The Dish – Page 615

The War Beyond Iraq, Ctd

Here's an updated map with clearly coded legend show ISIS gains in Syria and Iraq during lighting offensive pic.twitter.com/3ARqzi4gT3

— Tamer El-Ghobashy (@TamerELG) June 16, 2014

Nicholas Blanford sees ISIS’s Iraq campaign changing the Syrian regime’s war strategy, which in turn has implications for Lebanon:

Although sworn enemies on paper, ISIS has largely refrained from fighting the Syrian regime to focus on building an Islamic state in northern Syria and ousting more moderate rebel rivals. In return, the regime has left ISIS alone, allowing the Syrian military to concentrate on fighting the moderate rebel groups. At the same time, Assad also points to the brutal exploits of ISIS and other jihadist groups in the conflict to justify its argument to the international community that it is fighting Islamic “terrorists.” The Iraq upheaval appears to have changed that calculation. It has also injected uncertainty into Assad’s reliance on Iraqi Shiite fighters to seize the upper hand in Syria’s war. In recent weeks, “thousands” of Iraqi Shiite fighters who were in Syria to defend the Assad regime have left, according to a diplomatic report from a European embassy in Beirut. …

A drawdown of Iraqi Shiites could make Syria’s regime even more dependent on Hezbollah fighters, further straining the Lebanese group’s support base. Lebanese Shiites generally have supported Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria, especially when Shiite areas of Lebanon suffered suicide bombings last year by extremist Sunni groups. But the last car bombing occurred at the end of March, and since then Lebanon has enjoyed a period of relative calm. Now, there is a sense of unhappiness building among the families of Hezbollah fighters. They are increasingly asking how much longer their fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons will be sent to fight and die on the Syrian front.

Jean Aziz notes the anxiety of the Lebanese that this war will spread to their country in new and more dangerous ways:

With the progress made by ISIS in Iraq, there are once again Lebanese fears of the possibility of ISIS sleeper cells in Lebanon or at least the possibility that its progress in Iraq will revive hopes and illusions among other fundamentalists on Lebanese territory to join their “brothers” in jihad, even if they do not have an organizational link to ISIS. With more than 1 million displaced Syrians now on Lebanese territory, one cannot be certain that there are no fundamentalists among them.

Lebanese politicians opposed to the Damascus regime refer to a second source of concern. Recognizing the danger of these Sunni fundamentalists, they raise the possibility that Syrian troops might deliberately take advantage of the “erasing” of the international border between Iraq and Syriaby ISIS and resort to doing the same along the Syrian-Lebanese border. They believe that the Syrian army might initially carry out limited incursions, but then expand or legitimize them under the pretext of pursuing ISIS militants on both sides of the border between Lebanon and Syria. They fear that Damascus would dare take such steps in eastern and northern Lebanon because of possible international, in particular Western, indifference in blessing any step that targets Sunni fundamentalist terrorism.

Looking across the Gulf to the Arab petro-states, Keating imagines some anxious fidgeting:

Qatar has officially stopped giving aid to more radical groups under U.S. pressure, and Saudi Arabia has also backed off its support of the rebels, a process the culminated in the removal of spy chief and Syria point man Prince Bandar bin Sultan earlier this year, but private donations from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states—notably Kuwait—have likely continued. For the last few months, the Saudi government in particular has been attempting, somewhat awkwardly, to both continue to fund non-extremist groups fighting Assad while combating the growth of al-Qaida and its affiliates and offshoots. The kingdom has good reason to fear the revival of an al-Qaida-like group with wide territorial ambitions. The government claims to have broken up a terrorist cell in May that had links to both ISIS and al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. ISIS has also reportedly launched a recruitment drive in Riyadh. …

None of the likely outcomes in Iraq—a prolonged period of violent chaos in Iraq giving extremists a new base of operations, unilateral Iranian intervention, U.S.-Iranian cooperative intervention—is going to be viewed very favorably across the Gulf.

Mama Said Always Tell The Truth When Purchasing Firearms

The Supreme Court narrowly ruled that buying a gun for someone else – and lying about it on official documentation – is illegal. Adam Winkler shares the story behind the case:

Bruce Abramski must have known he was going to get into trouble when he bought a Glock 19 for his uncle. A retired police officer, Abramski was familiar with gun regulation. Yet he accepted $400 from his uncle, went to a local gun store, and – as required to purchase the Glock – filled out federal Form 4473. Question 11.a of that form required Abramski to confirm that he was “the actual transferee/buyer of the firearm(s)?” Question 11.a includes, in stark bold lettering “You are not the actual buyer if you are acquiring the firearm(s) on behalf of another person. If you are not the actual buyer, the dealer cannot transfer the firearm(s) to you.” Nonetheless, Abramski signed the form, knowingly lying about his intentions in purchasing the gun for his uncle.

When he was finally caught, Abramski answered with the audacity increasingly typical among a certain class of gun owners: He insisted the law itself was illegal. His lying, he claimed, was perfectly lawful. Surprisingly, he almost convinced the Supreme Court to let him off. Instead, a narrow majority of the Court declined Abramski’s invitation to gut one of the nation’s most important laws designed to reduce easy access to guns by felons and the mentally ill. The ruling is a relief to law enforcement – and a setback for the National Rifle Association.

