Niranjan Shankar
@NiranjanShan13
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Non-Resident Scholar @MiddleEastInst | Foreign Policy, Tech/Cyber, Great Power Rivalry | Words @HooverInst @DCExaminer @TheNatlInterest @Quillette etc. | 🇺🇲🌎
Joined August 2013
"To succeed in its broader rivalry against China, Washington cannot 'pivot to Asia' at the expense of a robust, US-led Middle Eastern order.". My first for the @HooverInst on why the US can't neglect China's inroads in the Greater Middle East : 🧵.(1/20).
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The argument that Israel is "dragging" the US into Middle East conflicts and Biden has "lost control" of Netanyahu is a completely inverted assessment both of the drivers of the current conflict and the actual failures of US policy. TLDR it's Iran: and US failure of deterrence 1/.
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Israel is almost single handedly reversing the regional balance of power towards itself and moderate US Arab / Gulf partners. It has decapitated Hezbollah’s leadership and destroyed a significant component of its missile arsenal, and therefore also put Tehran on the defensive. 2/.
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When the US pressures its allies and partners more than its enemies, it diminishes its own influence, fails to secure diplomacy and peace, and teaches its allies to take the initiative on their own and bypass Washington to address regional threats. End/.
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In other words, Israel (though partially to blame for Hamas's rise) is effectively bearing the brunt and cleaning up years of US appeasement towards Iran and misguided "pariah" treatment of partners out of desperation to secure a nuclear agreement that expands Iran's malign 3/.
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non-nuclear activities and at best only partially addresses the nuclear threat. Netanyahu and most of ISR's defense establishment have realized that while the US is a crucial partner, they have to increasingly take matters into their own hands as the Biden admin is unreliable 4/.
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Another recent lesson was US public criticism of ISR's plan to go into Rafah, and significantly delaying the operation. In reality, the operation overall turned out to be a success with major tunnel networks discovered / destroyed, over 100,000 civilians evacuated, and almost 6/.
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when it comes to curbing the Iranian threat. As @Doranimated states in a recent discussion with @zriboua, Iran's strategy relies on the assumption that the US will restrain ISR, allowing Iran to get away with dealing blows without facing consequences 5/
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all Hamas battalions destroyed and dismantled - hence Israel's recent confidence with taking matters into their own hands. Similarly, Arab / Gulf countries started hedging towards China and striking diplomatic rapprochements with Iran out of fears of US disengagement and 7/.
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unreliability, thus feeling compelled to circumvent Washington to address their genuine security needs: While still a different course of action than Israel's military efforts against Iran and its proxies, the lesson is effectively the same: 8/.
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@KareemRifai "I don't trust textbooks that have been fact-checked by historians and gone through an editing and publishing process - I prefer getting my information from weird, unverified websites with abysmal HTML formatting and 'independent journalists'".
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@ajamubaraka The global south is suffering immensely due to the wheat and grain shortages caused by Russia's belligerence, blocking of ports, and burning of fields. Western nations stepped in with financial assistance. Stop using south-south "solidarity" to advance a pro-Russian narrative.
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@DefenceU Russia's decisions to renew brutal tactics in Ukraine that it utilized in Chechnya and Syria was one of many major strategic miscalculations that it made in the ongoing war. It has hardened Ukrainian resolve and has made Western calls for "diplomacy" seem silly and futile.
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Ironically the US is safest place for Marxists in the world. You'll find plenty of fellow Marxian theory enthusiasts & you'll never be persecuted for your beliefs and advocacy over there. All that while enjoying the highest wages in the world. Land of freedom for a reason.
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@CKikila @DavidSacks Exactly! The fact that the center-left and center-right are united against Putin's invasion is very reassuring - a breath of fresh air in such a polarizing era. Meanwhile.
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@jacobin Here's what ignoring / glossing over the darker side of something actually looks like:
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@julia_kanin Imagine if anti-war activists looked at this in 2003, but instead of criticizing the Iraq War, they deflected by pointing to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and engaging in whataboutisms. That is essentially what you're doing right now.
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No, the Iraq War was not about "Black Gold" - i.e oil. Looking at this purely from a political economy lens, and ignoring the history of U.S. policy towards Iraq, as well as broader ideological shifts in USFP at the time, is highly misleading.🧵(1/15).
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It's almost as if totalitarian systems use rigged democratic procedures to give a false impression of legitimacy and popular support!.
