, but again the silver lining is that starting World War III will be a boon for the MIC, which means the economy will rebound in short order.

On October 30 an international conference on Syria  agreed on a framework for ending the conflict in Syria. The communiqué states: While substantial differences remain among the participants, they reached a mutual understanding on the following: 1) Syria’s unity, independence, territorial integrity, and secular character are fundamental. ... 6) Da'esh, and other terrorist groups, as designated by the U.N. Security Council, and further, as agreed by the participants, must be defeated.... Ministers will reconvene within two weeks to continue these discussions.” Secretary of State Kerry had already accepted the "secular" point in earlier talks with his Russian colleague. The next meeting this Friday will mainly be about the question of who is a terrorist and must thereby be defeated. Propagandist for the Jihadis call this a "Russian trap".

So far the U.S. and its allies have supported various fundamentalist groups who's deeds and proclaimed philosophies surely put them into the same category as the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. The British Foreign Minister accuses the U.S. of supporting such terrorist groups and said that this needs to change: The world powers trying to end the civil war in Syria are drawing up a list of "terrorist" groups, Britain said Tuesday, warning that some countries may have to drop support for allies on the ground. "It will require deep breaths on several sides, including the US side," British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond warned, speaking to reporters in Washington. Some of the groups that qualify as terrorists, so Hammond, do get support from the U.S. and it will take a "deep breaths" by the U.S. to refrain from further supporting them. As part of this, Hammond said, the countries backing various factions within the country would have to decide which are moderate enough to be included in the political process and which would be excluded. "I'm not so sure I would write off the possibility of agreeing on who is a terrorist," he said, in remarks at the British embassy the morning after talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry. But he warned that there would be horse trading ahead.

Can one "horse trade" who is a terrorist? Is it "moderate enough" to only cut off the heads of prisoners of war instead of burning them alive? How much would that "trade" cost? Hammond seems to believe that a money-for-values deal is possible and needed. Here is his horse trade: On one side the Saudis want the Jihadists they support to be recognized as non-terrorists: "The Saudis are never going to sign up to Ansar al-Sham being categorized as terrorists," he said, citing the example of one Sunni armed group reported to receive outside Arab backing. "So we have to see whether we can reach a pragmatic solution on these areas," Hammond added.

Washington needs “boots on the ground” in Syria in addition to its air campaign against ISIS, which is not fruitful despite some progress. US Air Force secretary has admitted that “ground forces” is a must in order to “occupy” and “govern” parts of Syria. In her comments, Secretary Deborah Lee James stressed the importance of the US-led air campaign, but admitted that airstrikes need to be backed by ground forces.“Air power is extremely important. It can do a lot but it can't do everything,” James said, just two days after Secretary of Defense Ash Carter supported President Obama’s “willingness to do more” in terms of US troops on Syrian ground.“Ultimately it cannot occupy territory and very importantly it cannot govern territory,” James told reporters at the Dubai Airshow. “This is where we need to have boots on the ground. We do need to have ground forces in this campaign.”

When it comes to support, the US should assist the “Iraqi army, the Free Syrians and the Kurds” in the fight against Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS or ISIL), James said.

Last week, Secretary Carter said that the US needed “much more than airstrikes” to defeat the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) in Iraq and Syria. “I don't think it’s enough. I think we’re looking to do more. But the fundamental strategy in Iraq and Syria for dealing with ISIL and dealing a lasting defeat to ISIL is to identify then train, equip, and enable local forces that can keep the peace,” Carter said.On October 30 the White House announced that it is planning to send up no “more than 50 troops” [special forces] to advise “moderate opposition” in Syria on the ground.

Following in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday, November 13 and Moscow’s conclusion that the Russian Airbus 321 that crashed in Egypt’s North Sinai province on October 31; and following recent talks on Syria in Vienna and talks on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Antalya, Turkey, the military dynamics pertaining Syria and the international fight against the self-proclaimed Islamic State has changed, significantly. 

French President Francois Hollande and his administration responded to the attacks in Paris by declaring a three months state of emergency while deploying the French aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle to the Mediterranean to upscale French participation in the fight against the self-proclaimed Islamic State, a.k.a. Daesh, ISIS or ISIL. Hollande announced that the carrier would leave port on September 19., adding that: “This is going to triple our military power [as part of the operation against the Islamic State]. I am not talking about deterring the IS but about eliminating it totally.” On Tuesday the Chief of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), Alexander Bortnikov, announced that the crash of the Russian Kogalmavia (Metrojet) Airbus 321 in Egypt’s North Sinai on October 31 had been caused by a bomb on board the plane.