Tim Murphy elaborates:

In the case, Abramski v. United States, the NRA and other gun groups argued that lying about who would end up with the gun shouldn’t matter if the intended owner could legally own one – and more broadly, that the entire prohibition on straw purchasing was itself a “legal fiction” with no real basis in the law itself. Twenty-six states signed on in support, arguing that the law infringed on their rights to regulate gun sales.

In the majority opinion, Justice Elena Kagan, who was joined by the three other liberal-leaning justices and the swing vote, Anthony Kennedy, emphatically disagreed: ‘No piece of information is more important under federal firearms law than the identity of a gun’s purchaser—the person who acquires a gun as a result of a transaction with a licensed dealer.”

Jeff Shesol examines the rulings:

In his dissent, Scalia—joined by Roberts, Alito, and Thomas—heaps contempt on the majority’s view that the “true buyer” of the handgun in question was not Bruce Abramski, who went to the counter, (falsely) filled out the forms representing himself as the purchaser, and bought the gun, but Abramski’s uncle, who had given him the money and, as arranged, took possession of the gun just after the sale. This, to Scalia, is sophistry. “Abramski’s uncle,” he writes, “was not the ‘person’ to whom the gun was ‘s[old].'” The “plain language of the Act” makes that obvious; so does “ordinary English usage.” Scalia offers a homespun example: “If I give my son $10 and tell him to pick up milk and eggs at the store, no English speaker would say that the store ‘sells’ the milk and eggs to me.”

But Justice Elena Kagan is an English speaker, and here is what she replies in a footnote to her majority opinion in Abramski: “The dissent claims the answer is easy. … But try a question more similar to the one the gun law’s text raises: If I send my brother to the Apple Store with money and instructions to purchase an iPhone, and then take immediate and sole possession of that device, am I the ‘person’ … who has bought the phone or is he? Nothing in ordinary English usage compels us an answer either way.” Scalia, in a retort to Kagan’s reply (this could go on all day!), professes to find it “puzzling” that the majority thought “the answer would be different if the sale involved consumer electronics instead of groceries.”

Paul M. Barrett marvels at the close decision:

What’s amazing about this decision is that four dissenting members of the court – led by Justice Antonin Scalia – were prepared to rule against the federal government in a fashion that would have undermined countless prosecutions of alleged gun traffickers. To put this more starkly: The Supreme Court is one vote away from judicially nullifying one of the most common tools U.S. law enforcers use to deter and punish criminals who send other people into gun stores to purchase firearms and circumvent the federal background-check system.

Nicole Flatow considers the stakes:

One goal of federal gun law is to “keep guns out of the hands of criminals and others who should not have them.” Abramski argued that so long as [his uncle, Angel] Alvarez is a legal purchaser, that goal is not threatened by their transfer. But the dynamic between third-party purchasers and the ultimate user of a gun is more complex than the picture painted here. In gun trafficking schemes, there may be two, three, or more go-betweens who hold the gun before it gets to the ultimate end user, who may be banned from purchasing a gun. Alvarez, for example, could have later sold the gun to another person, who sold it to another. Punishing the person who lies about their purchase in the first place prevents gun traffickers from skirting the law by arguing the legality of the immediate third party.

There is also a second goal of federal gun law, which is to “assist law enforcement authorities in investigating serious crimes.” This pursuit is severely thwarted by Abramski’s purchase of a gun. If Alvarez were to later commit a crime using the gun purchased by Abramski, that gun might be traced to Abramski – the first purchaser on the background check form – rather than Alvarez, shielding Alvarez from the gun used in the crime. Making it a crime to lie about the actual buyer allows prosecutors to enforce the federal law’s fundamental purpose of identifying and vetting gun purchasers, in a climate in which straw purchases are a key component of illicit gun trafficking.

Kurdistan’s Moment?

Koplow insists that Turkey’s best course of action right now is to support an independent state for the Kurds in northern Iraq:

The best way to neutralize ISIS as a threat is to strengthen the KRG, whose peshmerga already took Kirkuk in response to the ISIS takeover of Mosul, and can keep the conflict with ISIS in Iraq rather than having it cross the border into southeastern Turkey. In the past, even considering supporting the KRG as an independent state was not an option, but the circumstances have changed now that it is clear just how weak and ineffectual the Maliki government is. Ankara should be getting in front of this issue, recognizing that even if the Maliki government survives it will be only through the intervention and support of outside powers such as the U.S. and Iran (which is not a phrase I ever envisioned writing) and that the consequences of angering the Maliki government pales in comparison to the consequences of an actual radical jihadi state bordering Turkey.

Furthermore, if Turkey still subscribes to the theory that strengthening Barzani and the KRG sends the message to Turkish Kurds that Kurdistan already exists without them and thus they need to drop any hopes of separation or independence for themselves, then now is the time to test out whether this theory is actually correct.

