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Arnaud Bertrand Profile picture
@RnaudBertrand
Apr 14 • 2 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X
As predicted, it now looks pretty much certain the U.S. will leave it at that.

In a rather funny statement Biden says "Israel demonstrated a remarkable capacity to defend against and defeat even unprecedented attacks – sending a clear message to its foes that they cannot effectively threaten the security of Israel." He also said he will “coordinate a united diplomatic response”, meaning no military response (src: ).

Translation: "let's say that Iran's attack on Israel is a win for Israel so we can stop the escalation".

The background is that it seems that Israel did not notify the US ahead of their unprecedented bombing of Iran's consulate (or only at the very last minute). A bombing that was likely a desperate attempt by Israel to provoke retaliation by Iran and force the US to get involved in the fighting on the ground in order to change the whole dynamic of a conflict for which, let's face it, Israel is currently looking at strategic defeat. This is not just me postulating, read for instance Paul Pillar - the US's former top intelligence analyst for the region - saying the exact same thing:

The US saw through this and effectively told Iran "as soon as you give Israel a correction that's proportional to the Damascus strike, you're good to go". Again, this isn't just me postulating, it's literally what they said, see for instance this story from Reuters where a "US official" is quoted as saying "the United States expects an attack by Iran against Israel but one that would not be big enough to draw Washington into war" (). This is in effect the US giving Iran a green light to retaliate proportionally.

Now we can only hope that things indeed remain that way and that Israel doesn't launch yet another attack on Iran...timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry…
responsiblestatecraft.org/iran-israel-wa…
reuters.com/world/middle-e…Image
Further confirmation

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More from @RnaudBertrand

Arnaud Bertrand Profile picture
Apr 10
This is fascinating:

An Irish professor of international law - Anthony Carty - has spent considerable time looking through British and French archives, spanning from the 1880s until the late 1970s, to look at the historical understanding of sovereignty of the Spratly Islands. These are the islands in the South China Sea at the core of the present dispute between China and the Philippines.

He discovered that "the archives demonstrate, taken as a whole, that it is the view of the British and French legal experts that as a matter of the international law territory the Xisha Islands [the Paracel Islands] and the Nansha Islands [the Spratly Islands] are Chinese territory".

For instance on the Spratly islands he says: "French legal advice was that France never completed an effective occupation of the Spratlys, and they abandoned them completely in 1956. In the 1930s they recognized that these Spratlys had always been home to Chinese fisherman from Hainan Island and Guangdong. There had never been any Vietnamese or Philippine connection and French interference had only been in its own name and not that of Vietnam. It is the British who then drew a decisive conclusion, from all the French and British records available, that the Chinese were the owners of the Spratlys [the Nansha Islands], a legal position certified as part of British Cabinet records in 1974."

Fascinatingly, and immensely relevant to today's dispute between the Philippines and China, and America's involvement in the matter, he discovered "a record in the mid-1950s in the US National Archive, in which a US under secretary of state says that, while the Filipinos have no claim to the Spratlys, it is in the US interest to encourage them to make a claim anyway to keep Communist China out of the area".

His conclusion: "There is absolutely no doubt that this whole dispute is entirely about the Americans trying to make life difficult for the Chinese. The aggression that is building up against China and the scapegoating of China by the whole of the so-called democratic community of the world is appalling."globaltimes.cn/page/202404/13…
Also, important reminder that the Americans told the Philippines at its independence in 1946 (the Philippines were an American colony) that the Spratlys were not Philippine territory, because the Spratlys were not part of the Philippines per the 1898 treaty Spain signed with America (in which Spain ceded the Philippines to America).Image
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This 👇 is the definition of the territory of the Philippines in the 1898 Treaty of Paris (), on which the Treaty of Manila (1946) - where the U.S. relinquished U.S. sovereignty over the Philippines - is based.

The definition of Filipino territory excludes the Spratly Islands, since they're located beyond the 118th meridian of longitude east of Greenwich, which serves as part of the boundary line in the definition.avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/s…Image
Read 4 tweets
Arnaud Bertrand Profile picture
Apr 6
Just a couple of days ago I was warning about how the acceptance of Israel's bombing of Iran's consulate was destroying centuries-old norms around the sanctity of diplomatic facilities and... here you are 🤷‍♂️
That was my argument 👇
And here 👇
Read 4 tweets
Arnaud Bertrand Profile picture
Mar 23
That's quite dishonest framing by AP, given that Russia, China (and Algeria) vetoed the US resolution for the very reason that it did NOT call for an immediate ceasefire.