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💯. Many observers have argued that 🇮🇱's military campaign is separate from and even inimical to, a political solution. They're wrong. As ongoing, unfolding events are making clear, a decisive military victory is crucial for establishing a favorable postwar "day after scenario.🧵.
Israel has destroyed the leadership of Hamas and Hezbollah. The scale of this victory is difficult to overstate and removes each organization as a strategic threat, at least in the medium term. Sinwar's death also opens diplomatic opportunities for the region. Certainly,.
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"The profound difference in the quality of life on opposing sides of the 38th parallel today rebukes portrayals of the US-led intervention in Korea as immoral or futile.". My latest for @Quillette on how leftists and anti-imperialists misremember the Korean War: 🧵 (1/16).
Misremembering the Korean War | @NiranjanShan13 .
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@mtracey Weakening Russia's ability to conquer its neighbors and extinguish democratic experiments in Eastern Europe is an important step towards preserving democracy and territorial integrity.
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"Trying to make Saudi Arabia a 'pariah' ultimately failed the first time; it won’t work a second time, either.". My first piece for @dcexaminer about the recent OPEC+ decision and the potential US response 🧵 (1/13): .
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"China on its own is not strong enough. So how could China pose such a threat to our interests? By dominating Asia. If Beijing could dominate Asia, it would be in a very strong position to dominate the the world—and us.".Great read by @ElbridgeColby .
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Apparently Mearsheimer didn't discredit himself enough with his repeated bad takes on Russia/Ukraine/NATO since 2022, so he needed to chime in about how Israel is in "deep trouble" and could "fall" barely a day after Israel gave Iran and its proxies yet another solid thrashing /
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@asatarbair Old joke from the USSR - A man walks into a shop. He asks the clerk, “You don’t have any meat?” The clerk says, “No, here we don’t have any fish. The shop that doesn’t have any meat is across the street.”.
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@JesseTheTov @Aaron_Good_ @dbessner Modern day "anti-imperialism" in a nutshell. Denying everyone agency except the United States.
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The fact that the IDF is increasingly relying on ground forces over airstrikes despite the enormous risk it puts soldiers at in an urban environment shows that they are not in fact "trigger happy.".
@joestieb You can shout all you want man. The clear implication of this whole incident is that the IDF is trigger happy and almost certainly shoots civilians indiscriminately.
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If the US actually cares about promoting reform in KSA it should find common opportunities to aid MBS's current modernization and social liberalization campaign rather than criticizing it left and right and solely focusing solely on its less pleasant aspects (1/2).
This is really the head of our State Department?.What has happened to this country?
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@manicpixiehack The fact that Egypt, KSA, and other partners in ME aren't labeled as democracies completely undermines his insinuation that we arbitrarily brand all our allies as "democratic.".
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The US Marines + international peacekeeping forces helped evacuate over 6000 Palestinian refugees, and Hezbollah rewarded them with a suicide bombing that killed almost 250 soldiers. And also, it was the US withdrawal from Beirut (and later Somalia in 1993) that inspired 9/11.
Never forget that it was the destruction of Beirut by Israel in 1982 that Bin Laden would later claim inspired his attack on the Twin Towers in 2001. There is such a thing as blowback. And yes, violence begets violence, terror producers more terror.
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@WheatPM ISIS was a paramount security concern, but where people go wrong is "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" logic - thinking that ISIS somehow made Iran/Assad/Russia "partners" - when in reality much of their actions exacerbated the jihadist threat & radicalization of the oppositon.
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The irony is if Tulsi was alive during the WW2 era, she'd be the one calling for appeasement of and "diplomacy" with Hitler and the Axis powers.
Tulsi Gabbard says Biden, Democrats share same ‘core principles' as Hitler
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Many interpreted Saudi Arabia's OPEC+ announcements last year as MBS "siding" with Putin in the war against Ukraine. But KSA's vote in favor of the recent UN resolution is yet another case in point demonstrating otherwise.
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@JacobALinker Even when Arafat said it in his speeches he almost immediately walked it back after backlash and outrage among other Palestinian leaders.
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@NoamKissinger "Accomplishing nothing" = failing to crack down on political opponents and consolidate a significant amount of political power - which is the entire point.
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Saying that Putin doesn't have imperial ambitions because he is critical of the USSR is such a poor reading of history - one of his main grievances against Lenin and the Bolsheviks was that they partly destroyed the Russian empire by making Ukraine a separate Soviet republic.
