Bashar Assad comes out smelling of roses

The reinstatement of Bashar al-Asssad in the eyes of the Arab world is another cynical exercise in realpolitik Middle Eastern diplomacy. Here is a man whose regime has slaughtered tens if not hundreds of thousands of its own citizens in a brutal civil war, used chemical weapons against his enemies and saved his own life and his position of power by abusing every known moral, legal and ethical standard. Yet now he is being embraced, literally, by his fellow Arab leaders who seem to think it's the right time to bring the leader of Syria back into the family fold. Assad has been seen in Jeddah being welcomed by participants in the Arab League summit. He received a strong bearhug welcome from the Saudi crown prince and de facto ruler, Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Now there are two gentle folk of the Arab world sticking together! When asked whether this would mean the United States reviewing its policy towards Assad, Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, shook his head and said no. Nevertheless, Assad must be delighted that his fellow Arab leaders have now, it seems, recognised that he is still the legitimate leader of Syria and that he has largely got his country back under his control, give or take the odd slice of territory in the east and northeast where the remnants of the Islamic State are still battling it out against anyone who opposes them, including anti-Assad Arabs and Kurds and around 900 US troops. Assad will have returned to Damascus with a big smile on his face. Killing your own citizens on a grand scale, it seems, is ok when it comes to ensuring Arab unity.

Biden faces unity overseas but division back home

It is now a familiar routine in American politics for the United States to be on the precipice of a massively damaging debt default position only to be saved at the last second by a deal which pleases noone.There were several such instances in previous administrations but this time the drama and potential negative consequences are so much greater. Thanks to the enormous sums of money paid out of federal funds to keep America afloat during the Covid pandemic as well as the extra financial burdens created by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the US is today more than $30 trillion in debt - a staggering and unsustainable figure. Biden wants to lift the debt ceiling to help pay for the multiple domestic programmes he has introduced to cover all aspects of America's social and economic future and to create new industries and technologies which will help the save the planet from rapidly-changing climate conditions. The Republicans led by Kevin McCarthy, the House Speaker, have basically said "enough is enough, the country can no longer afford to maintain such a huge debt, let alone increase it and it's time to get the nation's finances back in shape". Their arguments are pretty sound and common sense but for Biden his whole legacy is at stake because the money-spending legislation he introduced was supposed to equip the US for a safer and more prosperous future. Biden is so upset at the Republicans' oposition that before leaving the G7 summit in Tokyo today he actually accused them of deliberately blocking his debt-ceiling request in order to stop him from winning another four years in the White House. As Robert Gates, the eminently wise and experienced former US defence secretary, said on US TV today, the country would be a darned sight better place if politicians in Washington learned to be civil to each other again. In other words, put country before partisan politics. There seems to be little hope of that, and so Biden will arrive back in Washington for more frantic negotiations and eventually just as the clock strikes, a deal will be done. It probably won't be a good deal for Biden and for his future prospects for the 2024 election.

What is Moscow threatening over the F-16 issue?

Moscow has issued so many dire warnings over the West's support for the Kyiv government that it is difficult to take the latest one seriously. Russia's deputy foreign minister Alexander Grushko has said there will be "enormous risks" if the West goes ahead and supplies Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets. Well, Zelensky has now been promised the jets, so what will Putin do? I think, and I hope I am right, that Putin has actually run out of options because pretty well everything has gone wrong for him with his "special military operation" in Ukraine. He can't stop the F-16s arriving and when the Ukrainian air force pilots have mastered how to fly them, they will begin to make a big difference in the skies over the battlefields. Putin can try and shoot them down of course but judging by Russia's total failure to win air superiority over Ukraine, it's likely that he will have little success in countering the new threat to his ambitions. Whenever Moscow threatens dire consequences, it always seems to imply that Putin will turn to unconventional weapons. But he knows, because he has received enough warnings from Nato on the subject, that if he resorts to nuclear weapons, there will be much graver consequences for Russia. Putin would face worldwide condemnation and a military response from Nato. I doubt he will take that risk. So what Mr Grushko had in his head when he issued the warning was probably more bluster than a genuine threat.

Zelensky to get F-16s after all

If ever there was an inevitable announcement it was Joe Biden telling Zelensky that he could have some F-16 fighter aircraft after all. Biden had been very reluctant to send F-16s for fear that they would escalate the war to something even more dangerous than it is at the moment. Even now he is not saying the US will send F-16s but he will not stand in the way if other Nato countries with F-16s send them, and he is willing for US pilots to provide training. Just like the sending of Abrams M1A1 tanks and longer-range attack missiles, the US has come round to it eventually. So probably by the end of this year the Ukrainian air force will be flying F-16s and taking on the Russian equivalents in midair combat. Will that escalate the war and raise the prospect of a wider conflict involving Nato? I seriously doubt it. Putin has had so many setbacks in his war with Ukraine that he knows for sure that if he takes on Nato as a whole he will be heavily defeated. So the sending of F-16s is belated but probably the right thing to do. Zelensky has been going on about it for so long that I guess Biden and co have just got worn down. They had to give in but took their time in doing so.

