Books in Brief

The Foreign Policy staff reviews Vaclav Smil ’ s encyclopedia on growth and recent releases on economics in hard times and diplomats on the front lines .
Growth : From Microorganisms to Megacities by Vaclav Smil The best way to appreciate Vaclav Smil ’ s latest doorstopper is to take a deep breath , walk across the room , and pick up the book from wherever it landed after being tossed away for the umpteenth time as impenetrable , incomprehensible mush .
Because it does get a lot better—and much more interesting .
Smil ’ s Growth : From Microorganisms @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beach read , or even a pleasure read , in much the same way that hacking through untracked jungle never quite approaches an indulgence .
Yet Smil ’ s encyclopedic recounting of the story of growth is fascinating , compelling—and ultimately convincing .
Smil ’ s basic thrust is that growth is finite .
The growth of individual microbes—and animals and plants and humans—has limits .
So does the growth of their populations .
So , too , does the growth of nearly every other thing in the history of humanity , from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speeds to the length of German autobahns to empires , all of which are documented—with graphs—in Smil ’ s relentless quest to build his case .
Things—whether broiler chickens or wind turbines or wheat yields—are small for a while , then undergo a period of vertiginous growth , and then stabilize at a bigger size .
And then they can ’ t really get bigger .
Except there ’ s one thing that everybody expects to keep growing : the economy .
That ’ s what government policies everywhere seek to do , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ problem , Smil notes , is that we live in a real world with finite resources .
Economic growth requires more energy , more food , and more raw materials ; efficiency gains only nibble around the edges .
Smil contends that there is ultimately an even bigger constraint to infinite growth : the sustainability of the environment , a problem that is especially pressing due to climate change .
“ Continuous material growth , based on ever greater extraction of the Earth ’ s inorganic and organic resources and on increased degradation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and services , is impossible , ” as Smil puts it in one of his pithier moments .
The upshot ?
Smil , who has no truck with techno-optimists who expect miraculous exceptions to the laws of thermodynamics , ends his journey by concluding that a “ fundamental departure from the long-established pattern of maximizing growth and promoting material consumption can not be delayed by another century , ” if humanity wants to have a place to live.—Keith Johnson Good Economics for Hard Times by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo Almost a decade @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Esther Duflo made a splash with their first book , a detailed , evidence-based look at policies that could improve life for poor people in poor countries .
Now , the 2019 Nobel-winning couple are back with their take on policies that could improve life for poor people in rich countries .
Good Economics for Hard Times starts with the premise that many of the West ’ s social and political problems over the last decade—from rising xenophobia and fears of migration to confusion over trade and globalization—had economic causes , which means @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Good economics alone can not save us , ” they write .
“ But without it , we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of yesterday .
Ignorance , intuitions , ideology , and inertia combine to give us answers that look plausible , promise much , and predictably betray us.
” There are plenty of insightful , thought-provoking sections in their new book , which is geared to a broader audience than their first was .
Their chapter on misconceptions about migration—and especially the impact it has on low-skilled wages ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is their deep dive into economic growth , why it stagnated in much of the developed world more than 40 years ago , and how ( or even whether ) to kick-start that growth again .
Other bits , including a look at the harm trade does to certain people in certain places , are less convincing and gloss over many of the well-documented benefits that liberalized trade has brought the world over the past half-century .
Good Economics for Hard Times makes important policy connections and suggestions .
For example , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ less common than most people think and why trade hits some areas harder than economists expect : People and economies are “ sticky.
” Economic models may suggest that workers in trade-threatened industries will simply migrate to other jobs or other regions , but few really do .
Banerjee and Duflo explore traditional remedies ( tariffs sure aren ’ t the answer , they find , and job retraining and other trade adjustment tools are too narrow and take too long ) and suggest some novel ideas .
Why not subsidize older workers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rust Belt towns from falling into decay and despair ?
The social and political payoff would be well worth the tax dollars , they argue .
Intriguing as the book is at some points , it seems dogged by a fatal flaw not of the authors ’ making .
In crafting their carefully reasoned arguments , they marshal evidence assembled over decades from all sorts of areas—the fight against malaria , past efforts at tax reform , previous waves of migration—and propose commonsense solutions .
But in a world in which many people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a fact-free , conspiracy-tinged alternate reality , it ’ s hard to see even good ideas gaining traction .