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@vasabjit_b Though it hasn't entirely decoupled from China, India also has criticized Chinese expansion in region via BRI, particularly Pakistan Belt Corridor, and voiced concern about Beijing’s naval "string of pearls." Important strategic partner for the US as tensions with China intensify.
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@KareemRifai I went knee deep in Tankie Twitter this weekend and the kind of stuff they believe is truly alarming.
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@racatiwood @russophileLs It's because "realists" often claim to be more sensible and aware, and less naive, of how the world actually works. But when you dig deeper into their views on regional issues such as Russia-Ukraine, Arab Spring, etc, you start to see the shortcomings of "theoretical" approaches.
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Moreover, I don't think there's any convincing evidence that oil companies were vociferously advocating for toppling Saddam - throughout the 1990s, their main lobbying was for lifting sanctions, which for the most part went unheeded by US administrations. (3/15).
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@Aaron_Good_ @dbessner @dbessner question - do you really think the "Arab Spring wars" - many of which unseated pro-Western strongmen such as Mubarak and Ben Ali - were the result of the "Western imperialistic capitalist oligarchy"?
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This is exactly what @zriboua had been presciently calling out, for well over 3 years before current events unfolded.
The collapse of the Assad regime is for Russia a far worse catastrophe than most realize. It will take me many posts and you will see more and more like this coming the coming days and weeks. Here, I will show the implications on Africa. As it is well known, one of Russia's
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Absurd to still see tankies suggesting a widespread "nostalgia" for Communism. Central and Eastern European states have no doubt faced numerous challenges after the collapse and disintegration of the USSR, but the overall picture is still encouraging.
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@KareemRifai Should have thrown in something about "Snowden," "Assange," or the "deep state" for a nice cherry on top.
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@EverydayWarren A comparison of a US world order to the alternatives, explosion of the number of democracies world, steep decline of the share of the world population living in poverty since 1950, and diffusion of tech innovation and medical advances all confirm this.
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For instance, Chinese and Russian firms were largely the winners in several rounds of Iraqi oil auctions (which, again ironically, the article admits). There's little evidence that Iraqi govt was subservient to the U.S. despite military presence. (7/15).
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Firstly, the U.S. had several opportunities to overthrow Saddam in the 1990s (after Desert Storm), even as late as 1998 with Desert Fox and subsequent passing of Iraqi Liberation Act. Did oil suddenly become of paramount importance after 9/11?? (2/15).
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@kennedytcooper Yep that's why the DSA and the socialist-left kept arguing to stop arming Ukraine and give into Putin’s demands.
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The Red Army delayed their advance into Warsaw so that the Nazis could eliminate more of the Polish Home Army, who Stalin knew would resist the Soviets once they moved in to "liberate" the city.
💬#Zakharova: On February 13-15, 1945, the UK & US forces waged the infamous barbaric air bombings of Dresden. ◾️ It was the most devastating bombing attack in Europe during #WWII. Different estimates of the death toll vary from 25,000-50,000 to over 135,000 people. #NeverForget
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@juliavkril The thing is, the people who typically deflect to Yemen themselves have a very politicized view of the conflict, as they often minimize Iranian involvement and the Houthi's role in exacerbating the conflict.
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Amazing piece for @Newsweek on "who lost Saudi Arabia." Lot of respect for David Rundell. My recent piece for @dcexaminer covers a lot of this as well:.
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The Chinese companies operating these ports are required to support the PLA / PLAN in wartime, and Chinese military documents explicitly state a desire to leverage many of these ports for military uses. This happened in Djibouti, almost happened in the UAE, and is expected (1/2).
China is going after key ports, not just ensuring its trade and commerce ventures but also slowly growing a military presence. At some point, US influence in the region will simply shrink and Americans will not be able to contain the threats coming from Iran and its proxies.
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May have also cited Cheney's connection to Halliburton and the "Energy Task Force" as proof for the oil motive. But Cheney himself seemed skeptical of the need to remove Saddam (compared to Wolfowitz/Rumsfeld) even after 9/11, until later (his meeting with Bernard Lewis). (8/15).
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While some U.S. companies sought to cash in on the war and secure contracts via oil auctions with the new Iraqi govt, this in no way means it was the underlying cause of the war itself. US firms failed to get preferential treatment. (6/15).
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"Likewise, the Saudis did not start the civil war in Yemen. The Iranian-backed Houthis overthrew the elected Yemeni government and then proceeded to lay claim to two southern provinces of Saudi Arabia.".