Throwing our weight behind the Kurds is also on Adam Garfinkle’s list of policy recommendations for the US:

Above all, we should further tighten relations with the Kurds in what used to be northern Iraq but is now an independent state in everything but name.

We probably should try to get on the same sheet of music with the Kurds, offering support but counseling prudence—in other words, collecting some leverage so we can influence the behavior of Barzani et al. in future. Personally, I’m fine with the Kurds in Kirkuk, so long as they occupy and eventually stabilize the city with genuine justice for all of the city’s communities.

By the same token, we should begin private and earnest, if inevitably complex and difficult, talks with the Turks to discuss what conditions, if any, could lead to a mutual and simultaneous recognition of Kurdish independence from Washington and Ankara.

Mohammed A. Salih spells out why the Kurdish Peshmerga are Iraq’s best hope for defeating ISIS:

There are over 100,000 Peshmerga fighters, according to Halgurd Hikmat, a senior official at the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)’s Ministry of Peshmerga. They are either veterans of the Kurdish struggle against Saddam’s regime or new recruits who have to go through an intensive training that lasts around 50 days. While they are officially under the command of Iraqi Kurdistan’s president, Masoud Barzani, in practice they answer to leaders aligned with the competing Kurdish political factions, the Barzani-led Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, led by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. But when it comes to protecting Kurdish territory, those divisions are meaningless. Nearly 40,000 of the Peshmerga forces divided into 16 battalions are united under the KRG’s Peshmerga Ministry. The rest have yet to be unified. All Peshmerga are now mobilized in the fight against ISIS.

Update from a reader:

I’m an American doctor who has visited Iraqi Kurdistan several times since 2006. One of our projects was the first medical paper looking at the long-term psychological impact of the chemical weapons attacks launched by the Iraqi government on Kurdish civilians in Halabja. The argument we are having in America about who “lost” Iraq completely misses the point, because in truth there never has been one Iraq to lose. The American elite’s obsession with a multiethnic Iraq is something that’s not shared by any of the people who actually live in that country.

For Kurds the whole concept is ridiculous. They survived an attempted genocide at the hand of Sunni Arabs just 25 years ago. For the past decade they have cooperated with the American unity policy in Iraq, only to become targets of Al Qaeda inspired bombings, kidnappings, and ritual beheadings. Now they find themselves in the surreal position of having to protect thousands of these same good neighbors from their own home grown terrorist movement. If you were a Kurd, what would you think of a State Department hack telling you that you lack sufficient commitment to Iraq’s unity?

Kurds are right to reject any self-serving advise coming from the American government to cooperate with Maliki. A more creative American policy would acknowledge the reality of what the Kurds have built, which is a prosperous and peaceful nation state in the mountains of Northern Iraq. It’s a nation whose soldiers and diplomats worked amicably alongside Americans through all the darkest episodes of the Iraq wars. It’s a nation where not a single American soldier died during ten years of bloody military involvement in Iraq.

An ally that we don’t have to constantly sustain with billions of dollars of bribes would be a refreshing turn in our Middle East policy. We should embrace that opportunity.

Previous Dish on the Kurds here and here, and on Turkey’s Iraq policy here.

(Photo: Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters stand to attention in the grounds of their camp in Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq on June 14, 2014. By Safin Hamed/AFP/Getty Images)

Obama Passes His Own Mini-ENDA

The president is planning to sign an executive order banning anti-LGBT discrimination by federal contractors:

The White House had long declined calls to proceed with the order, arguing it was pressuring Congress to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, known as ENDA, which would apply the protections to all American workers. Like the prior orders on wages, proceeding with the unilateral executive action is a tacit admission by the White House of the grim prospects for getting legislation passed through Congress in the coming years. The Senate passed a version of ENDA last year, but House Republicans have indicated they will not bring the bill to the floor in that chamber.

Not now and not ever. At some point, the administration ran out of arguments for not issuing an executive order like this. I have no issues with it – the government should not be a party to discrimination against some of its own citizens, period. And it may have an impact in shifting the policies of a lot of big contractors. But it will only cover one in ten Ls, Gs, Bs, and Ts in America (although the inclusion of protections for trans people is a real gain). And what will the Republicans do?

Greg Sargent expects a muted response:

Congressional Republicans are under heavy pressure — from people inside the party who want it to broaden its national appeal — to evolve on gay rights. That RNC autopsy into what went wrong in 2012 called for more sensitivity to gay rights as a way of keeping pace with evolving attitudes among young conservatives. A recent WaPo poll found that support for the idea that the Constitution protects the right to gay marriage has hit 50 percent, with 60 percent of those aged 18-39 agreeing.

Family-oriented conservative groups may well criticize this latest move. But his time — unlike in 1998 — if there is no serious backlash among GOP lawmakers to speak of, it will be yet another sign of the speed with which the ground is shifting, and an indication that even Congressional Republicans are increasingly acknowledging the need to keep pace with the culture’s evolution on the issue.

Jonathan Bernstein agrees:

[S]ome Republicans are still running against marriage equality, at least in some states. But has any Republican said one word about the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the last two years?