The of Flight KGL9268 claimed the lives of all 224 passengers and crew on board. The plane was brought down about one month after Russia launched its airstrikes against Daesh, Jabhat al-Nusrah and other insurgencies in Syria. President Putin has briefed the Russian military command on the deployment of the French aircraft carrier and instructed the Russian naval forces in the Mediterranean and the Russian air forces in Syria to cooperate with the French military and to coordinate their military operations.

One of the consequences of the Iran Deal was the declaration by countless politicians that they were going to crack down on Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism. Even the White House signed on to this idea. Well now some of the backlash has officially begun: Congress is linking Iran with ISIS, even though Iran is fighting ISIS. [and ISIS is supported by the US, GR ed.] Few mainstream publications have picked up on the fact that in a response to the San Bernardino killings, the Congress last week passed legislation, which the president duly signed, that puts Iran in an axis of international-terrorist evil along with Syria, Iraq and Sudan. The legislation amends our country’s visa waiver program. Iranian dual nationals, as well as US citizens who have visited Iran, will need visas to get into the U.S. Reuters: Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Friday said it was “absurd” that Tehran should be included on the list. “No Iranian nor anybody who visited Iran had anything to do with the tragedies that have taken place in Paris or in San Bernardino or anywhere else,” he said in an interview with Middle East-focused website Al Monitor. Secretary of State John Kerry promptly met with Zarif, his Iranian counterpart, to assure him that the new law doesn’t undercut the Iran deal. But the Iranians say that the legislation is the result of pro-Israel lobbying. And even the State Department describes Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism.  

 Iranians say the bill reflects pro-Israel lobbying. Reuters: Iran said on Monday that Israeli lobbying was behind a new measure passed by the U.S. Congress that will prevent visa-free travel to the United States for people who have visited Iran or hold Iranian nationality. The measure, which President Barack Obama signed into law on Friday, also applies to Iraq, Syria and Sudan, and was introduced as a security measure after the Islamic State attacks in Paris and a similar attack in San Bernardino, California.

More from Reuters‘ description of the Israel lobby angle: Iran, a Shi’ite Muslim theocracy staunchly opposed to Sunni radicalism espoused by groups like Islamic State, says its inclusion on the list is intended to undermine a deal on its nuclear programme that Tehran reached with world powers, including the United States, in July, known as the JCPOA. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari said in a televised news conference that the U.S. measure had been passed “under pressure from the Zionist lobby and currents opposed to the JCPOA”. The administration wants to have it both ways on blaming Iran. Yesterday on National Public Radio, Adam Szubin, the counter-terrorism finance under secretary at the Treasury Department, also put Iran in the category of ISIS, as an international terror deliverer: if you are familiar with the model of how al-Qaida or groups like Hamas and even Hezbollah have financed themselves, they’ve typically been heavily reliant on foreign donations, whether from state sponsors like Iran or whether from wealthy what we call deep-pocket donors, often in the Gulf. But that financing model is not ISIL. When you have a group that’s raising hundreds of millions of dollars in a year from internal sources, we don’t have those same chokepoints to go after in terms of the foreign flows.

After almost two decades of discussion, the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) will be proclaimed on 31st December. The AEC is a potentially significant and competitive economic region, should it be allowed to develop according to the aspiration of being a “single market and production base, with free flow of services, investments, and labour, by the year 2020”.

The ASEAN region as a composite trading block has the third highest population at 634 million, after China and India. GDP per capita is rapidly rising. The AEC would be the 4th largest exporter after China, the EU, and the United States, with still very much scope for growth from Cambodia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Vietnam from a diverse range of activities ranging from agriculture, food, minerals and commodities, electronics, and services. The coming AEC is already the 4th largest importer of goods after the United States, EU, and China, making it one of the biggest markets in the world. Unlike the other trade regions, the AEC still has so much potential for growth with rising population, rising incomes, growing consumer sophistication, and improving infrastructure. Perhaps the biggest benefit of the upcoming AEC is the expected boost this will give to intra-ASEAN trade. Most ASEAN nations have previously put their efforts into developing external relationships with the major trading nations like the EU, Japan and the US through bilateral and free trade agreements. To some extent, the potential of intra-ASEAN trade was neglected, perhaps with the exception of the entrepot of Singapore. The AEC is an opportunity to refocus trade efforts within the region, especially when Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia are rapidly developing, and Myanmar is opening up for business with the rest of the region.

