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Israel attacks Iran
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here and a Quick Take on the latest in the Middle East crisis. And things actually looking a little bit more stable today than they have over the past couple of weeks. And that is some very welcome news.
The headlines, of course, that the Iranians have been hit by Israel, though no one is saying that Israel has admitted to doing it, in the town of Isfahan. Clearly, military targets and the Iranians trying to knock down those missiles coming over. But this was a significantly more restrained attack than what the Israelis did to kick off this crisis, which was attack an Iranian government building in Damascus and target and assassinate a senior Iranian leader. That led to the Iranian response that we saw over the weekend, which was a significant and serious one, with a few hundred missiles and drones. And now we are in the escalatory portion of the cycle.
The United States said very clearly to Israel, “We're going to help defend you no matter what. We don't want any offensive strikes against Iran. Take the win.” The fact that they said that meant that it was very, very likely that they were going to do something, but that something was going to be restrained, where if the Americans said, “Hey, just take it easy, don't do anything big,” then they’d end up doing something bigger, right? And you give them an inch, they take two inches. This is the way these things work. And it was coordinated with the United States. The US was not involved directly in the military strikes, but they knew it was coming. They had that cooperation, communication from Israel, which was important because the US had to be in position in case the Iranians decided that they were going to strike real time in response to Israel. The Americans were going to help the Israelis defend themselves yet again.
Now, the big question here is not, “Do the Iranians respond in a big way?” They don't. They've already signaled that that's not the intention. You've seen them downplaying the nature of these strikes on Iranian state media. So, this crisis, this proximate crisis between Israel and Iran is now in the rearview mirror. But going forward, what's the likelihood that we can stabilize this war, which is now well beyond just a matter of Israel versus Hamas?
One thing that makes me a little bit more positive is the fact that Bibi Netanyahu is himself in a little more secure position domestically. What do you mean, makes you more positive? Does that mean he's going to last longer? Yes. But it also means he doesn't necessarily have to go ahead with massive strikes against Hamas in Rafah, killing lots of civilians. Or eventually against Hezbollah, pushing them back so that almost 100,000 Israeli citizens can get back to the north. If he wanted to take a win and show that he now has, you know, a historical legacy of leading Israel in defending against an unprecedented strike from Iran, with strong support from the Americans, from the Brits, from the Jordanians, from the Saudis, this is the opportunity that could create Saudi normalization with Israel. This is the opportunity that could create a peace deal that the Palestinians would have some form of governance over the West Bank and Gaza together.
That's the opportunity that comes from this, precisely because Israel domestically now has a leader that doesn't have to look over his shoulder every moment. But the strong effort by Netanyahu, at least as of today, is to still go ahead with these Rafah strikes. You've got the battalions on the ground. You want to use them, you want to take out, these Hamas leaders, irrespective of the civilian cost. And that continues to be very popular among the entire population of Israel as well.
So, when I think about the next couple of weeks, I think that you're not going to get a breakthrough deal on hostages with Hamas, and that means that the fighting only stops if there's a broader agreement. And that broader agreement requires that the Israeli war cabinet is willing to stand down and not continue their war on the ground in Gaza. And in return, has a broader agreement with the Americans, with the Gulf states, and ultimately with a path forward for the Palestinians. Most people around the world would welcome, would love to see that. Getting the Israelis from here to there, especially when you are surrounded by enemies that consider you, to be, illegitimate as a country and refuse to recognize your right to exist, that makes it a lot harder. So that's where we are. But some breathing space for now. The mood in the United States, certainly better than it was at any point over the last week and a half, and that's a good thing.
That's it for me. I'll talk to you all real soon.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with winners of the Leaders of Russia national management competition at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia March 12, 2024.
Despite Putin’s current swagger, Russia remains vulnerable
After last year’s failed Ukrainian counteroffensive, Russia’s Vladimir Putin has signaled confidence that, thanks to lagging support from the West and Ukraine’s shortage of troops and weapons, Russia can win a war of attrition. But a series of stories today remind us the Kremlin still has plenty of security concerns.