If you remember the 2004 campaign, or the Clinton presidency, or the years before that, it’s amazing how much things have changed. Republican opposition remains so intense that the Employment Non-Discrimination Act can’t get a vote in the House (though it isn’t intense enough that Speaker John Boehner can allow a vote on the measure and expect his Republican conference to thwart it). Greg’s guess is correct: Very few Republican politicians want anything to do with LGBT issues in this election cycle.

How Does US Healthcare Compare?

Not well:

Sarah Kliff unpacks the graphic:

A new Commonwealth Fund report looks at how the United States stacks up against other countries on things like access to doctors and quality of care. It pulls from three separate surveys conducted over the past three years: a 2011 survey of sicker patients, a 2012 survey of doctors and a 2013 survey of adults over 18. It also uses health outcome data from the OECD and World Health Organization. This means it captures the experience of the medical system from the people who use it a lot, those who use it a little and the doctors treating them.

The American health care system came in last both in the overall rankings, which pull together data on 11 specific measures of success for a health care system. This includes metrics like how easily residents can access health care, if that medical care is affordable and if its effective. There was no measure where the United States came in first place — our best ranking was coming in third in the effectiveness of our medicine …

Phillip Klein rejects the study:

The problem with the Commonwealth Fund study is that it’s rigged to produce a result that favors socialized health care systems.

The study determines that the U.S. system is worse because it lacks universal health insurance coverage and the report emphasizes “equity” as one of the key factors in evaluating a health care system. But it’s an ideological decision to view equity as one of the most important factors in judging a health care system, just as it is for the study to leave out a factor such medical innovation, which would work to the advantage of the U.S., or choice, which would work against the centralized NHS.

Olga Khazan provides more context:

It’s important to note that one reason for America’s lag, as the authors explain, is our historic absence of universal health coverage. But the data for the report was collected before the full implementation of Obamacare, which dramatically expanded health insurance, so it’s possible that the U.S. may rise in future rankings. And notably, both the U.K. and U.S. ranked low on the “Healthy lives” scale, which considers infant mortality, healthy life expectancy at age 60, and mortality from preventable conditions, such as high blood pressure.

Dave Schuler examines the other countries ranked poorly:

Even more importantly from my point of view the second-worst system is Canada’s while the third-worst is France’s. Since Canada is the OECD country that most closely resembles ours culturally and from a lifestyle standpoint, I think that’s a significant finding, suggesting that even if we were to adopt, say, a single-payer system that would be merely the beginning of the reforms that would be needed here if we truly want to have the best of class healthcare system to which we aspire.

Err Strikes

Zack Beauchamp urges observers to be skeptical of the Rasmussen poll suggesting that 46 percent of likely voters favor airstrikes in Iraq:

The wording of the Rasmussen question says something important — that’s also false. Here’s how the Rasmussen question in airstrikes read: Do you favor or oppose the United States making military airstrikes in Iraq to help the government fight al Qaeda-led insurgents? The premise of Rasmussen’s question is wrong. The most important anti-government group, the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant (ISIS), is not al-Qaeda led. They splintered from al-Qaeda in February, essentially over the question of whether al-Qaeda could order ISIS around (ISIS had stopped obeying al-Qaeda orders, including ones to tamp down on civilian casualties).

Not only is this a clear mistake, but it’s a relevant one: al-Qaeda has a particularly bad perception among the American public. Americans believe, rightly, that al-Qaeda is out to attack the American homeland, and would likely be more supportive of fighting it than a separate group of Islamist militants.

Earlier Dish on the distinction between ISIS and al-Qaeda here. Juan Cole rejects the strategy of “shock-and-awe” bombing against ISIS, which he doubts would work:

Air power can be useful if it is employed in lending close air support to an attacking military force on the ground, which is itself made up of good fighters with popular support.

American air power saved Kosovo from a Serbian massacre by helping repel Serbian armor and giving support to Kosovar irregulars. In Afghanistan, US air power helped the Northern Alliance win against the Taliban in fall 2001. But the Taliban were unpopular in Mazar, Herat and Kabul, and the Northern Alliance was welcome in those cities. The same tactics did not succeed in Qandahar, which is in some ways still significantly Taliban territory.

US air power alone would be unlikely to dislodge ISIS from Mosul at this point. The Sunni insurgents look more like Viet Cong (local defenders) than they do like outside attackers (Serbs, Taliban in Mazar). Where the enemy has some local support and is defending, air power has a long history of failure.

Barry Posen also urges a more restrained response:

[W]ar is war: not a scalpel but a battle axe. And once you start swinging that axe, there may be unintended consequences. If the United States were to go so far as to help the Baghdad forces retake Mosul and other cities by providing air support, the Sunni Arabs who live there are not likely to think more kindly of us. If the United States provides such air support, and intelligence support, the Iraqi military will never grow up. The combination will be deadly to U.S. interests. All Sunni Arabs will know that we are the pillar of Shiite hegemony in Iraq. If one is interested in the safety of American citizens, this is not a particularly smart role to assume.

An ISIS statelet straddling Iraq and Syria might provide haven for Islamic terrorists who ultimately decide that attacks on Western targets are in their interests, though there is little sign presently that this is ISIS’s program. But “ISISstan” will not be a great base, or a safe one.