Now Ron DeSantis to enter the race

The Republican Florida governor is all set it seems to put his papers in for joining the 2024 presidential election campaign sometime next week. So then the Donald Trump/Ron DeSantis bashing will really begin. The prospect of a mighty battle between the two men, one considerably older than the other, does not exactly bode well for sensible, grown-up politics. Trump has already starting the bashing by calling the governor DeSanctimonious. It's a theme I'm sure we will hear a lot about in the next few months. Hopefully in between all the vitriol and insults, there will be intelligent debates about what these two men stand for. But I fear the vitriol will win the day. I doubt DeSantis will be able to stand up to the volume of criticism and personal attacks he will get from Trump. I always thought DeSantis, if he ever had a chance of becoming president, should have waited until 2028 but the pressure to stand this time round has been so overwhelming that if he were to announce that he is not going to be Trump's main rival for the Republican nomination, he would have lost face. So American voters are stuck with the Trump/DeSantis show whether they like it or not. It's probably good news for Joe Biden because while these two hammer away at each other, he can carry on quietly campaigning and reminding the electorate that he is the boss in the White House with all the experience of dealing with foreign and domestic crises. As I have written before, Ukraine is going to be a huge issue between now and November 2024, not because the voters themselves have the war in Ukraine at the top of their priorities - of course they don't - but because America's indirect involvement in the conflict and its leadership of the alliance supporting Kyiv with billions of dollars of weapons are testing Washington's status as the standard bearer of democracy against an increasingly authoritarian world. I don't see either Trump or DeSantis willing to take on that mantle. So it's down to Biden to prove to the American voter that this isssue is vital for the future of world security and that he is the man to shoulder the awesome burden. .

Poles living and working in the UK are being called up for military service back home

Brexit or no Brexit, there are still large numbers of Poles living and working in the United Kingdom. But now they are getting demand letters from back home to return to Poland. The reason says everything about the state of nervousness across the countries of eastern Europe who fear that Putin has his eye on them after he has finished destroyng Ukraine. The Poles are being called up for military service and are leaving in their droves as part of Warsaw's conscription programme. Poland is a frontline country and is more anxious than most about Putin's longer term ambitions. The reality of course is that if Putin were to dare to invade Poland or indulge in airstrikes or whatever, he would instantly be facing a war with the whole of Nato under the alliance's Article 5 pledge for every member nation. Moreover. can Putin really be plotting to take over Poland, Hungary, Romania and the three Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to try and reinstate the old Soviet Union? After his experience in Ukraine where his troops have been battered since they first entered the country on February 24, 2022, I can't imagine the Russian president has any dreams left to expand his territorial ambitions. And, despite all the early warnings from knowledgeable commentators that the whole of eastern Europe was at risk of being overrun by Russian troops, I doubt even Putin would ever have believed that was either realistic or prudent. He doesn't want a war with Nato for the simple reason that he knows Russia would lose if it remained a conventional war. And if it turned to a nuclear war then Putin and the planet would lose. So, despite the departure of conscript-age Poles from the UK to prepare to fight the Russians, I think it's over-egging the apocalypse scenario.

How Russian mercenaries got slaughtered by a band of US special ops troops

Faced by ten Russian T-72 tanks and 500 troops mostly from Russia's Wagner Group of mercenaries, the leader of 50 US special operations troops spoke into his mic:"We're going to stay and fight." Despite the overwhelming odds, there followed the biggest land battle between American and Russian-led forces anyone could remember and it ended with 350 enemy dead, nine destroyed tanks - and no US casualties. For the first time three members of the US special operations unit involved have spoken out about the four-hour confrontation with the Russian mercenaries which took place in eastern Syria on February 7, 2018. Ever since the US military had deployed to Syria in September, 2014, to fight the Islamic State (Isis), there had always been fears that at some point there could be direct conflict with Russian forces who were backing the Syrian regime. The battle in February, 2018, was the deadliest confrontation of all. The US special operations commandos who spoke to The War Horse, a US military news organisation, admitted it was an experience they had never imagined after being deployed to Syria. "It looked like New York City on New Year's Eve," a sergeant identified only as Chauncey, said. He led a quick reaction force of Green Berets and Marines to a burnt-out Conoco natural gas refinery which the Russian-led group was threatening to overrun. When the shoot-out began, officials in Washington rang Moscow to call off the fight. But Moscow denied there were Russians involved. Equipped only with armoured trucks and heavy machineguns, the quick reaction force took on the Russian tanks as they slowly approached to within a mile of their position and began firing 125mm shells. "This is what we get paid for," Chauncey said. "Let's open up and let 'em know we're here," he told his comrades. The Russian tank crews were thankfully inaccurate. The shells missed their targets. But Chauncey saw his unit's machinegun rounds "sparking" off the tanks. "The Russians were not hitting anything," Josh, another commando, said. One of the truck-mounted machineguns ran out of ammunition at a crucial moment. Josh had to climb out onto the roof to reload two belts of ammunition as artillery and tank shells burst around him. The shockwave hit him in the chest. The US troops had been appealing for airstrikes but it wasn't until all the Russian tanks were lined up within range that suddenly two pairs of Apache attack helicopters arrived overhead and blasted nine of the tanks. "They just destroyed everything," Chauncey said. The Russians were forced to withdraw. An intercepted Wagner Group radio message summed it up. "To make it short we had our arses kicked."