Amazing piece for @Newsweek on "who lost Saudi Arabia." Lot of respect for David Rundell. My recent piece for @dcexaminer covers a lot of this as well:.
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Ironically, the article cites Iraq's "under-utilized" oil reserves without really explaining that it was the sanctions regime that made them so. And yes, Iraq's oil reserves were nationalized before the war, but they remain under control of Iraq's oil ministry today. (5/15).
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The "Blood for Oil" theory also reflects a broader lack of nuance in understanding US oil policy in ME. As numerous diplomatic historians (Doug Stokes, Leffler, Painter, Westad, Gaddis) have pointed out, overall, the focus hasn't necessarily been on specific US companies (10/15).
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Don't even try and rationalize this with "why are our troops in Jordan." Jordan has been designated a major non-NATO US ally since 1996 with bilateral econ / military ties for decades. US troops are there at Jordan's request for counterterrorism operations and border security.
I, along with others, have been sounding the alarm bells for a long time about the dangerous erosion of U.S. deterrence with respect to #Iran. The deaths of three American troops and 25 being wounded illustrate the risks here. The president needs to telegraph to Khamenei in his.
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@mfa_russia @RusBotschaft @germania_online @GermanyDiplo @GER_OSCE @RussianEmbassy @RusEmbUSA @RussiaUN Where was the Red Army during the Warsaw Uprisings?.
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@WheatPM "It's not colonialism as long as the territorial conquest is contiguous and not overseas!".
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The idea that Hamas attacked on Oct 7th due to dispossession and harsh econ/political conditions - when it knowingly created those conditions by exploiting the economic lifeline Israel and the West extended to Gaza to build terror infrastructure and acquire weapons - is absurd.
Albanese argues that the October 7th massacre wasn't antisemitic, but was instead a response to oppression. In essence she is blaming the victims and washing the hands of terrorists who murdered babies, burned women and children, raped, and kidnapped civilians. @FranceskAlbs
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@KareemRifai Foreign aid has historically been around ~1% of the federal budget, and our aid to Ukraine is around 0.22% of US GDP, behind Estonia, Latvia, and Poland which are around 0.4%. And yet, Mehdi thinks our domestic shortcomings would improve if Russia conquered its neighbor.
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@JewishWonk Sad part is, even then there were British restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine due to the Arab Revolt of 1936-39.
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@mattduss So applying "maximum pressure" to Iran is coercive and unjustified, but docking military aid from a key ally like the Saudis for not fully abiding to our energy interests is fine?.
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This article by @Max_Fisher for Vox in 2016 also does a good job explaining the ideological buildup to the war and role of neoconservative (and liberal internationalist) worldview. (15/15). (
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In fact, other countries (France, Russia for instance), were more interested in lifting sanctions / oil restrictions on Saddam after the Gulf War, whereas the U.S. prioritized isolating and containing him. (4/15).
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The U.S. was concerned that Iraq's (potential) oil wealth would make it difficult to sanction and contain, and after overthrowing Saddam also feared that supplies could fall into the hands of insurgent groups. But little interest in controlling/profiting from oil itself. (9/15).
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If the U.S. was so desperate for Iraqi oil - why not replace Saddam with a pro-US strongman to safeguard US and British interests? Why push for a democracy (albeit imperfect), that would give the Iraqi people greater control over their resources? (13/15).
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Over the last few years, the left has thrown hissy-fits over "offensive" terminology & imaginary linguistic crimes / taboos. But suddenly, "from the river to the sea" doesn't actually mean what it purports to say. Would be unacceptable if directed at other ethnic/rel minorities.
It's no longer sustainable to claim that the groundswell of protests on campuses and on the streets of major Western cities are just directed at Israel's military tactics and defending Palestinian statehood. Anti-Semitism & calls for Israel's destruction are pervasive among them.
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@KareemRifai Sometimes the humanitarian intervention doesn't even necessarily support US interests - ex: Lebanon in 1980s, Somalia, Libya (Gaddafi was cooperating with West at that point) - but people like Briahna would still accuse us of imperialism/neocolonialism. It's a lose-lose.
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@Noahpinion @GriffinFill Not to mention denying Milosevic's genocide, justifying Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, saying North Vietnamese terror was "politically justified," blaming the Korean War on the U.S., framing 9/11 as "rational" blowback, etc. .
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@ProfDBernstein I outgrew my Harris and Hitchens phase a while back but wow the word selection on this one is just an absolute banger. Reminds me of when he was in his prime between 2007 - 2016, and just laying waste to almost everyone he debated with hilarious analogies & reductio-ad absurdums.