Ryan Cooper reminds us that we have several non-violent options at our disposal, including what should be an undisputed US responsibility toward Iraq:

[W]e can streamline the process for Iraqis applying for refugee status, especially those who worked with the U.S. during the occupation. We have already resettled about 85,000 Iraqis here, but as this famous This American Life episode detailed, the application process is very slow and the red tape is hellish. Vulnerable Iraqis who helped America may not have two years to wait for their first interview.

Jihad 2.0

The above video, produced by what is ostensibly ISIS’s English and German propaganda outlet, is one example of how the militants are selling the cause to young Westerners. Meanwhile, J.M. Berger unpacks ISIS’s Twitter strategy, which is among the most effective of any Jihadi organization:

[A custom-built Android] app is just one way ISIS games Twitter to magnify its message. Another is the use of organized hashtag campaigns, in which the group enlists hundreds and sometimes thousands of activists to repetitively tweet hashtags at certain times of day so that they trend on the social network. This approach also skews the results of a popular Arabic Twitter account called @ActiveHashtags that tweets each day’s top trending tags. …

As a result of these strategies, and others, ISIS is able to project strength and promote engagement online. For instance, the ISIS hashtag consistently outperforms that of the group’s main competitor in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, even though the two groups have a similar number of supporters online. In data I analyzed in February, ISIS often registered more than 10,000 mentions of its hashtag per day, while the number of al-Nusra mentions generally ranged between 2,500 and 5,000. ISIS also uses hashtags to focus-group messaging and branding concepts, much like a Western corporation might.

Here’s an example of how effective that strategy has been:

https://twitter.com/intelwire/statuses/478310946385850370

But, much like a Western corporation, ISIS doesn’t have complete control of its online image, and tries to limit the “bad press” that makes it onto social media. Shiraz Maher provides some examples:

Social media, coupled with the ubiquity of smartphones, has meant that individual fighters can now film and upload events to the internet in an instant, often with little thought. Isis is not always happy about this. Just a few weeks ago, the group crucified two men in Manbij, Syria, for alleged apostasy (although supporters say the men were regime spies). A Spanish foreign fighter who had promised his followers a video of the spectacle had to make do with only providing pictures of the sadistic act. “Our leadership forbade anyone from filming it,” he said.

This is not the first time Isis has warned its members about their online activity. Earlier this year, the group chopped off the hand of a man in Raqqa. It was a dark, torrid affair with the swordsman requiring several attempts before finally severing the man’s hand. After understandable public outcry, the group has now prohibited anyone from filming similar events. It still goes on, of course, but anyone brandishing a smartphone will be censured. In many senses, this represents the “pluralising” of the global jihad. Whereas we had one or two voices to analyse in the past, we now have hundreds.

In response to the online jihad, Iraq has turned off the Internet in five provinces:

First, Internet service providers are instructed to fully cut access to Anbar, Diyalah, Kirkuk, Ninawa, and Saleh El Din provinces in their entirety, as well as to eleven other areas of the country. According to international Internet tracking firm Renesys, some of these areas, but not all, saw their access blocked a few days earlier. And at least some of the blocked areas are known to be spots of heavy fighting between the Iraqi government and the surging militant group known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The Iraqi government also instructed Internet service providers (ISPs) to reinstate or maintain the existing bans on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Skype, and to create new bans on other communication and social media services like Tango and Instagram. Finally, just in case anyone’s trying to use basic technology to get around those bans, the ban tells ISPs to try to block any use of virtual private networks (VPNs)—a way to reroute your Internet connection to access sites from a middle location—during the local hours of 4 pm to 7 am.

Twitter has also been shutting down accounts linked to the Islamic State that have been posting pictures of their atrocities, but Adam Chandler wonders if that’s a mistake:

While ISIS’ use of a social media platform to show pictures of grisly executions is repugnant, if anything, we’ve learned in recent weeks that social media campaigns (however problematic) have the power to impel the international community act on issues where awareness is typically low or muddied by the complexity of a particular situation. There is very little divining needed when mass executions are being documented and publicly glorified by a terrorist group. With the Twitter account suspended, the pictures of the ISIS insurgency and many of its horrific consequences have been preserved. They may be more useful out in the open.

Beard Of The Week

This is supposed to encourage you to shave your beard with a Schick razor. My own response is somehow more complex.

Update from a reader:

“My own response is somehow more complex.” Just think what your reaction would have been if that had been a beaver on his face.

The Enemy Of My Enemy Is My Frenemy? Ctd

The US and Iran got to talking about the crisis in Iraq yesterday. The Guardian notes was “the first time the two nations have collaborated over a common security interest in more than a decade”:

John Kerry, the US secretary of state, pointedly declined to rule out military cooperation in an interview with Yahoo News, but US and Iranian officials later stressed that there was no prospect of military cooperation, and none was discussed in Vienna, where the talks were described as short and inconclusive.