Tuesday’s raids by Ukraine-aligned paramilitaries into Russian border provinces won’t change the war, but they raise the threat level for this weekend’s Russian elections.
Tuesday’s drone attacks on energy sites in multiple regions of central Russia, including one that reportedly inflicted major damage on one of the country’s biggest oil refineries, demonstrate again Ukraine’s ability to hit long-range targets. Ukraine has already disabled about one-third of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
NATO's newest members are also creating new security headaches for Moscow. Sweden’s prime minister is reportedly weighing a plan to refortify the Swedish island of Gotland, a strategically crucial piece of real estate in the Baltic Sea.
And for the first time, Sweden and Finland have joined in Operation Steadfast Defender, exercises involving 90,000 troops from all 32 NATO countries. This year’s event is the largest NATO military exercise since the end of the Cold War.
The EU, meanwhile, is expected to approve €5 billion in funding for new military supplies for Ukraine on Wednesday.
US-Iran tensions complicate Biden's Middle East strategy
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here and a Quick Take to kick off your week. We are still very much focused on the Middle East. That is the top priority. Tony Blinken, Secretary of State, for his fifth trip to the Gulf since October 7th, those horrible terrorist attacks, Ukraine very far down the priority list compared to the engagement the Middle East is presently getting. It certainly feels that way. But that's what we're focusing on.
And the big issue is the American military response to that nightmare scenario that came to pass when US servicemen and women, dozens injured, three killed in Iranian proxy attacks on the Jordan-Syria border. The United States had to respond militarily, did respond militarily, but they also did not want to precipitate an Iranian war with the United States. So they tried to have their way on both sides of the equation and probably end up getting nothing that they want. What do I mean by that? Well, the United States did attack direct Iranian military assets, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps military capabilities on the ground in Syria and Iraq, but also telegraphed that very clearly, very publicly, for about five days before they started the attacks, which meant that proxy leaders and most importantly, Iranian leaders were able to get out of Dodge and potentially protect the most sensitive equipment information from those US strikes.
That meant that the Americans got to show that they would take significant military action, but also did not precipitate an Iranian military response. We aren't going to see war right now between the US and Iran, but we also aren't going to see deterrence by the Iranian proxies or by the Iranians in continuing to engage in strikes in civilian tanker traffic through the Red Sea or against Americans on the ground in the region.
Now, if it doesn't resolve any of that conflict that continues to get worse, what does it resolve? Well, it continues to give the Americans a little bit of time, maybe to get a temporary cease-fire in Gaza. That's really where the effort is right now, particularly being engaged with Qatar in coordinating with the Israelis and with Hamas. The hope is that in the next week or two, you get a month of committed cease-fire from the Israelis and you get large numbers of remaining hostages being held by Hamas released to Israel.
Now, Prime Minister Netanyahu and the war cabinet are nowhere close to succeeding in their war on the ground against Hamas. And that means they have months minimum before they're willing to think about wrapping up that conflict, irrespective of all the international pressure. So what does a month accomplish? While the hope is that a month accomplishes movement towards a Saudi-Israel peace deal where the Americans would proactively recognize a Palestinian state together with the UK and others. The Israeli war cabinet would outline the potential for such a political recognition while security would be provided by somebody else. Don't have to have your own security forces to have your own state, and nobody says that's a requirement. Would it be provided by the Israelis? Well, that wouldn't be acceptable, though. They could have a buffer zone perhaps, would need to be worked out with the Gulf allies, with Egypt, with Jordan. Can that be done in a month? In terms of sticking the landing, that's about the highest degree of difficulty you'd see in gymnastics. And certainly I would take the under in terms of expectations of a peace deal here.
