Erdogan-Muslim Brotherhood alliance: Between patronage and betrayal

(Link on Daily Trust) 

 

When, a decade ago, the Muslim Brotherhood politicians were riding the waves of the “Arab Spring” across the Middle East and North Africa to rise to power, a tacit political alliance somehow developed between them and the then Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan, who later transformed into executive president in 2014. 

 

Having dominated Turkish politics since his coming into power in 2003, Erdoğan has pursued geopolitical dominance in the region. His ability to ride the waves of Muslim emotions with publicity stunts during and in the aftermath of every major incident of persecution against vulnerable Muslim communities and his characteristic Islamo-populist rhetoric earned him immense popularity among unsuspecting Muslims and even many otherwise discerning pundits for that matter. 

 

Also, his character-switching skills, which enable him to effortlessly transform from a typical secular politician he is into an Islamist he claims to be, and vice versa, depending on the circumstances, enables him to balance up his purported Islamist orientation in the eyes of his admirers and his secular disposition among his fellow politicians in regional and global politics. 

 

Anyway, though the Muslim Brotherhood organization wasn’t the initiator of the “Arab Spring”, its politicians were the biggest beneficiaries, having risen to power by leveraging their longstanding popularity among the unsuspecting general public who fell for their purported Islamist agenda.

 

President Erdoğan had seen in them potential governments in their respective countries, which he could manipulate in pursuit of his geopolitical ambitions. While, on their part, they saw in him a reliable patron who could be instrumental in their struggle against the deep state in their respective countries and facilitate their integration into mainstream politics on the global stage. 

 

Soon, influential media organizations linked to the Muslim brotherhood, especially the Aljazeera network, embarked on the systematic idolization of Erdoğan in a well-crafted narrative. 

 

All along, President Erdoğan has been particularly interested in Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, being the umbrella organization that all its offshoots and other like-minded groups in the region and beyond look up to. 

 

The first post-“Arab Spring” election in 2012 that brought the Muslim Brotherhood to the presidency in Egypt under former President Mohammad Mursi was a dream come true for the organization. Besides, considering the geopolitical significance of Egypt as the most populous Arab country and indeed one of the most influential in the region, the Muslim Brotherhood was well-positioned to engineer similar political momentum in other countries for their offshoots there to equally get power. 

 

Though over the past decade, all the Muslim Brotherhood parties in power have lost out through either political process or military takeover, their loss of Egypt following the 2013 military takeover was particularly frustrating to Erdoğan. Since then, he literally went berserk sparing no effort to vilify and instigate the international community against the Egyptian authorities. He also opened up Turkey for the Muslim Brotherhood members from Egypt and elsewhere who soon adopted the country as their exile headquarters. He also enabled them to set up satellite television channels and other media outlets that unleashed a systematic and concerted campaign of disparagement and incitement against the Egyptian authorities and other Arab governments especially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). 

 

President Erdoğan, also, rode the waves of the backslash against the Kingdom over the murder of the Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, in 2018, inside its Consulate in Istanbul, to embark on the vilification of the Kingdom. 

 

Of course, Turkish relationships with Egypt and Saudi Araba consequently deteriorated very badly, affecting trade and economic ties, especially with Saudi Arabia whose businesses suspended importation from Turkey while Saudis’ investments there took a nosedive, worsening the country’s already struggling economy. The situation is further compounded by Erdoğan’s equally deteriorating relationships with other countries including some major European economies e.g., Germany and France.  

 

Meanwhile, the general public in Turkey has been increasingly frustrated amid worsening economic conditions, which President Erdoğan has repeatedly vowed to arrest but failed. 

 

The 2019 local election in Turkey proved the extent of that frustration when, despite his alliance with other parties and a controversial change in the electoral law that allegedly favoured his party, President Erdoğan’s party suffered a huge setback, losing important cities to the opposition including Istanbul and Ankara, Turkish largest city and capital respectively. 

 

President Erdoğan realised the potential implications of the situation on his re-election bid in the 2023 general election, especially considering the results of the 2019 local election. 

 

Since last year, therefore, he embarked on mending fences with Saudi Arabia to thereafter normalize trade and economic ties with it and hopefully secure some bailout to ease the persistent financial crunch in his country. By the way, Saudi Arabia does some friendly countries in need such a favour. Anyway, he equally reached out to Egypt to normalize diplomatic relations with it. 

 

Meanwhile, he had already begun gradual abandonment of the Muslim Brotherhood by imposing restrictions on their operations in Turkey that leave them with no option but to leave the country. For instance, he ordered their television channels to stop their campaign of vilification against Egypt and shut down some of them altogether. 

 

Erdoğan also abandoned the Khashoggi murder case, handed it over to Saudi Arabia, and turned from an aggressive critic of the Kingdom into Saudi-friendly. He even visited the Kingdom on an official visit and received its Crown Prince, Ibn Salam, on a similar visit to Turkey. 

 

Meanwhile, many Muslim Brotherhood elements have already left Turkey as others explore their options and next destinations. 

Geopolitics of Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline

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During the Moroccan King Mohammed VI's first-ever visit to Nigeria in 2016, since his ascension to the throne 18 years earlier, the ambitious Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline project was unveiled to transport Nigerian gas to Morocco and potentially Europe via 13 other existing and potential West African gas importing countries from Nigeria. 