“We are open to engaging the Iranians,” said a senior State Department official, who characterised the discussions as brief. “These engagements will not include military coordination or strategic determinations about Iraq’s future over the heads of the Iraqi people,” the US official said, on condition of anonymity. The Iranians confirmed that military cooperation was not on the cards. “The disastrous situation in Iraq was discussed today. No specific outcome was achieved,” a senior Iranian official told Reuters.

The UK, meanwhile, is reopening its embassy in Tehran. Calling Iran “the most stable country in the Middle East right now,” Trita Parsi scrutinizes why cooperation with the US is a good move for the Islamic Republic:

Iran … will pay a price if it clings to an outdated understanding of the regional and global strategic landscape. Contradictory messages have come out of Tehran, with officials telling Reuters that they are open to collaboration with the United States against ISIS, and then having their Foreign Ministry spokesperson strongly oppose U.S. military intervention. Similarly, the U.S. position seems to be shifting, from first denying any plans for talking to Iran about Iraq to signaling a desire to sit down with Tehran.

Iran’s key objective is to be recognized as a stabilizing force. But that is a role it ultimately cannot play if it simultaneously wishes to challenge the United States. Unlike in Afghanistan, any cooperation in Iraq will likely be more public. If Iran plays a constructive role, the world will notice. But changing old patterns require courage, strength, and political will. It remains to be seen if the leadership in Tehran can deliver those — or if Washington will be receptive.

My own preference would be for very light coordination with the Iranians if they are really the only force capable of halting ISIS’s advance on Baghdad, and no US troops anywhere, but for defending key US assets like the embassy.

The neocons will howl as their botched war further empowers their arch-enemy in Tehran – see this classic know-nothing-learn-nothing piece from the Greater Israel fanatic, Elliot Abrams – but I tend to agree with Allahpundit. A shrewd strategy

to “blunt Iran’s rise in the region” would be to force them to fight a two-front war against ISIS in Syria and Iraq without western help, not to start bombing their enemies while sternly warning them not to capitalize once we’re gone.

Then there’s how all of this impacts the delicate negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program – now significantly weakened undr the provisions of the interim agreement. Could mild cooperation in Iraq facilitate a resolution? Again, the neocons are quick to state the opposite. Jonathan Tobin claims that Iran’s negotiating power over the US and Europe at the P5+1 just increased exponentially:

The administration’s zeal for a deal that would end the confrontation over Iran’s nuclear ambitions has been no secret since it concluded an interim pact last November that tacitly recognized Iran’s “right” to enrich uranium and started the unraveling of the economic sanctions that had taken years to enact and enforce. The Iraqi crisis not only strengthens Tehran’s already strong bargaining position in the continuing P5+1 talks; it also gives President Obama one more reason to seek to appease Iran rather than pressure it to make concessions on outstanding issues such as its ballistic missile program or its nuclear military research.

The talks, I presume, will stick to their original agenda, and not include the entire neocon wish-list (which is really a poison pill for any rapprochement). A good omen – and Jennifer Rubin is hyperventilating:

It seems the president will do anything to avoid using U.S. power in the region, even if it means accelerating Iran’s influence in Iraq. Imagine the reaction of our allies in Egypt, Sunni Gulf states and Israel when we let on that we are going to be assisting Iran’s hegemonic vision and thereby bolstering the state sponsor of groups including Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. In lieu of strengthening U.S. influence in the Middle East, Obama seems ready to bolster Iran’s. And if he is bent on this course, surely he’ll not challenge Iran and its puppet in Syria. Why, that might “upset” Iran and either wreck a nuclear deal or force Obama to handle Iraq on his own.

But Paul Pillar sticks up for cooperation, calling the ISIS surge “one of the most salient and clearest examples in which U.S. and Iranian interests are congruent”:

There is right now an excellent opportunity for useful coordination between Washington and Tehran regarding messages to be sent to, and pressure to be exerted on, Prime Minister Maliki. If both the United States and Iran—the two foreign states on which Maliki’s future most depends—tell him the same thing about the need to move beyond his destructively narrow ways of governing, such pressure might begin to have a beneficial effect. Although the Iranians have been happy to see the Shia majority in Iraq finally get out from under Sunni political domination, they also are smart enough to realize that Maliki’s performance is more a prescription for unending instability and Sunni radicalism, which neither the Iranians nor we want.

The United States and Iran have wisely been concentrating over the past year on the nuclear issue, so as not to complicate the negotiations with a premature broadening of the bilateral agenda. The ISIS offensive may be a reason to move up the broadening a bit.

But maybe we’re not the ones who ought to be talking to Iran. “The real fault,” Bilal Y. Saab writes, “should be assigned to those actors who, despite having tremendous influence and real leverage over the majority of the Iraqi antagonists, have so far decided not to intervene politically. That’s Iran and Saudi Arabia”:

A dialogue between the Iranians and the Saudis is desperately needed not just to stop Iraq’s bleeding and prevent another full-blown civil war, but to extinguish at least the major Sunni-Shi’ite fires throughout the Middle East that are fueling this violence and chaos.