But does Biden feel like he has any better alternatives at this point? And the answer to that is no. Meanwhile, he's being squeezed by the Republicans at home who are pushing for more aid for Israel, not linked to anything. And he's getting squeezed by the progressives that are his own Democratic supporters that are more aligned towards the Palestinians than they are Israel. This is feeling like a no win situation for Biden. And so if he can get a cease-fire and get a few weeks, engage diplomatically, see what shakes loose. Still at the end of the day, there are far more actors around this war, both in Gaza and also more broadly in the Middle East, that are interested in finding ways not to have a lasting cease fire than to see a peace agreement work out. That's true certainly for Hamas. It's true certainly for Netanyahu. It's also true for the Iranian government and the so-called axis of resistance.
And for all of those reasons, I fear that we are still heading for further escalation as opposed to a window that would end this war. Really tough for Biden in an election year, really tough for those in the Middle East living with this at any time.
That's it for me. I'll talk to you all real soon.
US-Iran tensions escalate after deadly drone attack
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi everybody, Ian Bremmer here and a Quick Take to kick off your week right in midtown Manhattan, New York City. And the Middle East war continuing to expand as we have been convinced it would. This was this weekend, really the nightmare scenario for the Americans that given all of the Iranian proxy attacks against shipping and against US troops in the region, but eventually they would get through and kill some.
And that is exactly what happened. Three American servicemen killed, dozens injured, and now the Americans have to respond. That response will almost certainly be against Iranian forces to some degree directly. Whether or not that means hitting Iranian territory, that's an open question. But even though the Iranian government denied it, the United States has been very clear, “these are Iran supported attacks.”And while I'm fairly comfortable saying that the Iranians didn't likely order these attacks directly, they're certainly comfortable with the fact that they're going on. They're providing real time intelligence to the groups. They're providing real time weapons to the groups. So it's not like they had nothing to do with it.
Now, the United States doesn't want war with Iran, you know, no holds barred across the region. The Iranians don't want war with the US. But that doesn't mean war is not going to happen. And we're certainly taking a step closer to that right now. Will American strikes be sufficient to stop Iranian proxies from hitting the United States? That's very hard to imagine. It might be uncomfortable with it, but I can't see the Iranians cutting off all of these groups just on the basis of the likely American strikes that are coming next, which means even though we're escalating, we're still not yet at sort of a place where anyone is panicking enough to start restraining and reining in the continued escalation that we're seeing.
The other side of this is we do see the United States working very hard with Qatar and the Israelis to try to facilitate a breakthrough on the hostages. And the Israelis are willing to engage in ways that they were not, even a couple of weeks ago, willing to take a deal that would not be as attractive for them. For example, a longer ceasefire in the strikes in Gaza in return for the hostages being released. In part, the Hamas has been unwilling to engage and has been unwilling to give very much. But that could change if the Iranian government now starts pressing them hard. And that is where we could see a bit of a breakthrough, especially if the United States response is serious to what we've just seen over the weekend.
So are we going to see the Iranians stopping support of the proxies in the region, stopping the attacks? No. But might we see a temporary ceasefire and a breakthrough on the hostage side? That looks more likely to me in the coming days and weeks than it was last week. So, you know, it's dangerous environment. We're continuing to see escalation, but there's certainly lots of moving pieces and not everybody wants to see war.
That's it for me. I'll talk to you all real soon.
Ukraine shows success with long-range drone attacks against Russia
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics.
How is Ukraine doing in the war?
Well, they seem to be making incremental gains on the ground in the south of Ukraine against the Russian occupation forces. But most spectacular, of course, have been the successes they've had with long-range drone attacks in big numbers, where they have been successful in attacking Russian air bases 700 kilometers away from the territory of Ukraine, causing significant damage to significant Russian assets. That's a new dimension of the war. And it shows that Ukraine has the ability to develop new technology on its own, independent of the very important support that they're getting from Europe and from the United States.
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- Ukraine’s long road to EU membership ›
- How Ukrainians learn to pilot kamikaze drones that destroy tanks - GZERO Media ›
Russia's war: no end in sight
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hey everybody. Ian Bremmer here and a happy Monday to you. A Quick Take to kick off your week. Wanted to talk latest on the Russia War.