The $25bn 7,000km project would be an extension of the existing offshore pipeline currently running from Lagos to Cotonou, Lomé, Tema and Takoradi; and is designed to extend further, covering Abidjan, Monrovia, Freetown, Conakry, Banjul, Dakar, Nouakchott, Tangiers in Morocco, and Cádiz in Spain. When completed in 25 years, it would be the world's longest offshore pipeline. 

 

Though Nigeria and Morocco have maintained a diplomatic relationship over the decades, the former's support for the sovereignty of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), which the latter has vehemently resisted, claiming that it's part of its territories, has kept the relationship quite cold, to say the least. 

 

Besides, Morocco had, in 1984, withdrawn from the then Organisation for African Unity (OAU), in protest against the organisation's decision to recognise the SADR as a member-state. It remained the only African country that wasn't a member of the continental body for thirty-three years until 2017 when its request for readmission to the body, which had changed its name to African Union (AU), was granted. 

 

However, even before its readmission, Morocco has been trying to improve its relationship with Nigeria in its increasingly desperate pursuit of alternative sources of gas supply away from Algeria, one of its important sources of gas yet its geopolitical rival and indeed next-door archenemy.  

 

Morocco has relied on Algerian gas for a tenth of its electricity production under the Maghreb-Europe gas pipeline arrangement that transports Algerian gas to Spain through Moroccan territories.

 

Though Algeria and Morocco share largely the same historical, ethnocultural, and religious backgrounds, their relationship has been characterised by tensions over border disputes, leading to armed skirmishes on many occasions and even a full-scale war in 1963. 

 

Also, Algeria's support for the Sahrawi people's struggle for independence has fueled the persistent tensions and fierce geopolitical power struggle between the two neighbours whose shared land borders have remained closed since 1994.  

 

Last year, Algeria cut off its already tension-ridden relationship with Morocco; and barely a month later, it followed it through with a decision to not renew the gas supply contract via the pipeline that goes through Morocco, thereby effectively ending its gas supply to Morocco, reassuring Spain, however, that it wouldn't be affected as it (Algeria) would instead use its direct offshore pipeline and shipping to maintain the supply to it. Since then, renewed tensions between Algeria and Morocco heightened, warning of an imminent war at some point. 

 

Obviously, Morocco had anticipated Algeria's decision to cut off the gas supply to it, which explains its determined pursuit of an alternative source from Nigeria. After all, the fact that it (Morocco) realises that the Nigeria-Morocco pipeline would only reach its territories at its final stage i.e., after 25 years, yet it remains determined to proceed anyway, suggests its loss of hope in the possibility of an improved relationship with Algeria that would guarantee her reliable and sustainable gas supply free of the nightmare of political blackmail. 

 

Interestingly, long before this project was proposed, Algeria had apparently anticipated it and hence wanted to undermine its feasibility and frustrate it all along by proposing the Trans-Saharan gas pipeline to transport Nigerian gas to Europe via the Republic of Niger and Algerian territories. It has since pushed for it that an agreement to that effect between it and Nigeria was, in fact, signed in 2002. It has equally tried to dissuade Nigeria from going ahead with the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline project. 

 

Yet, a similar geopolitical power struggle between Russia and the US-led NATO member-countries over Ukraine appears to equally cast a dark shadow over the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline project. 

 

Russia is the largest gas supplier to Europe; and since the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine, it has manipulated the supply to blackmail the NATO, which has responded to the invasion with, among other things, growing economic and political sanctions against Russia.

 

Since then, the NATO-member countries have been increasingly desperate, exploring alternative sources of gas supply to wean themselves off Russian gas and free themselves from its blackmail. 

 

Russia, on its part, realises that the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline has the potential to eventually transport Nigerian gas across Europe from Spain once the pipeline infrastructure is further extended, which would render Russian gas dispensable in the continent. 

 

To prevent that prospect, therefore, Russia has now offered to invest in the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline project as a tactical move to end up in a position to influence its operations when completed.  

 

While it remains to be seen how things would unfold, the Nigerian authorities seem hardly aware of the underlying geopolitics of the project, much less interested in identifying appropriate interests to pursue in the process. 

Ukraine: Russia’s quagmire

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When Russia’s President Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine a few months ago, he apparently never envisaged any hurdles tough enough to frustrate his mission of invading it within the time frame he had set. 

Though a former intelligence officer with the widely dreaded former USSR’s KGB, President Putin hardly considered underlying challenges with potential to undermine his adventure and turn Ukraine into a quagmire for Russia. And even if he had, he must have grossly underestimated their impacts. 

President Putin also never considered how Soviet ended up in the quagmire of Afghanistan, which it invaded in 1979 but was forced out of it disgraced 10 years later by largely US-supported Afghan resistance fighters. 

In his Ukraine adventure, President Putin must have been carried away by Russia’s disproportionately stronger military power, which he must have thought was all he needed to crush the Ukrainian army and invade the country. He had probably imagined a scenario similar to his 1999 invasion of Chechnya, which he subjected to sustained, merciless and simultaneous ground and airstrikes of disproportionate proportion, resulting in the elimination of thousands of people and almost total destruction of the country, especially its capital Grozny. He had equally probably thought that Russia's Euro-American rivals would react to his invasion of Ukraine in the same way they reacted to his invasion of Chechnya when they looked on while his forces were literally grinding Chechnya. 

Though the disparity between Russia and Ukraine in terms of military power is so disproportionate that the former can literally wipe out the latter in no time, it takes an all-out war for that to happen, which is absolutely unlikely not only between them but between other countries for that matter; because countries in the modern-day world are so interdependent and bound by intricately interwoven interests that guide their respective policies, actions and inactions. 