This is not a naive call for putting an end to an old and fierce rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran and to an historic feud between the two biggest branches of Islam. That’s just not going to happen. Instead, this is a realistic invitation for two regional heavyweights who, for better or worse, speak for the majority of Sunnis and Shi’ites in the Middle East, to negotiate a path out of this catastrophic situation. Call it arms control, dialogue, or cooperation. The bottom line is that they need to sit down and talk about ways to manage or stabilize their regional competition by agreeing to hard rules that would benefit both, otherwise Arab League chief Amr Moussa’s nightmare scenario of the gates of hell opening in the Middle East will turn into a reality.

Previous Dish on the potential for US-Iran cooperation here, and on Iran’s intervention in Iraq here and here.

(Cartoon by Steve Bell. The analogy is to David Low’s classic cartoon on the Hitler-Stalin pact. Yes, Bell appears to see the US as the equivalent of Stalin’s totalitarian state.)

The View From Your Window Contest: Winner #209

A reader writes:

At first glance, I thought I was looking at an airport. The wide concrete slabs and numerous arrows triggered that impression in my brain. Of course when it registered that there were benches lining the edges, I realized how wrong I was!

The wide man-made beach leading to what looks like a very unfriendly lagoon is clearly not South American, although it does conjure up the vision of a curiously deserted section of Ipanema. Most interesting are what looks like windmills on the upper left corner. The top of the hill has what looks like some sort of ruin, but probably isn’t. I’m not sure what makes me think Scandinavian, except that it is an unusually pristine beach and surroundings. However, I couldn’t find a pic resembling this image online. Again, this feels like a sad little place, the overcast skies darkening the lagoon water, with rather stark architecture. Somewhere in Scandinavia, Norway or Sweden, Copenhagen.

Another reader senses “a very Russian feeling” from the view. Another gets topical:

I do not have the time to follow through on my immediate instincts, which are “World Cup,” and “Brazil.” When I start looking at beaches in Brazil, I find some that have very similar light fixtures, so I think I am in the right country. But there are a lot of beaches! I’m taking a guess to say it is a beach in the vicinity of Recife, Brazil.

Another is clearly looking forward to summer:

Congratulations. Wherever this is, they have created the perfect beach experience for people who hate both sand and water.

Another hits the States:

This week’s view is really a puzzler. At first glance I thought there were plenty of clues to go on: the beach next to a densely-packed urban landscape, the concrete promenade, the bike path. There are odd buildings along the shore, and … is that a set of stairs going down to a parking garage? I can’t tell. There aren’t any palm trees, which suggests a temperate climate. I’ve been chasing up all these clues obsessively and haven’t found anything that seems remotely close. I’m certain it’s not Chicago, but I’m going with that anyway. So frustrating!

Even a correct guesser notes:

Wow, this one was hard.

Indeed. There were only 20 readers who even hazarded a guess this week. One of them frowns:

I would waste the day investigating this location but I am disqualifying it because it shows no part of the window frame and contains an animal (dog). I can do something productive instead.

True, we never post frameless views for our daily VFYW feature, but due to the lack of good candidates for the contest, we occasionally use them here. And animals are only disqualifying when they are the central focus of the view, not incidental background. The closest incorrect entry:

Nice beach. No one swimming, not even a dog, despite the green flags. Must be the North Sea. I say it’s Dunkirk, France.

Another nails the right country and city:

My guess for this week is a city on the northern coast of Spain, specifically Gijon, Spain. The dense city, the streetlight fixtures, and the beautiful beach were my clues. There are a number of half-moon beaches in the area, and I suspect this photo was taken from the aquarium or some restaurant in the area looking east.

A previous winner nails the building too. Here’s his breakdown:

It took a while to figure this contest out because the items in the photo pulled me in different directions. The buildings and grey concrete sidewalks next to a beach with calm waters made me think it is an Eastern European location, perhaps on the Black Sea. The Kompan pirate playground, the wind, and the people dressed in long sleeved clothing made me think western or northern Europe. But the palm trees are too tall for northern Europe.

To confuse things further, I initially thought the statute on the hill opposite was a Greek ruin. After realizing the object was too large for that to be true, I started to try random bits of the European coastline. Then after stumbling across similar looking lamp posts in San Sebastián and Biarritz in North Spain, I realized the contest window must be nearby.

Soon enough, I discovered that Gijón, Spain had the same lamp posts as in the picture and I arrived at Calle Mariano Pola, 2, 33212 Gijón, Asturias, Spain. Based on this photo, I think the contest picture was taken from this two-bedroom vacation apartment for rent. For the exact window within the apartment, I highlighted it in the attached screenshot. The sculpture in the distance turns out to be Eulogy to the Horizon by Eduardo Chillida.

Below is a visual glimpse of all of the entries (zoom in by double-clicking an area of interest, or drag your cursor up and down the slide):

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From a reader in country:

Well, no special story or anything other than I have walked along that waterfront, as it’s fairly well known here in Spain. Only once have I been up to Gijón (pronounced in English as “hee-hone”), but I instantly recognized it, so I imagine you will have quite a few correct guesses this week. Let me recommend Asturias and the northern parts of Spain in general to so many of the readers who may have an image of the country that completely forgets the very verdant North. It’s a completely different style that is absolutely lovely.