Seen both sides, significant new attacks. From the Ukrainians, a drone successfully hitting an office tower in Moscow. From Russia, a drone attacking a grain storage and infrastructure facility right on Ukraine's Romanian border. The Ukrainians wanting to show Russia that they can continue to hit deep inside the country, even right at the capital. The Russians wanting to show that they can and will cripple Ukrainian agricultural capabilities now that they have stepped out, the Russians have stepped out of the Black Sea grain deal. Both of these things showing that 500 plus days in the war is not over. It's continuing to cause grave damage to both populations and both also showing that there's very little substantial progress either towards victory of one side, defeat of the other or towards a ceasefire and a breakthrough in negotiations.
Given that state of play, and given that we just had a Vilnius summit, NATO summit that showed that the countries are together and they're providing strong levels of ongoing support for the Ukrainians, that's not going to fall apart anytime soon. But meanwhile, the Russians are defending themselves capably in the front lines against Ukrainian counter offensive, which is not going as well as certainly the Ukrainians or NATO had hoped a couple of months ago before it started. I wanted to look at policy because what US and NATO policy towards the Russia, Ukraine fight is and isn't is sometimes misstated.
NATO and the United States, first and foremost are trying to help defend Ukraine and help them get their land back, certainly the territory that has been taken since February 24th. They have done a pretty good job of that. Certainly the Ukrainians are far more capable in terms of their defenses going forward, and much of the territory that was initially taken by the Russians has now been regained by Ukraine. Certainly not all of it, and again, not very much over the last couple of months, but the Russians do not control most of the territory that they have illegally annexed over a few months ago. And of course, all of the territory they initially took in the north and towards Kyiv and the Northeast, that the Ukrainians have removed them from completely back to the original borders. Secondly, the US and NATO are trying to make sure that Russia doesn't want to do it again, that they understand that this was a mistake, whether or not they admit it as such and that such an attack going forward would be even more so.
In other words, they don't want the Russians to think that they can wait out and have a second bite of this apple. Now so far they seem pretty successful there as well. That's why you continue to have efforts to talk about long-term Ukrainian security guarantees, including eventually a pathway into NATO. But short of that, and before that, commitments that the G-7 will all continue to provide cyber defenses and equipment and training and intelligence for the Ukrainians, all of which is intended to bolster that policy. And then finally want lessons for other countries, notably China, to them, that if you were thinking of invading Taiwan, if you were thinking of attacking territory that really matters to the West, think again, there will be serious consequences. You'll be punished for that. It'll hurt you militarily, it'll hurt you economically. And I think that on that policy as well, there has been so far a fair amount of success.
Now, what the policy is not. It is not a policy to remove Putin from office. It is not a policy of regime change. It is also not a policy to destroy Russia. Russia is a federation. There are different autonomous republics and regions with different nationalities. This is not an intention to do to the Russians what happened to the Soviet Union in the late eighties, culminating in the collapse in 1991. Also very importantly and not discussed very often, it's not an effort to cut off global markets from Russia. I hear a lot, look at, and I put out those numbers myself. Look at how much oil the Indians are buying from Russia. Look at how much the Chinese are now buying from Russia. The American policy, the NATO policy is that India and China should buy that oil at a discount from the Russians. The alternative would be that the markets would be crippled.
The alternatives would be a massive spike in disruptions in supply chain, a major recession that Biden doesn't want and that frankly nobody in NATO wants. So even though you won't see NATO leaders saying, we're so happy the Indians are buying all of this oil, the reality is they are. It's cheaper. The Russians are getting less for it than they would in a properly functioning global market had they not invaded Ukraine. And then the Indians are actually doing more refined product, value add for them that is being exported to Europe so the Europeans can continue to have their economy run. Are the Europeans still essentially consuming a lot of Russian oil? Sure they are. Are the Europeans ending up getting a whole bunch of food from Russia? Yeah, and so is Africa, and so are other countries around the world.