Instead it merely asked to *recognize the importance* of a ceasefire, and to support American negotiation efforts towards that purpose. Which wouldn't have changed the situation on the ground one iota... That's the text of the resolution:

"(The Security Council) Determines the imperative of an immediate and sustained ceasefire to protect civilians on all sides, allow for the delivery of essential humanitarian assistance, and alleviate humanitarian suffering, and towards that end unequivocally supports ongoing international diplomatic efforts to secure such a ceasefire in connection with the release of all remaining hostages;"

As the US Think Tank Responsible Statecraft rightly writes ():

"The clause does not demand a ceasefire but determines that it is imperative. Its support is not directly for the ceasefire but for the negotiation process the U.S. has been co-leading and whose parameters the U.S. has sought to determine in favor of Israel. The text points out that this effort to secure a ceasefire is 'in connection with the release of all remaining hostages.' This is an Israeli demand that is not likely to be accepted by Hamas in return for a time-limited ceasefire rather than a permanent one. As such, the American draft endorses the Israeli position in the negotiations and indirectly conditions the ceasefire on the release of all hostages, effectively making two million civilian Gazans hostages as well."

The US systematically vetoed all resolutions that were *actually* demanding an immediate ceasefire, so it's pretty clear they don't want one. This was a way to make it look like they were asking for one for PR purposes and for headlines from dishonest journalists such as AP's.responsiblestatecraft.org/us-ceasefire-g…Image
Yup that's a good one. A ransom note indeed.
The Algerian UN ambassador explaining why he vetoed 👇
Read 4 tweets
Arnaud Bertrand Profile picture
Feb 15
ROC (Taiwan) coastguards killed two mainland fishermen, which I believe are the first such casualties in the Taiwan strait in many years, if not decades.


They died off the coast of the Kinmen archipelago, which belongs to the ROC but which itself is just a couple of miles away from the Chinese mainland. Kinmen was in the news recently as Taiwanese media reported the US had dispatched special forces on the archipelago on a permanent basis (), which is extraordinarily provocative.

So far PRC authorities have been extremely restrained in their response, just condemning the "malignant incident" and asking for an immediate investigation by the ROC. Which goes to show that China is NOT looking for a confrontation in the Taiwan strait, as this is the type of incident that could be a casus belli.

Just imagine for a minute the worldwide outcry if those fishermen had been from the ROC, and killed by the PRC... We just wouldn't hear the end of it.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb…
newsweek.com/american-speci…
This 👇 is also an interesting coincidence, just as these fishermen were being killed...
scmp.com/news/china/dip…
I think this is my 1st ever community note, and quite a ridiculous one.

If the coastguards made a boat capsize whilst chasing it (I doubt it magically capsized on its own and the sea is anything but rough there), and 2 people died as a result... then the coastguards killed them. Image
Read 4 tweets
Arnaud Bertrand Profile picture
Feb 2
This is quite something! This is John Lander - Australia's former ambassador to Iran and Deputy Ambassador to China - explaining what the "rules-based order" actually is.

In his words it's "a set of ever varying, constantly vacillating rules devised by the United States for the benefit of the United States and its Western allies." He points out that "one of the most difficult thing about the rules-based order is finding out what the rules are!"

Link to the whole interview at the end of the thread.
On this topic I've been making the point since the beginning of Israel's war on Gaza that if one takes a step back, it's really at heart a war of the "rules-based order" against international law 👇. And I really believe that's a key prism to view the war.
In the same interview Lander also speaks about the war on Gaza from an international law perspective:

"The Palestinians don't have a state... [They're] under forceful occupation by Israel so the actions by Hamas - as horrendous as it was - is more in the character of a rebellion against the oppression of an occupying power than an invasion of one state by another. [It's] a paradox because [Israel] claim that Gaza and the West Bank do actually belong to Israel and that the Palestinians have no right to it, so on the one hand they say 'it is ours' and on the other hand they say 'we've been invaded' from within our own territory..."
Read 4 tweets
Arnaud Bertrand Profile picture
Jan 30
This is a absolutely fantastic example of data manipulation. Credit to @nikstankovic_ for spotting it (you can see his reply to @AgatheDemarais's post).

Not surprising coming from The Economist but the manipulation is still quite insane once you understand it.

Let me explain 🧵
Image
So what you understand from The Economist's graph is exactly what @AgatheDemarais understood: "oh my god, Japan has been 'derisking' from China for years, their economic reliance on China is low, Germany is so behind!".

Right? Well, it's TOTALLY wrong.
As a matter of fact Japanese exports to China are 26% higher than German exports to China 👇. 153B in exports to China from Japan in 2021 vs 121B from Germany.

Those are the actual numbers.
Image
Image
Read 9 tweets

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