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Seth Frantzman Profile picture
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16 Dec, 10 tweets, 3 min read
When US officials talk this way about the region, about being against their own military at Pentagon...about admiring the "great" authoritarian leaders abroad...and seeing civilians in Kashmir/Nagorna as just some geopolitical tool...fear them:

al-monitor.com/pulse/original…
If you read one interview and you want insight into the fundamentally inhumane approach of some in the US over the last years, the lack of empathy for hundreds of thousands ethnically-cleansed in Afrin and elsewhere...this is the interview. It's horrid. Scary.
When they talk this way about whole swaths of the world...like some piece on a chessboard...some of them claim to be pro-Israel...but Israel should know that one day this same mentality will justify the same horrid measures that don't put people first either. Beware of them.
This obsession with Iran by some officials...this idea that destroying Afrin and Nagorna-Karabkah is some setback for Iran...secret prisons for women being kidnapped in Afrin somehow harms Iran? Seems to me these abuses being justified in the name of "Iran" is just excuses.
If someone tells you "to confront Iran we have to destroy a bunch of minorities 2,000 miles from Tehran"...just say "this isn't about Iran. If you want to confront Iran's regime. Fine. Destroying lives in Syria, Armenia...Libya...doesn't do that.
Geopolitics and all this grand strategy nonsense is just an excuse for genocidal ethnic-cleansing. It's the same nonsense that led to Munich in 1938 and the Nazi-Soviet pact. We all know what happened after that.
When people tell you that cities have to be razed and minorities disappeared as part of "strategy"...just reject that. No "strategy" requires that. When it does, it is because people have no empathy or are wrong.
I oppose the Iran regime, but if you told me "we must destroy Afrin and Nagorna-Karabakh to confront Iran"...that's when one must walk away. That doesn't hurt the Iran regime. It hurts poor people for no reason and helps Iran.
Ankara sold Washington on this mumbo-jumbo about "confronting Iran" for years as an excuse to attack US partners and peaceful people in Syria. Iran grew stronger. So it wasn't against Iran. It was against peaceful areas.
Do you really think destroying Afrin hurt Russia or Iran? Honestly it made people rely on Iran and Russia, knowing no one will save them. Destroying Nagorna-Karabakh didn't hurt Iran/Russia, it also empowers them. It hurt only nice innocent people, some of whom were beheaded.

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More from @sfrantzman

Seth Frantzman Profile picture
16 Dec
Which cavalry charge saving the day was the best?
Battle of the B,
Helm's Deep,
Read 7 tweets
Seth Frantzman Profile picture
16 Dec
Looks like Turkey is preparing an increasing invasion of northern Iraq; after Afrin, Tel Abyad, Libya and Armenia; the new target; the goal it claims is to “fight terror” but actually it has pushed KRG to brink of civil conflict to destabilize the region and wants Sinjar
The goal of Ankara is always to ruin peaceful areas, bombing and creating refugees. Ankara will get backing from the US under claims it is “stopping Iran” even though northern Iraq is one area free of Iran-backed PMU; goal is to destabilize and spread suffering
We’re the jets circling Erbil in recent days related to this? Not sure; but KRG tough statements on clauses, even blaming YPG is part of the goal of Rayburn and the Ankara lobby. KRG being driven to crisis for Ankara and Washington running along behind for no reason again
Read 7 tweets
Seth Frantzman Profile picture
13 Dec
You can never explain how the same people who say "we must engage with Iran, diplomacy is better than conflict"...also say when it comes to new Israel peace deals "it's not real peace" and mock or deride the deals and normalization...umm what happened to your love of 'engagement'
There is a chorus out there that talked "peace" for years...but every time there is peace...they are either silent or make snide, snarky, smarmy, negative, critical comments...because it was a peace lobby that was anti-peace...profited off conflict too often; hypocrisy.
There is also a kind of Stockholm syndrome of people who got used to Israel not having relations...normalization is the obvious minimum...every country in the world tends to enjoy this basic aspect...it's seventy years late actually. Should have happened years ago.
Read 6 tweets
Seth Frantzman Profile picture
11 Dec
Israel is constantly searching for the new “center party” or “flavor of the month” in elections, going back to Kadima, Pensioners and Yesh Atid, and Blue and White, Livni and Zionist Camp, it’s like a political laundry going round and round. Nobody wins.
There is largely a myth that these parties will erode Netanyahu and lead to some magical realignment. But reality tells us that Netanyahu’s Likud remains around 30 seats, enough to block the centrists by corralling the right and religious. The math is always the same.
It’s the same voters also, who make up a huge swath from Kulanu to Livni to the various parties that come and go, these extra floating mandates (around 10-20) it’s the same undecided voters who move en mass each time but can’t get over the hurdle of Coalitoon politics math
Read 4 tweets
Seth Frantzman Profile picture
10 Dec
Thread/ 🇮🇱 🇲🇦 🇧🇭 🇦🇪 🇸🇩 The way people discuss the normalization deals with Israel ignores an elephant in the room: normalization should be normal, almost all other countries have relations, this should have happened decades ago
That the US 🇺🇸 appears to trade things to get countries to normalize does it reflect badly on the US. It found this transactional diplomacy to work, but it shouldn’t need to be this way, normalization is the basis.
I see all these odd tweets remarking on “Bahrain didn’t get anything”...but Bahrain did what was right, which normalization and coexistence, that’s a good thing. Lack of normalization didn’t pressure Israel to change. No countries change through isolation, it only helps hardliner
Read 9 tweets
Seth Frantzman Profile picture
13 Nov
Whenever someone tells you that Turkey and Russia are somehow competing for influence or against each other...just say:

1. S-400s
2. Turksteam pipeline.

And then begin the conversation again with "Astana process"...

They are partitioning, cooperating...not in opposition.
Countries that compete don't buy weapons systems from one another, build pipelines rapidly and divide other countries like Syria, Libya, Nagorna-Karabkah. That's just not how competition works. For competition see Iran-Israel, US-China tensions, Pakistan-India, etc...
Now...does China buy US Patriot missiles? No.
Do the US and China build pipelines together? No.
Do they carve up countries with peacekeepers and deals? No.

Now do the same for Israel and Iran, Pakistan and India, etc, etc...

#think
Read 4 tweets

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