Therefore, in the unlikelihood of an all-out war between Russia and Ukraine more so between Russia and NATO, and even though Russia has maintained the upper hand, the likelihood of it achieving a decisive victory is increasingly becoming unrealizable. 

Russian forces have been grappling with stiff resistance from the Ukrainian army, which has managed to frustrate Russian troops’ attempts to advance into major cities in the country, thanks to the technologically superior Euro-American weapons being supplied to them. Interestingly, though largely defensive, the weapons have proven not only effective but have also exposed the relative weakness of the Russian military’s offensive equipment. 

Likewise, the apparently superior intelligence that the US and its European allies are sharing with Ukraine thanks to which it has been able to eliminate some senior Russian military officers including generals, has exposed Russia’s relatively inferior counterintelligence capabilities. 

Meanwhile, public resentment in Russia has been growing as the impacts of Euro-American economic sanctions worsen. Also, the number of Russian political, business and military elites being affected by targeted and potentially crippling sanctions grows. Besides, the general public, who had been assured by President Putin that the war won’t be long and that it would end with a decisive victory for Russia, are equally growing increasingly disappointed over the rate at which Russia is losing troops on the battlefield.

Obviously, President Putin, deep down, realises the potential implications of those underlying challenges on his administration. However, his characteristic ego may not allow him to consider a tactical and face-saving call-off of the invasion. Besides, as he runs out of military options to achieve a decisive victory, other “cards” he had counted on to blackmail his Euro-American rivals into concessions are losing their relevance. For instance, European countries are somehow increasingly securing alternative sources of gas supply with potentially enough quantity to enable them to dispense with Russian gas altogether. They are growing more confident that they would be able to achieve that in the nearest future to the extent that Germany, which is the largest European economy that has heavily relied on Russian gas supply, is now pushing for the European Union’s outright ban of Russian gas. The Union is already working on addressing the concerns of some few member-states before a unanimous decision to that effect is taken.  

Faced with that dilemma amid a growing international backlash against his Ukraine adventure, President Putin may resort to more desperate measures with a view to decisively ending the war with a Russian imposed political reality in Ukraine. He may, for instance, repeat the scorched earth approach he adopted to subdue Chechnya in 1999. The approach entails an outright and simultaneous deployment of a disproportionate number of air, ground and naval forces armed with a disproportionate amount of weapons and military equipment to overwhelm the Ukrainian military, massacre the population and cause massive and irreparable destruction of public infrastructure.   

However, this approach isn’t feasible under the current circumstances. Besides, in the event of its occurrence, Ukraine’s Euro-American allies would certainly provide it with appropriate defensive weapons to frustrate the attempt.  

Perhaps, the only feasible strategy for President Putin, which he is already reportedly pursuing, is to deprive Ukraine of its geographical attractiveness to NATO by cutting it off the coasts of the Black Sea, which NATO is hell-bent on expanding further into through Ukraine. Putin’s apparent determination to create as many enclaves of separatists within Ukraine as possible to struggle for recognition as sovereign states is reportedly aimed at achieving that strategy.  

Is the US-Saudi alliance crumbling? (ll)

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Crown Prince, Mohammad ibn Salman, President Joe Biden 

Despite President Joe Biden’s pre-election anti-Saudi stance, which he maintained all through his campaign as the then-Democratic Party’s Presidential candidate, many observers were deep down unconvinced that he would pursue measures that may damage the US-Saudi alliance.  

After all, during every pre-election season in the United States, opposition candidates would always accuse the incumbent President of hypocrisy over America's continued alliance with Saudi Arabia despite being, according to US standards, an absolute monarchy that contradicts whatever the US stands for. Yet, hardly anything changes in reality afterwards regardless of who wins the election. Perhaps, former US President, Donald Trump’s dramatic transformation from a relentless anti-Saudi presidential candidate to a Saudi-friendly president immediately afterwards was the most interesting instance in this regard.

However, there has been a departure from that trend in Washington since President Joe Biden’s coming into power. That was first observed shortly after he assumed office. It’s an established tradition in the White House that when the President has settled down within the first few weeks in office, he would phone up leaders of some selected US allies including Saudi Arabia. 

Such a phone call, which was supposed to be between President Biden and the Saudi King, Salman ibn Abdul-Aziz was called off, because Saudi Arabia delegated the Crown Prince Mohammad Ibn Salman to speak with Biden. 

Since his appointment as Crown Prince in 2017, Mohammad ibn Salman has acted as the de facto king of the Kingdom and has been effectively treated as such by leaders around the world. 

However, President Biden turned down the proposal to speak with ibn Salman, arguing that he would only speak with King Salman himself, for he is his counterpart, not ibn Salman. The Saudis insisted on ibn Salman and consequently, the arrangements for the phone call were called off altogether. 

President Biden also embarked on a sustained vilification campaign against the Crown Prince, ibn Salman, capitalizing on his alleged involvement in the murder of a Saudi dissident, Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018. And to further spite the Saudis, President Biden delisted the Iranian proxy Houthi militia group in Yemen from the US list of terrorist groups; stopped US intelligence support to the Saudi-led Arab coalition against the militia; suspended arms deals with Saudi Arabia and withdrew the US air defence system in the Kingdom. 

He also embarked on reviving the controversial Obama-engineered Iran nuclear deal, which would have effectively enabled Iran to be a recognised nuclear power after only 10 years had the deal not been rendered ineffective by Trump’s subsequent withdrawal of the US from it. 