There are no integrated banking structures, no agreement on common and acceptable currencies (some ASEAN currencies are not interchangeable), no double taxation agreements, and no formal agreements on immigration. There is not even any such thing as a common ASEAN business visa. These issues are going to hinder market access for regional SMEs. Any local market operations will have to fulfil local laws and regulations which may not be easy for non-citizens to meet and adhere to. Even though there are some preferential tariffs for a number of classes of ASEAN originating goods, non-tariff barriers are still in existence, which are insurmountable in some cases like the need for import licenses (APs) in Malaysia, and the need to have a registered company which can only be formed by Thai nationals within Thailand. Some of these problems are occurring because of the very nature of ASEAN itself. ASEAN was founded on the basis of consultation, consensus, and non-interference in the internal affairs of other members. This means that no formal problem solving mechanism exists, and the ASEAN Secretariat is a facilitator rather than implementer of policy. Illegal workers, human trafficking, money laundering, and haze issues between member states have no formal mechanisms through which these issues can be solved from an ASEAN perspective. This weakens the force for regional integration.

Brazil’s reluctance to accept an Israeli ambassador who is a West Bank colonist has set off a diplomatic crisis and led to concerns in the Israeli government that the clash could encourage pro-Palestinian activism against it.

The appointment four months ago of Dani Dayan, a former head of the Jewish colony movement, did not go down well with Brazil’s left-leaning government, which has supported Palestinian statehood in recent years. Most world powers deem the "Jews-only" colonies on Palestinian land as illegal. The regime’s previous ambassador, Reda Mansour, left Brasilia last week and the Israeli government said on Sunday that Brazil risked degrading bilateral relations if Dayan was not allowed to succeed him. “Israel will leave the level of diplomatic relations with Brazil at the secondary level if the appointment of Dani Dayan is not confirmed,” Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely told Israel’s Channel 10 TV, saying Dayan would remain the sole nominee. She said Israel would lobby Brasilia through the Brazilian Jewish community, confidants of President Dilma Rousseff and direct appeals from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Brazilian government officials declined to comment on whether Rousseff will accept the nomination of the Argentine-born Dayan. But one senior Foreign Ministry official said: “I do not see that happening.”

Poll results released last month show that Americans are sharply divided over the influence of Israel on U.S. politics, and those divisions often fall along party lines. On Dec. 4, The Brookings Institution, a highly influential Washington-based think tank, released the results of a study of American attitudes toward Israel and the Middle East. The report comes after a year in which Israel’s influence on America’s governance and foreign policy received heightened scrutiny, especially following a controversial speech to a joint session of Congress by Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu on March 3. AIPAC, the powerful Israeli lobbying group, also faced increased criticism. The bulk of the poll was based on the opinions of 875 randomly selected Americans, but the study’s author, Shibley Telhami, a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings’ Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World, also polled an additional 863 additional Americans who self-identify as Evangelical or Born-again Christians to determine how their attitudes differed from the average.

When asked “How Much Influence Does the Israeli Government Have in American Politics?” 37 percent, or just over 1 in 3 Americans, feel Israel has too much influence. Eighteen percent say Israel should have even more influence over our government, while the largest group, at 44 percent, feels Israel wields an appropriate level of influence. Almost half of Democrats, 49 percent, feel Israel has too much influence over U.S. politics, while a slight majority of Republicans, 52 percent, are comfortable with Israel’s current level of influence. Among Evangelical Christians, meanwhile, 39 percent believe Israel has too little influence and 38 percent are satisfied with the country’s level of influence. Telhami also asked respondents about their views on the conflict between apartheid Israel and occupied Palestine. Twenty-nine percent of Americans reported that they are “very concerned” about recent events in Israel and Palestine, while 38 percent are “somewhat concerned.” When asked who is to blame for strife in the region, the most popular answer, 31 percent, was the lack of a peace process, “while 26% equally blame continued Israeli occupation and settlement, expansion in the West Bank, and Palestinian extremists.” These results also showed strong partisan differences:

“[A] plurality of Democrats, 37%, blame continued Israeli occupation and settlement expansion, followed by 35% who blame the absence of serious peace diplomacy, while 15% blame Palestinian extremists. In contrast, 40% of Republicans blame Palestinian extremists first, followed by 27% who blame absence of serious diplomacy, and 16% blame continued Israeli occupation and settlement expansion.” The report noted a slight increase in support for a one-state solution to problems in Israel compared to findings in 2014. Under a one-state solution, Israel and Palestine would become a single, multicultural, multireligious nation, as opposed to two-state solutions which would divide Israel and Palestine into two separate, independent countries. “Those who advocate a one-state solution, 31%, are now comparable to those who advocate a two-state solution, 35%,” Telhami wrote, adding that Republicans saw the largest increase in support for a single-state solution. “The most notable change is that Republicans this year equally support a two-state solution vs. one-state solution (29% each).” More people are also willing to accept a single-state solution if a two-state solution proves impossible, he added: “Among those who advocate a two-state solution as their preferred solution, 73% say they would support a one-state solution if the first option were no longer possible (in comparison to only 66% in 2014).” The poll also found that Netanyahu’s popularity has fallen sharply over the last year, at least among Democrats. Thirty-four percent now view him unfavorably, up from 22 percent in 2014, while Republicans’ opinions of him remain largely unchanged.

