Will Russia invade Ukraine? Will it achieve its goals with a threatened invasion? What are Putin's goals? Mixed signals shoot out from every quarter. Ukrainian President Vlodomyr Zelensky is urging his country to not panic and at the same time be prepared for the worst and calling on the West for more help. President Biden says a "minor incursion" would mean less sanctions. The White Hoyuse and State Department then said he didn't mean what he said. Is Secretary of State Antony Blinken trying to persuade his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to accept a deal on nuclear force levels in return for a promise not to invade Ukraine? If so, how would NATO react to that? And what about the Germans and the rest of the EU? Will they support sanctions which could hurt them almost as much as the Russians? Will the Russians cut off Europe's gas supplies or launch a cyber-attack if Europe joins America in fully-fledged sanctions against Russia? Finally, what is Putin planning? What are his aims? He has publicly stated that he wants to restore the Soviet empire. That he sees Ukraine as an integral part of greater Russia. That he wants legal guarantees that Ukraine will not join NATO. Are these negotiating positions, non-negotiable policy objectives or worrying statements to keep the West divided and off-balance? Has Putin now gone so far that he can't back down? Does the Russian president think that he has a window of opportunity to achieve geopolitical objectives in the wake of the Afghan withdrawal debacle, EU divisions, a weak Biden Administration, an energy crisis, the pandemic, partygate, French elections and Brexit? As tensions continue to rise these are all factors that are being considered by the political cost-benefit analysts in Moscow, Washington, Brussels, London, Paris, Berlin….
Afghanistan remains the world's number one humanitarian disaster zone with millions in the grip of a winter of hunger and cold. But politically the dust is beginning to settle and new priorities are emerging. Number one is what to do with the growing number of refugees flooding across borders into all of Afghanistan's neighbours. Iran, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. They all have tribal of religious groups represented in Afghanistan's complex tribal and ethnic mix. They are all sheltering refugees from their respective nationalities. But millions of refugees are not the only problem. There is also the danger of Afghanistan again becoming the base for international Islamic terror. It was Al Qaeeda. Now the threat is from the even more hardline fundamentaists-ISIS-Khorramshahr Province (IS-KP). It is threatening to spread to all of the neighbouring states and is being carefully monitored by Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Russia. Pakistan would appear to be the biggest winner following the changes in Afghanistan. It has been a consistent champion of the Taliban. But the organisation's close relations with Pakistani madrassas and the security services could spiral out of control and create a jihadist-type threat to the government of Imram Khan. There is also the fact that Khan's government must appear to take a tough stand on terrorism in order to keep receiving much-needed funding from the IMF. The biggest loser in the geopolitical shift is India. They had established close relations with the anti-Taliban governments of Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani in order to encircle arch-enemy Pakistan and reduce Islamic influence in Kashmir. The Taliban have long supported pro-Muslim Kashmiris based in Afghanistan's northeast provinces. China is concerned about the Taliban's traditional ties with the Turkestan Islamic Party which supports the Uighurs separatist movement in Xinjiang Province. It appears, however, that the Chinese have persuaded the new government in Kabul to stay out of Xinjiang in return for a big chunk of Chinese investment when the Taliban has a firmer grip on power. The Chinese are particularly interested in Afghanistan's large lithium deposits and the prospect of reopening a key section of the old Silk Road. But none of this is likely until the Taliban is able to provide basic services, which is unlikely in the absence of Western aid and the face of the worst drought in 20 years followed by one of the worst winters.
It looks as if former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may escape prison on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. His lawyers are reported to be on the verge of successfully concluding a plea deal which will result in Israel's longest-serving Prime Minister (15 years) swapping jail time for community service. There are, however, some snags: he will have to plead guilty to the crimes with which he is charged and he will be barred from seeking a return to elected office. The fiery 72-year-old may be on the verge of his final exit, but his right-wing policies live on. His successor, Naftali Bennett may be from a different party, but he is cut from an almost identical political cloth, even if the style with which he wears it is slightly different. This week he ordered the bull dozing of a Palestinian home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem. Sheikh Jarrah is in the Occupied Territories and a legal dispute over Palestinian property rights in the neighbourhood was one of the main causes for the riots that brought Hamas and Israel to the brink of war last year. Israel claims that the only Palestinians with a claim to land are those who can prove ownership pre-dating the 1948 establishment of Israel. The Israeli Supreme Court agreed. The Palestinians, the EU and UK disagreed and said that the bulldozing was contrary to international law. But the Israelis own the bulldozers.
* Tom Arms is the Foreign Editor of Liberal Democratic Voice. His book "America Made in Britain" has recently been published by Amberley Books. He is also the author of "The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War."
Tom Arms' World Review: Ukraine, Afghanistan, Netanyahu (libdemvoice.org)