Interestingly, Biden rightly realises that Iran’s nuclear ambition never poses any threat to the West or even Israel for that matter, after all. He realises that Iran only pursues nuclear in the context of its pursuit of geopolitical dominance at the expense of, particularly, Saudi Arabia, which is its ultimate target all along. 

Anyway, on its part, Saudi Arabia has quietly maintained its moves in US Congress and the White House to undermine Biden’s increasingly hostile stance against it. Besides, the implications of the Russia-Ukraine war on global crude oil supply have presented the Kingdom with an opportunity to blackmail the US into concessions.   

Since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, crude oil prices have gone up, causing persistent rises in energy prices in the United States thereby further worsening its already worst inflation in 40 years. Consequently, public frustration has been rising as prices of gasoline, food, goods and services continue to rise in the country. 

Of course, President Biden and indeed his Democratic Party cannot afford to underestimate the political implications of the persistence of this situation, especially with the approach of midterm elections in November. 

Ordinarily, in a situation like this, the United States would request Saudi Arabia and/or the largely Saudi-influenced OPEC to increase the oil supply to arrest the rising prices. However, the situation this time around persists against the backdrop of strained relations between the two countries. 

The US has, through various channels and at various levels, reached out to the Saudis, requesting them to increase the supply but to no avail as the Saudis have ignored the requests. It got to a point where President Biden himself swallowed his pride and requested to phone up Mohammad ibn Salman who turned down the request. 

Though since the eruption of the Russia-Ukraine war and its attendant surge in oil prices, Saudi Arabia has indeed increased the supply albeit irregularly, its effect on energy prices in the United States has remained insignificant and inconsistent, because the increase has been disproportionately and tactically insignificant. 

While the almost eighty-year-old US-Saudi alliance is steadily crumbling, it may not end up in an open-ended faceoff between the two countries. Obviously, Saudi Arabia wants to keep the US an important but not indispensable ally. That is quite obvious from its increasingly determined pursuit of sustainable industrialization and its growing strategic economic and military ties with China and Russia with its potential to change the geopolitical power equation in the region and beyond.    

Is the US-Saudi alliance crumbling? (1)

(Link on Daily Trust)

King Abdul-Azeez Al Saud and President Franklin Roosevelt

To comprehend the dimensions and dynamics of the increasingly deteriorating Saudi-US alliance and its implications on both countries, the Middle East and the world at large, it’s important to look at the alliance against the backdrop of its historical and strategic contexts.  

It all started in early 1945 towards the end of World War ll amid worries of a looming shortage of crude oil supply badly needed for post-war reconstruction and economic recovery around the world. 

The United States was busy capitalizing on the prevailing circumstances to influence the formation process of the post-war global political and economic order. The United Nations (UN) was formally founded barely a month after the end of the war. The United States was increasingly desperate for a reliable source of uninterrupted oil supply for its domestic consumption and in pursuit of the economic aspect of its global ambition. 

Meanwhile, a massive crude oil reserve with proven potential to be the world’s largest source of oil had been discovered in the then only thirteen-year-old Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which was equally in a dare need of a strategic partner with appropriate technological capabilities to develop and operate the oil sector, and indeed oversee the capacity development of generations of Saudis in various relevant engineering and technical fields. 

Also, considering the circumstances through which the Kingdom came into existence, it was expecting a partner with military capabilities strong and advanced enough to ensure the survival of the Kingdom against any foreign aggression or subversive activities from within. 

Preliminary contacts in that regard were established, which culminated in the February 1945 historic meeting on an American naval ship in the Suez Canal between the then US President, Franklin Roosevelt and the founder of Saudi Arabia, King Abdul-Azeez ibn AbdurRahman Al Saud. 

Since then the US secured access to the world’s largest source of crude oil on highly favourable purchase terms, which also opened the Saudi market for US corporations and manufacturers, marking the beginning of the dominance of American-made products in Saudi Arabia. In return, the US has, among other things, been committed to developing the Kingdom’s defence and intelligence capabilities, and indeed supporting it diplomatically in regional and international politics. 

Over the decades, the alliance has transcended administration and reign levels in Washington and Riyadh respectively, to establishment levels in both countries. Likewise, top business and political elites in both countries have maintained networks of friendship in each other’s country. 

The first major faceoff between the countries was in 1973 when the then Saudi King, Faisal ibn AbdulAzeez led Arab members of the OPEC into imposing an oil embargo on the US and some other western countries, in protest of, particularly, the US continued support of Israel in its war with Arabs. The embargo caused the worst energy crisis in the US since World War ll. The faceoff deteriorated to the extent that the then US President, Richard Nixon considered invading Saudi, Kuwait and UAE oilfields.  

The current deterioration in the US-Saudi relations is a resumption of what had begun during the Barack Obama administration. Though the relations were largely normalized during the Trump administration only to take a nosedive with the coming of President Joe Biden into power.

As a notoriously radical liberal, Barack Obama, assisted by particularly the then Vice-President Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, the then US Secretary of State and Susan Rice, the then US Ambassador to the United Nations and later US National Security Adviser, vigorously pursued radical political changes across the Middle East and North Africa during the so-called Arab Spring in 2011. The chaos it unleashed, which swept away regimes, destabilized many and indeed threatened the continued existence of all left Saudi Arabia utterly disappointed with the Obama administration.   