Which is a pity because , as they note , hard times demand hard thinking.—KJ The Ambassadors : America ’ s Diplomats on the Front Lines by Paul Richter Countless books have picked apart how the United States stumbled into its so-called forever wars in the greater Middle East .
But nearly all of them focus on either the presidents and their inner circles in Washington who signed off on the conflicts or the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Paul Richter fills a glaring absence in the literature with his book The Ambassadors .
U.S. diplomats represent a small fraction of millions of Americans who have cycled through conflict zones from Iraq to Afghanistan to Syria , but they have played an outsized role in the trenches of U.S. policy : the rare triumphs , the common tragedies , and the muddled , messy stalemates in between .
Richter profiles four veteran foreign service officers who chose to spend the bulk of their careers in some of the world ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and most complex wars .
They are Ryan Crocker , the former ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq ; Robert Ford , the former ambassador to Syria ; Anne Patterson , the former ambassador to Pakistan and Egypt ; and J. Christopher Stephens , the former ambassador to Libya who was killed in a terrorist attack in Benghazi in 2012 .
The book is a compelling and poignant glimpse at an often overlooked and misunderstood profession .
It is also , if by happenstance , timely .
The U.S. State Department finds itself besieged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ investigation and by a president who is distrustful , if not downright scornful , of professional diplomats .
Despite its central role in ongoing wars that appear to have no end date , the department also faces budget cuts and a hemorrhaging of top talent that will take it years to recover from .
Richter , a former longtime diplomatic correspondent for the Los Angeles Times , succinctly weaves the complex history of U.S. involvement in the greater Middle East through his profiles of the ambassadors and their grueling , thankless , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much ground he has to cover—the bungling of the Iraq War , the chaos of Libya , the fraught relationship with Pakistan as a conflict raged in Afghanistan—that is no small feat .
The book is easily digestible and meticulously researched , with scores of interviews from the ambassadors and their former colleagues .
One of the most important themes he touches on is the slow death of expeditionary diplomacy , exemplified by the aftermath of Stephens ’ s tragic death .
During his tenure , Stephens was an effective ambassador because of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ engage with Libyans outside the embassy .
But that drive ultimately contributed to his death at the hands of terrorists who attacked a lightly defended U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi .
Stephens ’ s killing , alongside the deaths of another State Department official and two CIA contractors , sparked a grueling partisan battle on Capitol Hill over what went wrong .
It led the State Department to strengthen security in its fortresslike embassies and further restrict the freedoms diplomats need—even in the world ’ s most dangerous countries—to do their jobs .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ may be , Richter ’ s book reminds us of their importance .
The times that Washington ignored or overrode their advice , Washington was often proved wrong .
Ford , for example , tried to raise alarm bells and stave off sectarian violence in central Iraq .
His warnings went unheeded , and violence exploded across the country in 2007 .
Former U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis once said : “ If you don ’ t fund the State Department fully , I need to buy more ammunition.
” There is truth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ book shows that alongside the military , one of the best weapons the United States has is its veteran diplomats.—Robbie Gramer This article appears in the Winter 2020 print issue .

The Foreign Policy staff reviews Vaclav Smil’s encyclopedia on growth and recent releases on economics in hard times and diplomats on the front lines.
Growth: From Microorganisms to Megacities by Vaclav Smil
The best way to appreciate Vaclav Smil’s latest doorstopper is to take a deep breath, walk across the room, and pick up the book from wherever it landed after being tossed away for the umpteenth time as impenetrable, incomprehensible mush.
Because it does get a lot better—and much more interesting. Smil’s Growth: From Microorganisms to Megacities never approaches anything like a beach read, or even a pleasure read, in much the same way that hacking through untracked jungle never quite approaches an indulgence. Yet Smil’s encyclopedic recounting of the story of growth is fascinating, compelling—and ultimately convincing.
Smil’s basic thrust is that growth is finite. The growth of individual microbes—and animals and plants and humans—has limits. So does the growth of their populations. So, too, does the growth of nearly every other thing in the history of humanity, from cranes to steam turbines to jetliner cruising speeds to the length of German autobahns to empires, all of which are documented—with graphs—in Smil’s relentless quest to build his case. Things—whether broiler chickens or wind turbines or wheat yields—are small for a while, then undergo a period of vertiginous growth, and then stabilize at a bigger size. And then they can’t really get bigger.
Except there’s one thing that everybody expects to keep growing: the economy. That’s what government policies everywhere seek to do, with more or less success. The problem, Smil notes, is that we live in a real world with finite resources. Economic growth requires more energy, more food, and more raw materials; efficiency gains only nibble around the edges.