The much lauded “peace deal” regarding Syria upon even a cursory examination reveals nothing more than the reiteration of Western demands versus a reassertion of Syrian defiance.

The West seeks a “political transition” in addition to fighting the self-proclaimed “Islamic State,” implying that indeed, just as it had sought since 2011 and even beforehand, the West still expects current Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, and a client regime more to the West’s liking installed in his place. And while the West, as part of the “peace deal” claims to seek the end of the Islamic State, it makes no mention of the states sponsoring its existence, which coincidentally includes the West itself. Syria seeks the eradication of all armed groups, even those the West still attempts to claim are not linked to Al Qaeda. It has agreed to elections, confident the Syrian people will return President Assad to power again, just as they did in 2014. Knowing that President Assad would easily win any election held in the future, the West has been adamant about removing him from the process to even the odds in favor of candidates they back, thus undermining the very premise that the uprising had anything to do with “democracy” or heeding the will of the Syrian people in the first place.

The “peace deal,” despite optimistic headlines across the West about “unanimous agreement” among nations, is exposed as yet another attempt for the West to reassert its narrative regarding the Syrian conflict upon the global stage. In reality, the “peace deal” is no deal at all. What is left is the same battle that has been waged since 2011, and it is upon the battlefield that Syria’s fate will be truly decided.

The Israeli military has finished training exercises in preparation for a potential “long-term, multi-front” conflict with Syria and Lebanon, according to a statement released by the army. Major General Aviv Kochavi said, in the statement, that the training prepared military forces to “implement operational plans in all arenas, while facing Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both in Syria and Lebanon.” The general added that forces “simulated vast maneuvers, substantial fire power, and attack of thousands of targets in all combat areas, with high efficiency, including residential areas exploited by the enemy.”

Japan has joined the EU, Denmark, Switzerland and Sweden in imposing negative interest rates. Indeed, more than a fifth of the world’s GDP is now covered by a central bank with negative interest rates.

And negative rates will eventually come to America. Central bankers are implementing negative interest rates to force savers to buy assets … so as to artificially stimulate the economy. Specifically: A negative interest rate means the central bank and perhaps private banks will charge negative interest: instead of receiving money on deposits, depositors must pay regularly to keep their money with the bank. This is intended to incentivize banks to lend money more freely and businesses and individuals to invest, lend, and spend money rather than pay a fee to keep it safe. Next up: The war on cash. Postscript: Ironically, the Fed has gone to great lengths to DISCOURAGE banks from lending to Main Street.

The powerful Syrian Kurdish YPG militia and its local allies have drawn up plans for a major attack to seize the final stretch of the Syrian-Turkish border held by Islamic State fighters, a YPG source familiar with the plan said on Thursday.Such an offensive could deprive Islamic State fighters of a logistical route that has been used by the group to bring in supplies and foreign recruits.But it could lead to confrontation with Turkey, which is fighting against its own Kurdish insurgents and sees the Syrian Kurds as an enemy. After a year of military gains aided by U.S.-led air strikes, the Kurds and their allies already control the entire length of Syria's northeastern Turkish frontier from Iraq to the banks of the Euphrates river, which crosses the border west of the town of Kobani.Other Syrian insurgent groups control the frontier further west, leaving only around 100 km (60 miles) of border in the hands of Islamic State fighters, running from the town of Jarablus on the bank of the Euphrates west to near the town of Azaz.But Turkey says it will not allow the Syrian Kurds to move west of the Euphrates.

The source confirmed a report on Kurdish news website Xeber24 which cited a senior YPG leader saying the plan includes crossing the Euphrates to attack the Islamic State-held towns of Jarablus and Manbij, in addition to Azaz, which is held by other insurgent groups.The source did not give a planned date, but said a Jan. 29 date mentioned in the Xeber24 report might not be accurate.The YPG has been the most important partner on the ground of a U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State, and is a major component of an alliance formed last year called the Syria Democratic Forces, which also includes Arab and other armed groups. The alliance is quietly backed by Washington, even as its NATO ally in the region, Turkey, is hostile. The political party affiliated with the YPG, the PYD, has been excluded from Syria peace talks the United Nations plans to hold in Geneva on Friday. The PYD and its allies say their exclusion undermines the process and have blamed Turkey.Ankara fears further expansion by the YPG will fuel separatist sentiment among its own Kurdish minority. It views the Syrian Kurdish PYD as a terrorist group because of its affiliation to Turkish Kurdish militants.