The Obama administration, on its part, was hugely frustrated by the Saudi’s resolute resistance against the “spring”, which averted Syria-like situations in the Gulf region. The then US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was particularly frustrated when she failed to dissuade Saudi Arabia from sending troops to neighbouring Bahrain to prevent looming chaos in the name of protests. In one of her declassified emails, Hillary Clinton lamented that “I warned Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal against sending the Peninsula Shield forces to Bahrain in 2011 because this might cause a crisis between the US and Saudi Arabia, but Prince Saud hung up the phone in my face, and forces were sent to Bahrain for its protection.” 

Now, having come into power as President, Joe Biden was/is, of course, more frustrated than Hillary. That’s why no sooner had he assumed office than he embarked on policies and measures that undermine the longstanding US-Saudi alliance. He even vowed to make a pariah out of the Kingdom. 

On its part, Saudi Arabia has since resorted to fighting back largely from within the US political establishment itself, using lobbying to blackmail Biden through members of the opposition Conservative Party and even his Democratic Party, for that matter. 

In the conclusion, I will, God willing, look at how either country plays its tactics, and indeed how it seeks to blackmail the other into submission.     To be concluded

As Rainbow resumes...

(Link on Daily Trust)

This piece marks the resumption of this column after more than a ten-week unannounced break necessitated by travels and other distracting schedules too successive to accommodate writing a newspaper article. It has been the longest break since the launch of this column more than ten years ago, though it was only titled Rainbow last year.  

I appreciate the understanding of those who, all through, looked forward to my humble thoughts on some interesting developments on the global stage. Many reached out wondering about my prolonged inactivity in both print and electronic media. My appreciation also goes to Daily Trust’s Editor-in-Chief and others who checked on me.

Though, writing and, of course, maintaining a regular newspaper column, more so weekly, is fulfilling, it’s equally demanding. It’s fulfilling in the sense that one derives the fulfilment of literally relieving one’s mind of some nagging thoughts over some developments, events or issues one addresses regardless of who agrees or disagrees with one. Once one feels strongly about something, a persistently nagging urge to write it sets in especially when one observes the need for an alternative perspective. 

That’s also particularly demanding when one is expected to write on a regular basis to maintain a column. It’s even more demanding when one isn’t in a particularly enabling field e.g. journalism, for, in this case, one has to always struggle to meet the deadline for sending in one’s piece while still constantly obsessed with what to write about next amid other unrelated schedules. At this juncture, I must appreciate the editor for bearing with me as I mostly manage to send in my piece quite late. 

Yet, maintaining the column has been fulfilling anyway; the associated pressure, being self-induced, has been exciting. That’s what happens when one is driven by a sheer passion to do things voluntarily. The like-minded would certainly relate more. 

Now, though a lot of interesting developments especially on the international scene have occurred over the break, I would, God willing, revisit the most relevant of them in due course to highlight their underlying politics, geopolitical, economic and strategic implications. 

The ongoing Russia-Ukraine war along with its attendant US-led NATO and Russia geopolitical power struggle and its economic and political implications on the global stage would remain of particular interest to this column. After all, my last piece was at the height of the tensions between the two countries a few days before it escalated into a full-scale war.

In a broader context, Rainbow would equally be addressing instances of Russia’s assertive pursuit of global political influence that suggests its determination to grow influential enough to rival the US. 

Rainbow would similarly be looking at instances of China’s resolve to equally grow strong enough militarily to rival the US having already risen to become the world’s second-largest economy after the US, and is, in fact, expected to overtake it.

Also, as the world consequently and steadily transforms from unipolar, where the US has practically enjoyed unrivalled global influence since the collapse of the former USSR in 1991, into a multipolar world, Rainbow would be examining the multifaceted implications of that transformation in international politics.  

Rainbow would also be looking at the lingering negotiations between some major western powers and Iran over the latter’s nuclear program to examine the dilemma behind President Biden's failure to revive the deal, which was rendered effectively ineffective by his predecessor Donald Trump following his withdrawal from it. 

Another interesting development that Rainbow would be examining is Turkish President Erdoğan’s persistent entreaties to pacify and restore normal ties with the countries he  fell out with in, the Middle East e.g. the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and even Israel.

Equally interesting is the unprecedented deterioration in the almost eighty-year-old US-Saudi alliance under the current administration in Washington and reigning reign in Riyadh. Rainbow would be addressing the development by tracing its genesis and highlighting the interests involved and its geopolitical implications in the region and economic impacts beyond. 

Of course, the decades-old Palestinian-Israel conflict and its complex impacts in the Middle East and indeed international politics would always remain a matter of major interest to Rainbow, for, after all, it’s the “mother” of all crises in the region. 

As usual also, Rainbow would also be analyzing other global and geopolitical issues to identify the underlying interests of the countries involved and look at how each country plays its politics in pursuit of its interests.

The power politics behind Russia-Ukraine tensions

(Link on DailyTrust)

As the heightened tension on the Russia-Ukraine border subsides with Russia’s gradual albeit partial withdrawal of its combat-ready troops, the power politics behind the whole crisis continues to unfold. 

Over the past several weeks, Russia’s massive military buildup towards the border triggered fear across major Western capitals of its looming invasion of Ukraine. The hallmarks of impending war were all over the place. The global media was awash with frightening analyses warning of a possible confrontation. Many countries advised their citizens living in Ukraine to either leave or remain on the alert, while other countries advised would-be travellers to reconsider travelling there.

Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts went into high gear to prevent further escalation and douse the attendant tensions. Politicians and diplomats in Washington, Paris, Berlin and other major Western capitals were deeply absorbed in frantic efforts in that regard. 

Also, though all along Ukraine has maintained its “readiness” to defend itself in the face of Russian aggression, that’s rightly seen as a mere face-saving tactic. After all, its officials and diplomats were out there literally begging for de-escalation. At the height of the tensions, Ukraine’s ambassador to Britain, Vadym Prystaiko suggested that, for the sake of peace, his country may reconsider its ambition to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), which Russia is hell-bent on preventing at any cost; though the ambassador subsequently retracted the remarks, apparently under pressure.  

Interestingly, however, Russia actually never had any intention of invading Ukraine, in the first place, after all. President Putin has only resorted to playing power politics that way to blackmail both Ukraine and NATO into abandoning the planned inclusion of the former in the latter. The US and its NATO allies were already aware of that, yet they feigned tactical naivety while exaggeratedly warning of an impending Russian invasion of Ukraine to portray the former as a belligerent country hell-bent on bullying the weaker countries. 

Anyway, since coming into power two decades ago, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has been increasingly committed to reviving and assuming the role of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR), which collapsed in 1991; a development that resulted in the spring of 15 sovereign countries, including Russia, in its place. 

Russia somehow ended up with the largest territorial share and the Soviet’s military arsenal, which made it the largest country on earth and the second largest military power in the world. 

The former Soviet Union had led a NATO rival alliance known as The Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) amid raging geopolitical and global power struggle (Cold War) between the US-led West and its allies, on the one hand, and the Soviet-led East and its allies, on the other. 

However, amid worsening turmoil and towards the Soviet’s eventual breakup, WTO was dissolved in 1990 in the wake of the collapse of the Berlin Wall that signalled the reunification of the Soviet-inclined socialist East Germany and the US-inclined capitalist West Germany, which gave rise to the Republic of Germany. 

The collapse of the Soviet Union gave NATO a free hand to expand not only to the former Soviet’s traditional sphere of influence i.e. Central and Eastern Europe where more than 10 countries have joined but also to the former Soviet republics as well, i.e. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Georgia, Ukraine, and Bosnia and Herzegovina have also been recognized as aspiring members, which means their inclusion is just a matter of time. 

President Putin rightly considers NATO’s continued expansion to Eastern Europe a strategy aimed at sabotaging Russia’s geopolitical influence in the region and beyond. NATO is worried about Putin’s increasingly growing geopolitical and global influence at the expense of its members. Though many countries in the region have already joined NATO, President Putin has been committed to reversing the trend and frustrating further inclusions. In that regard, he is particularly interested in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus for their particular significance to Russia’s strategic interests.  

Though Putin may not invade Ukraine, he isn’t likely to abandon his plan to impose a Russia-influenced political reality in the country that would frustrate the insistence of the country’s current Western-influenced political elites to join the organisation. 

NATO, including the United States and, of course, Ukraine live with the fact that tackling Russia militarily was/is never an option, and won’t be in the foreseeable future, either. Russia isn’t only disproportionately stronger than Ukraine, but, being the second-largest military power on earth, is also too strong to be tackled even by the United States and the other NATO members combined. A full-scale war between Russia and, say, the US or any equally major military wouldn’t only culminate in the annihilation of the warring parties but would equally cause the annihilation of most, if not the entire, world, for that matter.  

Likewise, even economic sanctions won’t work in this regard, because major European economies including Germany, which is the largest depend largely on Russian gas. Besides, about 70 per cent of foreign investments in Russia are owned by some NATO members. Other mutual economic interests equally explain the counterproductive effects of full-scale economic sanctions against Russia on Europe’s major economies as well.  

How Russia overshadows France in Africa

(Link on Daily Trust)

France’s hitherto undisputed influence in Africa is being increasingly overshadowed by Russia’s growing influence across the continent. 

Over the decades, Africa has been largely a French exclusive sphere of influence under the longstanding tacit understanding amongst the major world powers to share most of the rest of the world as spheres of influence among themselves.

While other major powers exercise influence over their respective spheres quite tactfully, France exercises it in Africa in a quite domineering way, thereby overshadowing countries like South Africa and Nigeria; and indeed rendering them bereft of continental influence befitting their weight in the continent. 

Moreover, French activities in the continent have always been enmeshed in one controversy or another. From particularly blatant exploitation to subversive activities against many governments including its supposed allies, France is largely viewed in the continent as a bully too strong to be tamed by its victims, and too influential to be challenged by its fellow superpowers whose interests are, after all, never affected anyway. Besides, France generally effectively represents Western interests in the continent. 

French forces are spread across many countries in the continent supposedly on a mission to fight terrorism and other forms of organized crime. There are also many French-linked “humanitarian organizations” ostensibly providing humanitarian services to the displaced. However, there has always been a quite credible suspicion of their involvement in the perpetuation of insecurity and instability amid which they perpetuate the systematic plunder of the countries’ mineral resources. 

Likewise, many incidents of government overthrow and/or assassination of politicians opposed to French activities in their countries have been linked to Paris. Many instances of the rise and reign of governments and political elites committed to doing the French biddings at the expense of their respective countries have been equally linked to successive French governments. 

France’s purported pursuit of terrorists in many African countries has always been the pretext on which it justifies the continued stay and deployment of its forces and intelligence units. 