Smil contends that there is ultimately an even bigger constraint to infinite growth: the sustainability of the environment, a problem that is especially pressing due to climate change. “Continuous material growth, based on ever greater extraction of the Earth’s inorganic and organic resources and on increased degradation of the biosphere’s finite stocks and services, is impossible,” as Smil puts it in one of his pithier moments.
The upshot? Smil, who has no truck with techno-optimists who expect miraculous exceptions to the laws of thermodynamics, ends his journey by concluding that a “fundamental departure from the long-established pattern of maximizing growth and promoting material consumption cannot be delayed by another century,” if humanity wants to have a place to live.—Keith Johnson
Good Economics for Hard Times by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo
Almost a decade ago, the economists Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo made a splash with their first book, a detailed, evidence-based look at policies that could improve life for poor people in poor countries. Now, the 2019 Nobel-winning couple are back with their take on policies that could improve life for poor people in rich countries.
Good Economics for Hard Times starts with the premise that many of the West’s social and political problems over the last decade—from rising xenophobia and fears of migration to confusion over trade and globalization—had economic causes, which means that they also have economic solutions.
“Good economics alone cannot save us,” they write. “But without it, we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of yesterday. Ignorance, intuitions, ideology, and inertia combine to give us answers that look plausible, promise much, and predictably betray us.”
There are plenty of insightful, thought-provoking sections in their new book, which is geared to a broader audience than their first was. Their chapter on misconceptions about migration—and especially the impact it has on low-skilled wages (zero)—is particularly interesting, as is their deep dive into economic growth, why it stagnated in much of the developed world more than 40 years ago, and how (or even whether) to kick-start that growth again. Other bits, including a look at the harm trade does to certain people in certain places, are less convincing and gloss over many of the well-documented benefits that liberalized trade has brought the world over the past half-century.
Good Economics for Hard Times makes important policy connections and suggestions. For example, the same forces account for why migration is less common than most people think and why trade hits some areas harder than economists expect: People and economies are “sticky.” Economic models may suggest that workers in trade-threatened industries will simply migrate to other jobs or other regions, but few really do. Banerjee and Duflo explore traditional remedies (tariffs sure aren’t the answer, they find, and job retraining and other trade adjustment tools are too narrow and take too long) and suggest some novel ideas. Why not subsidize older workers in dying, trade-threatened industries to keep Rust Belt towns from falling into decay and despair? The social and political payoff would be well worth the tax dollars, they argue.
Intriguing as the book is at some points, it seems dogged by a fatal flaw not of the authors’ making. In crafting their carefully reasoned arguments, they marshal evidence assembled over decades from all sorts of areas—the fight against malaria, past efforts at tax reform, previous waves of migration—and propose commonsense solutions.
But in a world in which many people, and many policymakers, willfully inhabit a fact-free, conspiracy-tinged alternate reality, it’s hard to see even good ideas gaining traction. Which is a pity because, as they note, hard times demand hard thinking.—KJ
The Ambassadors: America’s Diplomats on the Front Lines by Paul Richter
Countless books have picked apart how the United States stumbled into its so-called forever wars in the greater Middle East. But nearly all of them focus on either the presidents and their inner circles in Washington who signed off on the conflicts or the military they sent in to fight them.
Paul Richter fills a glaring absence in the literature with his book The Ambassadors. U.S. diplomats represent a small fraction of millions of Americans who have cycled through conflict zones from Iraq to Afghanistan to Syria, but they have played an outsized role in the trenches of U.S. policy: the rare triumphs, the common tragedies, and the muddled, messy stalemates in between.
Richter profiles four veteran foreign service officers who chose to spend the bulk of their careers in some of the world’s most dangerous places and in its costliest and most complex wars. They are Ryan Crocker, the former ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq; Robert Ford, the former ambassador to Syria; Anne Patterson, the former ambassador to Pakistan and Egypt; and J. Christopher Stephens, the former ambassador to Libya who was killed in a terrorist attack in Benghazi in 2012.
The book is a compelling and poignant glimpse at an often overlooked and misunderstood profession. It is also, if by happenstance, timely. The U.S. State Department finds itself besieged by partisan vitriol in a heated impeachment investigation and by a president who is distrustful, if not downright scornful, of professional diplomats. Despite its central role in ongoing wars that appear to have no end date, the department also faces budget cuts and a hemorrhaging of top talent that will take it years to recover from.
