Precious little Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is when Americans, who constitute only about half peacefare’s readers, join with family and friends to acknowledge their many blessings. This year that means relative prosperity across much of the country, a parade of giant balloons in New York City, and a lot of good food and cheer–plus a bit of intra-family political controversy–at the single serious meal most of us indulge in today.

But the world is not in good shape and we all know it. Civil war rages in Syria, Libya and Yemen, three former dictatorships that failed to make the transition to democracy after political upheavals in 2011. Islamic State and Al Qaeda-linked terrorists have attacked in Beirut, Sinai, Bamako, Paris and elsewhere. Syrians, Afghans and Africans from many sub-Saharan countries are flowing into Europe, driving politics to the nationalist/nativist right and raising difficult security questions, with echoes in the US.

The Turkish downing of a Russian warplane has upped the ante. I don’t doubt that the Russians violated Turkish airspace or that the Turks warned the Russian pilots. It would be impossible to bomb along that portion of the Syrian/Turkish border without crossing into Turkish territory. But those are not the only reasons Turkey acted. The Russians were bombing Turkmen rebels fighting Bashar al Assad’s forces. Erdogan was making Obama’s rhetorical point with bombs: Russia is welcome to fight the Islamic State, but not to fight relatively moderate rebels opposing the dictatorship.

The escalation is nevertheless dangerous. The Syrian civil war is already a proxy war between Shia Iran and Sunni Arab Gulf states plus Turkey. The Turkish move risks engaging NATO and the US, which are understandably loathe to come to blows directly with Russia. I’d anticipate increasing pressure to produce results at peace talks to be convened early in January. But impending peace talks will also provide an incentive for the warring parties inside Syria to grab as much territory as possible, before a ceasefire freezes them in place.

The situation in Libya, Yemen and Iraq is no more promising. The Islamic State is using the impasse in Libya to deepen and expand its footprint, especially in and around Qaddafi’s hometown of Sirte. In Yemen the fighting continues, with Houthi rebels only slowly yielding ground to Saudi- and UAE-supported ground forces (reportedly including Colombian mercenaries) while Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula deepens and expands its footprint in more desolate parts of the country. Iraqi forces are making gradual but agonizingly slow progress against the Islamic State in Anbar, but Mosul and much of western Iraq remain out of Baghdad’s control.

Little of these Middle Eastern dramas are reflected directly in the United States. The numbers of refugees President Obama wants to take in are small even compared to what the Europeans are accepting, who in turn are less than 25% of the total who have already left Syria. The West is unwilling to throw its doors open to desperate Syrians, especially the Muslim ones, fearing that there may be terrorists hiding among them and neglecting to notice how refusal to admit refugees will help Islamic State and other extremist recruitment efforts. John Oliver captured the irony well with this:

There was only one time in American history when the fear of refugees wiping everyone out did actually come true, and we’ll all be sitting around a table celebrating it on Thursday.

I hope Americans will remember this bit of irony and try to spare some sympathy not only for the natives we displaced but also for the Middle Easterners who have so little to celebrate this year.