Meanwhile, the international community continue to turn a blind eye to the largely credible allegations against French activities in those countries whose individual and collective diplomatic weight, if any, remains too insignificant to arouse the conscience of the international community, let alone prompt appropriate actions. Their growing tendency of turning to Russia is, therefore, quite understandable. 

Russia has what it takes in terms of diplomatic weight and, of course, military and intelligence capabilities to not only tackle terrorist groups but also expose French activities in the region. The affected governments capitalise on the persistent tensions between Russia, on the one hand, and Euro-American countries, on the other, to involve the former in the situation to introduce a balance to the power equation. 

The ongoing face-off between France and Mali rages in that context. The authorities in Mali advised the French ambassador in Bamako to leave. Anti-France sentiment has equally been raising in the country and beyond amid growing suspicion over French activities and their suspected impact on security and stability across the region. 

Anyway, realistically speaking, French presence in those countries is too established to be significantly undermined in the foreseeable future by the advent of Russia on the scene. After all, apparently for tactical reasons, Russia is still reluctant to officially confirm its growing involvement there. Also, though its military-related pacts with African countries are growing, it still largely operates through its private military company Wagner whose mercenaries are increasingly active in Africa and beyond on behalf of Moscow. 

Interestingly, Wagner mercenaries operate also in Nigeria, according to a Euronews report, which suggests that they are out there since at least last year assisting the Nigerian authorities in the fight against Boko-Haram and ISWAP terrorists in the North-East. 

In any case, just like France and other major powers, Russia is equally only pursuing its own economic and strategic interests in its growing involvement in different countries around the world. In its growing African adventure, in particular, it simply wants to dislodge France in the plunder of the countries’ resources and to indeed outmanoeuvre it in influence in the region. On their part, the governments partnering with it aren’t unaware of that fact; they only consider Russia a lesser evil that may not end up as treacherous and exploitative as France anyway. 

Meanwhile, France and Euro-American countries are increasingly worried, while Russia remains hell-bent on further expansion at their expense. The struggle can be better understood when viewed against the backdrop of the raging struggle for influence between the two parties. 

The affected African countries cannot afford to lose either party; they should act smartly enough to secure the maximum benefit at the minimum cost from both. 

In the absence of deterrence

(Link on Daily Trust)

Despite the public outrage provoked by the kidnapping and subsequent murder of a little girl in Kano recently, other would-be child kidnappers are certainly lurking out there determined to follow through on their plots in the absence of appropriate deterrence.

Meanwhile, correctional facilities across the country are literally overflowed with duly condemned murderers benefitting from the governors' inexcusable reluctance to sign their execution warrants. There are equally many easily convictable murderers benefitting from bureaucratic, legal and judicial foot-dragging that has stalled proceedings on their cases. Besides, as usual, many of them would end up somehow released on “technical”, “humanitarian” or other purported grounds. Some are even recognized as “repentant” to end up being effectively rewarded under various costly but hardly productive rehabilitation initiatives.

Yet, even though the link between the absence of appropriate deterrence and the growing prevalence of capital crimes against individuals and communities, is unmistakable, it remains largely ignored. 

Kidnapping and murder incidents have become so prevalent that only incidents with particularly outrageous circumstances or those involving advantaged persons attract public outrage, which, in turn, prompts a semblance of momentary concern on the part of those in power who express “shock” and “commitment” to preventing a recurrence. 

People live, or rather languish, in perpetual fear; and have resigned themselves to fate praying silently that a would-be kidnapper lurking out there doesn’t develop an interest in them or their relatives. In most cases, relatives of kidnapped persons pay the ransom quietly to get their kidnapped loved ones back, for they rightly lack confidence in the supposed commitment and capacity of the authorities to rescue them. After all, the instances where the authorities successfully rescued kidnapped persons without paying ransom are, if any, extremely few.   

On their part, the ransomed are left with permanent trauma from their ordeals most of which are too traumatic and indeed too humiliating to be shared with anybody. Many, for instance, were serially and constantly raped by their kidnappers. Most of the few who share their ordeals publicly are either too naïve to realise its associated social implications or are simply too devastated to bother. A foreign-based Nigerian woman (probably US-based) who was kidnapped along with members of her family while on a visit to Nigeria, was too devastated to keep her ordeal to herself and her close relatives. After going back to her base following their release after paying the ransom, she went on a viral video in an agonizing tone to share her rape ordeal at the hands of their kidnappers in Nigeria.

Children are particularly vulnerable to kidnapping and all sorts of abuse at the hands of non-strangers due to child neglect particularly prevalent in the Hausa-Fulani communities, which explains the relative ease with which their children are abused, exploited and kidnapped for ransom or rituals. 

The sight of unaccompanied, unattended, malnourished, barely clothed, and unkempt kids some as young as four and even younger roaming the streets and alleyways in a typical Hausa-Fulani community, is particularly distressing. Even many supposedly caring parents inadvertently expose their underage kids to avoidable harm by sending them to school or on an errand unaccompanied. 

Also, the culture of blindly trusting kids with anybody simply because he is a relative, neighbour or acquaintance explain the high rate of sexual molestation and other forms of child abuse against kids in those communities. Reported and unreported cases of child abuse involving cousins, uncles, domestic workers, neighbourhood shop owners, and other supposedly trusted acquaintances are quite prevalent in those communities. The real picture may not be easily clear as most cases end up suppressed by the very guardians or relatives of the victims on the pretext of protecting the victims from the social implications, especially stigma.