And it's very annoying that the food and fertilizer deal has been unilaterally broken by the Russians, and now the Ukrainians will not be able to profit from their food and fertilizer industry, and it's going to hurt a lot of African nations in particular, but Russia will still be able to export a lot of that food. And again, given the importance of those commodities to global markets, that's not going to change anytime soon. The reason I mention this is because at some point the war will be over, at some point there will be a ceasefire, hopefully, as the Ukrainians can take as much of their land back as was stolen from them as possible, and hopefully with very strong and defined and ongoing support from the EU, from the United States, from the G-7, from NATO, that will allow Ukraine to reconstruct, allow them to join the EU, allow them eventually even to join NATO, and hopefully there will also be strong lessons that are maintained by the Russians, by the Chinese, by others around the world that the G7 is cohesive, will respond to breaking of the rule of law, at least in those cases where countries are strategically important to NATO and the G-7.
I'd like to say to all countries around the world, that would certainly be the proper international law response. It would also be the proper human response. I don't think that we are there, but nonetheless, the basic intentions of these policies are so far looking to be pretty strong. The question of course is what do you do beyond that? Because the consequences of Putin invading is that he has screwed up his own country. The consequences of Putin invading is that Prigozhin, who was this very loyal guy that was providing all sorts of paramilitary services for dictatorships across the Middle East and Africa, suddenly had to redeploy to Ukraine because the defense ministry and the regular forces did so badly, his forces got eaten up, and now he's become enemy number one for the Russians, and yet is still walking around in Belarus. That destabilizes Russia. It's not American policy, but it is a knock on consequence of the failure of the invasion and the consequences of the invasion.
What that means is that dealing with the Russians long term is something the Americans are going to have to think a lot more about. You can get the war in Ukraine eventually over and still have a massive problem with a nuclear-armed Putin whose country is much more destabilized, and yet the US has no interest in having a Russia massively destabilized. In that regard, America shares interest with almost everyone in the world, certainly the Chinese, the Indians, the entire Global South. Nobody wants nuclear war. Nobody wants a rogue state like Russia to become destabilized and more risk acceptant. That would undo so many of the proper lessons that hopefully are finally being learned by a lot of countries on the basis of the late, but nonetheless, strong response to the Russian invasion.
So something to spend more time thinking about, especially as we talk about, for example, Putin as a war criminal, which certainly is true, and on the other hand, he'll never be tried for it. And the ability to deal with a war criminal makes it a lot harder long term for Europe, for the United States to have a stable relationship with a post-Ukraine war Russia. How do you square that circle? And if you don't, what kind of a world are you living in? What kind of greater risks are you imputedly willing to tolerate? Something we're going to talk about a lot more.
Anyway, that's it for me on a Monday. Hope everyone's doing well and I'll talk to you all real soon.
Nervous mood in Russia after drone strikes
Carl Bildt, co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations and former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics (this week from Stockholm).
Will recent drone attacks in Moscow lead to Russian escalation in Ukraine?
I think there's nervousness in Moscow. The drone attacks have been, Putin was trying to play down. He couldn't do very much else. He said our defenses are working, but nothing was perfect. I think there's also nervousness on what might happen on the battlefront. What are Ukrainians up to? Will there be some sort of success in some sort of Ukrainian offensive? A nervous mood, we don't know. The inclination of Putin is always to escalate whenever he can.
Are Serbia-Kosovo relations deteriorating into another conflict?
Well, we are not heading to a new war, but we are clearly heading towards, or we are in a fairly rapid deterioration of the situation. There was a breakthrough in negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo a couple of months ago in Ohrid. It was difficult to move forward on that. It was difficult to move forward also on the measures that needs to be taken on the ground, but that it was moves taken primarily by Pristina that led to the clash that we've seen in northern Kosovo. And now the situation is deteriorating fairly rapidly. NATO's deploying additional forces, but it will require some fairly robust diplomacy to get things back to track. Let's hope for the best but be prepared for something else.