Richter, a former longtime diplomatic correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, succinctly weaves the complex history of U.S. involvement in the greater Middle East through his profiles of the ambassadors and their grueling, thankless, and sometimes nearly impossible jobs. Given how much ground he has to cover—the bungling of the Iraq War, the chaos of Libya, the fraught relationship with Pakistan as a conflict raged in Afghanistan—that is no small feat. The book is easily digestible and meticulously researched, with scores of interviews from the ambassadors and their former colleagues.
One of the most important themes he touches on is the slow death of expeditionary diplomacy, exemplified by the aftermath of Stephens’s tragic death. During his tenure, Stephens was an effective ambassador because of his eagerness to leave security perimeters and engage with Libyans outside the embassy. But that drive ultimately contributed to his death at the hands of terrorists who attacked a lightly defended U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi.
Stephens’s killing, alongside the deaths of another State Department official and two CIA contractors, sparked a grueling partisan battle on Capitol Hill over what went wrong. It led the State Department to strengthen security in its fortresslike embassies and further restrict the freedoms diplomats need—even in the world’s most dangerous countries—to do their jobs.
Even curtailed and under pressure as diplomats may be, Richter’s book reminds us of their importance. The times that Washington ignored or overrode their advice, Washington was often proved wrong. Ford, for example, tried to raise alarm bells and stave off sectarian violence in central Iraq. His warnings went unheeded, and violence exploded across the country in 2007.
Former U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis once said: “If you don’t fund the State Department fully, I need to buy more ammunition.” There is truth in his words. Richter’s book shows that alongside the military, one of the best weapons the United States has is its veteran diplomats.—Robbie Gramer
This article appears in the Winter 2020 print issue.


foreignpolicy--2020-01-11--Why Does China Have 1.4 Billion People and No Good Bands?

Why Does China Have 1.4 Billion People and No Good Bands ?
The Hu first started gaining attention more than a year ago with the music videos for two songs— “ Wolf Totem ” and “ Yuve Yuve Yu ” —which blew up on YouTube thanks to their fist-pumping instrumentals and stunning steppe visuals .
At a recent count , the two videos had a combined 61 million views on YouTube—20 times the number of people in Mongolia .
Fans attribute the success of the Hu to the group ’ s blending of Western metal with local styles .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ instance of an ongoing phenomenon .
Mongolia has a strong tradition of rock groups working to modernize traditional sounds .
Altan Urag , a Mongolian folk rock group from the capital of Ulaanbaatar , first succeeded in electrifying traditional Mongolian instruments almost 15 years ago .
And it gave heavy metal the distinctive growl of throat singing with its seminal 2006 album , Made In Altan Urag .
Mongolian bands like Khusugtun , Altain Orgil , Jonon , and Mohanik have all tweaked folk music to modern ends .
Despite having 1.4 billion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ million , there ’ s no such thing as a distinctive Chinese national sound that mixes tradition and modernity in the same way Mongolians do .
That ’ s a stark contrast with Mongolia ’ s neighbor China .
Despite having 1.4 billion people to Mongolia ’ s mere 3 million , there ’ s no such thing as a distinctive Chinese national sound that mixes tradition and modernity in the same way Mongolians do—at least none that has become a serious commercial player .
Instead , China has been left churning out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ countries ’ genres .
That raises a big question : Why does Mongolian music slap so hard and Chinese music ( with a few exceptions ) suck ?
The answers are partially historical .
In the 20th century , Mongolia was a Soviet satellite state .
The Soviet policy toward music was to promote folk music that represented the national consciousness while remaining wary of foreign imports .
Folk songs were collected , recorded , and performed to create a sense of anti-imperial multiculturalism .
It helped that Mongolia didn ’ t suffer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some communist states .
While there were brutal purges in the 1930s , Mongolia ’ s nomadic and dispersed culture allowed its music to survive under a softer form of communist rule .
Unfortunately , the kids wanted blue jeans and rock .
Noticing the passion that Ulaanbaatar teenagers held for their secret recordings of Western music in the 1970s , the Mongolian culture ministry embarked on a campaign to blend the mandatory folk music with rock ’ n ’ roll .
But this Mongolian rock wasn ’ t really popular at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ down and safe , ” said Lauren Knapp , the director of the 2015 documentary Live From UB , which tells the story of rock music in the new Mongolia .
Yet the state-backed rock of the 1970s gave young Mongolians enough of a ground that in the 1980s , when students started pushing for democracy , rock music became an important force .