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Also, outright wars are typically unfavorable from an energy perspective, as supplies are destroyed during the fighting and global energy flows suffer / prices rise, compared to subtler methods of regime change (though not reason for Iran 1953) (12/15):
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@BlueRepublik Great thread. I also took a stab at trying to push back on this:
No, the Iraq War was not about "Black Gold" - i.e oil. Looking at this purely from a political economy lens, and ignoring the history of U.S. policy towards Iraq, as well as broader ideological shifts in USFP at the time, is highly misleading.🧵(1/15).
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@mtracey Thought experiment - the US tries to recolonize the Philippines, and threatens to use nukes against anyone who resists. Who would be ultimately at fault here for the "escalation," - the US, or the Philippines and countries supporting it?.
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As @joestieb and others have argued, it's clear that 9/11 was a major turning point - . The attacks made Bush increasingly influenced and convinced by neoconservative arguments for toppling Saddam. (14/15).
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Rather, throughout the Cold War, the US was primarily concerned with ensuring adequate energy flows for capitalist world order as a whole, especially US allies in East Asia & Europe post WW2. While still not the reason for the Iraq War, worth noting this distinction. (11/15).
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All these Communist Party (CPIM) flags throughout Kerala (state at the southernmost tip of India) are triggering my inner Joseph McCarthy.
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Citing far-right groups like Azov and Svoboda to vilify UKR is so disingenuous. Not only do advanced democracies in EU also struggle to contain fringe right-wing groups, but like in UKR, many of these illiberal actors are empowered both directly and indirectly by Russian actions.
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@KareemRifai Isn't Luttwak pro-Ukraine?? The others I get though - Rand Paul literally said "but Ukraine was part of the USSR" as an excuse.
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Finkelstein's justification in his interiew with @piersmorgan for saying 10/7 "warmed every fiber of his soul" was that he allegedly, initially thought the death toll was 50, and not 1400 - as if celebrating the deliberate massacre of 50 Israeli Jews was still morally excusable.
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Any assertive foreign policy stance = "increasing the risk of war" - a. war which was supposed to have happened over a decade ago.
"The Abraham Accords look more like an excuse to sell more weapons to the region and consolidate an anti-Iranian military bloc than a step towards an enduring peace in the Middle East," @QuincyInst's @WilliamHartung writes in @Forbes.
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@KareemRifai Funny cuz the only reason this is happening is that another "ruler" cares a little too much about Ukraine - to the extent of threatening nukes over it.
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That's correct - under *socialism* (not social democracy or welfare capitalism) - it would be much more than just "thousands.".
The US House of Representatives just voted to denounce socialism while thousands live like this in their own country.
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STEM majors who trivialize the humanities seriously underestimate how conceptually demanding and intellectually rigorous political and historical analyses can be. And I'm saying this as someone with a Comp Sci degree (1/2).
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In general I find the "why didn't we learn anything from Iraq" argument unconvincing and cliché. Just look at how fear of escalation is paralyzing our ability/willingness to respond to Iran's and Hezbollah’s provocations right now, or the incrementalism at which we've armed UKR.
A nice illustration of what I call the ‘hegemony school’ of Iraq War explanation. There’s a lot to agree w here but i also get kind of tired of historians calling for ‘reckonings,’ which usually just means ‘everybody agree with me on this thing!’.
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@racatiwood @Goutai88 @drfarls @ggreenwald And then call everyone who disagrees with him a "pro-establishment warmongering neocon.".
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@TristanJones94 @JonHans38150501 Fantastic thread. Other things: Russia's status as a nuclear armed power, Ukraine's aspirations for democratization and economic growth, implications of allowing precedent for territorial annexations, etc.
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The Marshall Plan's importance is hard to overstate. In addition to economically reviving Western Europe and undermining Communism's appeal, it also significantly discredited Communist and socialist allegations that capitalism itself caused the fratricide that led to WW1 & WW2.
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This is why it's best IMO to keep these kinds warnings private - otherwise the US is left looking fickle and opportunistic when it wants to capitalize when things swing in its favor and reverses it's earlier stance, making it's pronouncements seem less relevant and poorly defined.
The US went from "Lebanon War bad" to "Hezbollah getting wrecked is a huge opportunity." . This is basically what happened in 1967. The US tried super duper hard for a diplomatic resolution, and the Israelis were very very patient. Meanwhile the IDF was very confident in 1967.
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