Anyway, after knowing where it was from memory, I just used Google Maps to confirm it was the same place I was thinking of and found a nice street view photo sphere of the area:

And looking around I found a pleasant piece of architecture that I’m pretty sure is the building in question:

Now that I noticed that the rules were bent a bit this week to not show the actual window, I’m going to guess that the photo is from the top balcony of the building at Calle de Mariano Pola, number 2.

A veteran player:

I got lucky looking at beaches with roof structures. I found a TripAdvisor shot, showing that striking wall design at the beach steps. That led to Google Map view, excerpted below, at a sunnier and more populated moment:

Below is a photo from an apartment for rent, described as Calle Mariano Pola, 2, 3:

I am not sure if this is the very apartment, but it seems awfully close! Perhaps the VFYW was taken early in the day; beach looks very empty, and with its lack of shadows, can’t tell what time it was. But I am thrilled to have found it, anyhow!

Another reader:

Playa de Poniente, white building shaped like a ship (there are three in a row; it’s the one nearest an old chimney), fourth floor. For the window, see the attached image:

This one was really hard. I came close to giving up, then my sister told me: “looks like Spain” (I was sure it was a northern country somewhere in Europe). So I googled “playa artificial” (it is definitely an artificial beach), and after a hundred photos of Japanese beaches-under-a-dome there it was.

Another:

Six in a row! A new record for my wife and me. And hard-earned, too, as this was easily the contest I’ve had to spend the most time on over the last month and a half.

But why, when there’s so much to look at? I really thought a European beach would give itself up rather quickly, but this tiny beach near the Gijon marina hid itself as well as any place can on the internet these days. Our first instinct was actually Scandinavia, and the lack of wave activity had us thinking it was perhaps a lake beach. So a lot of wrong roads turned down this week, and had it not been for our streak I may have given up. Eventually some combination of search terms yielded a travel site about Spanish beaches, and while Gijon wasn’t featured there were certain similarities in the plazas and access ramps that made me think Spain was the way to go. That also made me aware that all those dark-haired people in the picture probably aren’t milling about a beach in Scandinavia.

And so I did what I’ve done before on obvious coastline scenes — just follow the damn coast of spain, stopping at every spot where sandy beaches intersected with a densely-populated area. Plenty of false positives, but with so much detail in the view I was able to move on from each rather quickly.

There are three parallel ugly apartment buildings (I presume) lining that plaza, and the view is taken from the far-right one that sorta looks like a cruise ship. 3rd floor, let’s say.

Another:

The view is from Calle de Mariano Pola, 2, Gijón, Spain. Third floor balcony, at the northeastern corner. This is a private building, one of three condo buildings that are shaped like a ship, so I can’t even venture a guess as to the exact address. Attached I can’t believe I found this, but I’ve circled what I think is the window.

I’m never right on my first guess with these, but I looked at the photo and said, wait, I’ve been there. It’s Gijón! I had a summer of fun debauchery as an exchange student in a small town in northwestern Spain, almost 15 years ago. My host brother and I took the bus up to Gijón for a couple of days on the beach. Lovely. That’s the Playa de Poniente, one of Gijón’s several beautiful crescent beaches.

Yes, I questioned myself for a few minutes, because it could’ve also been San Sebastián with its famous crescent-shaped Playa de la Concha, and I haven’t been to either in 15 years and maybe I was wrong. The tip-off was the big gray building, when I re-reviewed the photo. It had to be the Talaso Poniente.

I assume you’ll get lots of submissions because it’s a rather unique building. Takes all the fun out of things that the crazy savants can always turn these out easily. Oh, well.

Our favorite spousal team rocks their 11th contest in a row:

Our guess is that the contest photograph was taken in Gijón, Spain. The view is of Poniente Beach and the surrounding area, and was taken facing northeast from the building and fourth-floor window shown in the photograph below:

We were out of town this weekend and did not expect we would be able to get to the VFYW contest, but we did a whirlwind search this evening (Monday) and got it done. Once our toddler was in bed my wife hopped on Google and called out possibilities while I was on Google Earth checking out her suggestions. Narrowing this one down was difficult, but my wife (correctly) suspected northern Spain. The contest photo featured several construction cranes, so when she spied a New York Times article that mentioned new construction in Gijón she sent me there to check.

Not that Chini is feeling the heat:

Unlike the memories that last week’s visit to the Musee Rodin brought back for me, this week … oh who am I kidding #distractedbyworldcup. The basics then: This week’s view comes from Gijon, Spain and looks east-north-east along a heading of 70.12 degrees from a 3rd floor window in the Linea Rural apartments located at 2 Calle de Mariano Pola.

This week’s winner was the longest-playing veteran with a near-miss guess (by one floor):

A third floor apartment in this block, which looks like the rear end of a liner, on Calle de Mariano Pola in Gijon, in northern Spain.

It was the bike path that made me think Spain, the calm water that made me think bay, and the crane at rest suggested a northern facing coast.

Congrats! From the view’s submitter:

The photo was taken from the second (European) floor of the building at Poniente Gijón, Spain this week. The name means “where the sun sets.”

(Archive: Text|Gallery)