The new wave was straightforward Western-style protest rock , akin to that of other dissident artists like Russia ’ s Viktor Tsoi and China ’ s Cui Jian .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bell ” united Mongolians as they gathered in Ulaanbaatar to demand democracy .
Its political weight meant that Mongolians took music seriously .
Fights between fans of different genres wrecked clubs in the early 2000s , with hip-hop aficionados swinging at metalheads .
In the new millennium , though , musicians in Ulaanbaatar ’ s growing rock scene regained interest in developing a distinctively Mongolian sound .
The pioneers included Altan Urag , conservatory-trained folk musicians who thought they might be able to get more of their friends to come to their concerts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ edge .
They successfully electrified the morin khuur , the traditional Mongolian horsehead fiddle , and started experimenting with a new style .
It was a hit , and the band remains beloved .
A few years later , the group Mohanik , which is followed throughout Live From UB , decided to abandon its pop-punk beginnings and return to its roots .
Even though the band members were all born and bred city kids , they say in the documentary , they believed they had the ability to create something fundamentally Mongolian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their country was once a world-spanning power but is now dominated and threatened by neighbors .
“ It ’ s not like we grew up riding horses , ” Mohanik bassist Enerelt Otgonbaatar tells the camera in Live From UB .
“ But it ’ s there , we think.
” Knapp says the sense of a shared cultural music remains strong .
Musicians are highly respected and play a role in the daily life of Mongolians .
People still hire morin khuur ensembles to play at the opening of their new businesses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of age ceremonies , she points out .
And maybe it helps that Mongolians are angry .
The country ’ s economic boom ended sharply in 2016 after a slowdown of demand from China caused a hard crash in the minerals market .
Local rage comes out in the country ’ s thriving hip-hop scene , where the most popular songs have often been violently racist toward Chinese .
Young Mongolians are acutely aware that their country was once a world-spanning power but is now dominated and threatened by neighbors .
Mongolia ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and wrestling—are almost inherently metal .
Most young Chinese wouldn ’ t recognize their own folk music if it were blaring right in front of them .
Of course , just what comprises traditional music in China isn ’ t anywhere near as clear as it is in Mongolia , with its small population and strong sense of culture .
Confucius famously disdained all music except the ceremonial tunes of the past state of Zhou , which had vanished before his time .
And nobody actually knew what those were , though earnest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the centuries .
The music that ordinary Chinese actually preferred , on the other hand , was a product of globalization even back in the days of the Silk Road .
The erhu , one of the instruments central to Chinese music , originated in the Central Asian steppe , while the four-stringed pipa came to China via the Middle East during the Tang Dynasty .
Ninth-century Chinese kids slammed to “ the whirl , ” a dance craze that temporarily seized the capital of Changan .
Literati penned flute tunes in their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chinese actually preferred , on the other hand , was a product of globalization even back in the days of the Silk Road .
And in a country as vast as China , there was also intense regional variation .
Folk music in the southern canal city of Suzhou differed significantly from that in the mountainous region of Shaanxi , a thousand miles away—and even from that in Wuxi , just 15 miles away .
Even within Chinese opera—a younger tradition than Western opera , mostly dating back only to the turn of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ variations , with the shrill trilling of Peking opera only the most famous .
Folk music collectors loved picking through local traditions for unknown tunes and rare instruments .
China ’ s varied musical tradition , as with almost every other part of Chinese culture , was gutted during the Cultural Revolution ( 1966-1976 ) .
Most forms of traditional music struggled to survive during the decades in which politics dictated art and culture .
The onset of the Cultural Revolution demanded that all art be revolutionary art .
Peking opera and Chinese @ @ @ @ @ @ @ few pieces survived in repackaged form .
One of the most famous songs from this era , “ The East Is Red ” —briefly the Chinese national anthem—is set to the tune of an old Shaanxi folk song .
For a little while after Mao Zedong died , it seemed young Chinese people might regain interest in Chinese folk .
As a generation struggled to make sense of the changes of the 1980s , China was swept by the xibeifeng ( “ northwest wind ” ) sound .
Drawing on the folk traditions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ using traditional instruments played over forceful beats and loud , rough vocal delivery , xibeifeng music at once gave voice to defiant Chinese nationalism and increasingly bitter dissatisfaction .
It was part of the larger xungen ( “ searching for roots ” ) movement of the era , when young Chinese tried to rediscover their own lost traditions .