Though tackling crimes, especially capital crimes, necessarily entails a compressive approach that addresses all relevant things accordingly, appropriate deterrence remains the most effective mechanism to deter would-be criminals. 

Appropriate deterrence against capital crimes is dispensed only when capital punishment is executed against convicted and condemned criminals. To achieve that maximally, wherever capital punishment is applied, it’s either carried out publicly or covered widely in the media. In some countries, when a capital crime provokes widespread public outrage like the recent one in Kano, the trial would be given priority in terms of scheduling of proceedings to conclude it as soon as possible. Also, the execution wouldn’t take long. And to maximise the deterrence effect, some other condemned criminals waiting for their execution would be executed along with the criminal involved in the outrageous crime.

It’s an unexplainable irony that capital punishment is effectively suspended in a country like Nigeria despite being one of the worst crime-ridden countries in the world. This irony per se is enough to explain why the country is not taken seriously on the global stage.  

Politics of nuclear pursuit

(Link on Daily Trust)

The protracted nuclear negotiations in Austria’s capital Vienna to revive the controversial 2015 nuclear deal between Iran, on the one hand, and the US, France, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and Germany, on the other, continue amid mixed sentiments of hope and frustration. 

The tacitly Iran-friendly former US President Barack Obama was the influence behind the largely secretive deal, which analysts believe would effectively only delay Iran’s nuclear arms acquisition by only a decade after which it would be free to acquire it. However, Obama’s successor, Donald Trump kicked against it and withdrew the US from it, thereby rendering it effectively dysfunctional. 

Since he came into power, the current US President Joe Biden has been committed to reviving the deal in which he had personally played a major role as the then vice-president. All along he has been so eager to revive it that he appointed some of its key architects to various sensitive positions relevant to the US foreign policy and the deal. He, for instance, appointed Wendy Ruth Sherman and Jake Sullivan, key negotiators for the deal, as the US Deputy Secretary of State and the National Security Adviser respectively. Also, Susan Rice, the US National Security Adviser under the Obama administration, and Antony Blinken, the then Deputy Secretary of State were equally appointed the Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council and the US Secretary of State respectively.

Now, notwithstanding the outcome of the Vienna negotiations, the emergence of a nuclear-possessing Iran is just a matter of time. I for one, in fact, believe that Iran has already acquired a nuclear weapon. After all, nuclear technology is no longer rocket science. Iran is only engaged in the negotiations to eventually get the world powers to come to terms with it as a nuclear-weapon state and interact with her accordingly to escape the sanctions and other restrictions associated with posseting it defiantly. 

The world powers equally realised that. The supposed opposition of the United States and its western allies against Iran’s nuclear pursuit is for mere internal, geopolitical and international political considerations. Contrary to their official stance, the West and Israel never consider a nuclear-possessing Iran a threat to them after all, for they deep down know the exact extent and nature of the ambition it seeks to serve with the acquisition of nuclear arms. 

A typical casual observer may find it hard to comprehend the fact that apart from Iran itself, Israeli and the US politicians are the biggest beneficiaries of the purported Iran-Israel enmity and, by implication, the issue of Iran’s nuclear pursuit. 

Since its transformation into a Shiite theocracy following the 1979 revolution, Iran has ridden on the wave of the popular anti-Israeli sentiment across the Muslim world in pursuit of geopolitical influence in the Middle East and across the Muslim world. It has always touted its purported commitment to liberating Al-Quds and the Palestinians from the Israeli occupation and indeed wiping Israel off the world, which informed the popular wish and eagerness among the gullible to see her possess nuclear weapons.

Whereas, Iran only realises the underlying political value of nuclear arms in international politics. It realises the fact that, regardless of the prevailing rhetoric that glorifies modern civilization, a country’s ability to assert its geopolitical or global influence is still largely determined by its real or perceived amount and destructive capacity of its nuclear arsenal. Because in addition to its deterrent effect against any threat or aggression with a similar weapon, a nuclear weapon equally prevents blackmail by an aggressor or extortion by a supposed ally. 

Interestingly, the situation between North Korea and the US regional allies e.g. Japan and South Korea is a case study par excellence in this regard. Though the latter are super-rich developed countries, they have been under persistent threat from the economically struggling but nuclear-possessing North Korea, on the one hand, and the extortion of the United States, on the pretext of protecting them, on the other.

There are currently nine nuclear-weapon states in the world i.e. the United States, Russia, France, China, United Kingdom, Israel, Pakistan, India and North Korea. However, while there are probably other countries with nuclear weapons, which wouldn’t want to be identified for various tactical reasons, there are certainly many others that possess the technology yet haven’t manufactured one e.g. Japan and Germany.  

Anyway, Iran’s nuclear pursuit is only in furtherance of its geopolitical ambition at the expense of its Arab neighbours. Also, though Israeli politicians realise that their Iranian counterparts are only manipulating popular sentiments and emotions for political goals, yet they (Israeli politicians) constantly and exaggeratingly cite Iran’s constant “threat” against Israel to subsequently reassure the frightened Israeli electorate that they are equal to the task of protecting Israel and tackling Iran. That way they also attract more and more international sympathy, solidarity and diplomatic support for Israel on the global stage.

Likewise, in the United States where pro-Israeli sentiment is particularly deep-rooted, no politician can afford to show indifference let alone support Iran’s nuclear pursuit, for it would simply mean the end of his political ambition. This is even though no one out there actually believes that Iran poses an existential threat to Israel.