In songs like “ My Old Hometown , ” xibeifeng musicians drew on the imagery of the barren windswept plateau to reflect their bitterness over the bleak prospects for youth of their generation .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ n ’ roll , but it was close , and indeed some xibeifeng tunes became popular anthems during the Tiananmen Square democracy movement .
This authentic and organic Chinese sound was crushed along with the student movement after the tanks rolled in on June 4 , 1989 .
Rock ’ n ’ roll , which was closely associated with xibeifeng , was briefly banned .
More importantly , culture itself became dangerous to a generation that had seen hope end in blood .
Throughout the 1990s , Chinese were more interested in getting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ At the same time , with hundreds of millions of people leaving their villages to work in cities , regional music and traditions were diluted—or lost forever .
And even though new wealth created a vast commercial demand for music , the last thing it could be was dangerous .
Instead the 2000s saw a vast expansion of musical banality , from twee pop numbers and nostalgic revolutionary songs to the repackaging of ethnic music as a harmless fancy rather than an expression of cultural passion .
Han Chinese Singers such as Peng @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wife , became famous for singing Uighur and Tibetan music .
Even though new wealth created a vast commercial demand for music , the last thing it could be was dangerous .
There were small local scenes , such as metal in Wuhan and punk in Beijing , but they spluttered and died , unable to reach the national stage thanks to censorship .
Anything that did make it through was carefully neutered , as witnessed by the recent purging of hip-hop—hugely popular among Chinese born after 1995 .
After an uncomfortably authentic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the hit online show The Rap of China that got several of the most popular contestants banned , the second season went to great lengths not only to adhere strictly to nationalism and cut out any mention of sex , drugs , or cops but to overcompensate by encouraging contestants , including several Uighurs , to adopt a “ Chinese style ” ( zhongguofeng ) in their raps .
The main proponent of this style throughout the season was the show ’ s host , the former K-pop idol and infamously poor rapper @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his performance of “ Young OG , ” Wu came out clad in a retooled Mandarin jacket backed up by a quivering orchestra of Chinese string instruments .
At the climactic moment of the show , he seized a hammer and smashed it into an enormous gong , cuing a burst of fog from which emerged a half-dozen Peking opera performers in full traditional garb .
Put this Disneyfied version of Chinese music up against raging Mongolians on horseback , and it ’ s no wonder the northern barbarians come out the victor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2020 print issue .

The most successful Mongolian conquerors since Genghis Khan aren’t on horseback but on the drums. They’re called the Hu, and over the past year their bone-vibrating hard rock, which combines traditional Mongolian instruments and throat singing with Western rock and metal, has become a breakout hit with fans around the world—and made them official cultural ambassadors for the country.
The most successful Mongolian conquerors since Genghis Khan aren’t on horseback but on the drums. They’re called the Hu, and over the past year their bone-vibrating hard rock, which combines traditional Mongolian instruments and throat singing with Western rock and metal, has become a breakout hit with fans around the world—and made them official cultural ambassadors for the country.
The Hu first started gaining attention more than a year ago with the music videos for two songs—“Wolf Totem” and “Yuve Yuve Yu”—which blew up on YouTube thanks to their fist-pumping instrumentals and stunning steppe visuals. At a recent count, the two videos had a combined 61 million views on YouTube—20 times the number of people in Mongolia.
Fans attribute the success of the Hu to the group’s blending of Western metal with local styles. But it’s only the most well-packaged instance of an ongoing phenomenon. Mongolia has a strong tradition of rock groups working to modernize traditional sounds. Altan Urag, a Mongolian folk rock group from the capital of Ulaanbaatar, first succeeded in electrifying traditional Mongolian instruments almost 15 years ago. And it gave heavy metal the distinctive growl of throat singing with its seminal 2006 album, Made In Altan Urag. Mongolian bands like Khusugtun, Altain Orgil, Jonon, and Mohanik have all tweaked folk music to modern ends.
Despite having 1.4 billion people to Mongolia’s mere 3 million, there’s no such thing as a distinctive Chinese national sound that mixes tradition and modernity in the same way Mongolians do.
That’s a stark contrast with Mongolia’s neighbor China. Despite having 1.4 billion people to Mongolia’s mere 3 million, there’s no such thing as a distinctive Chinese national sound that mixes tradition and modernity in the same way Mongolians do—at least none that has become a serious commercial player. Instead, China has been left churning out a stream of pale imitations of other countries’ genres. That raises a big question: Why does Mongolian music slap so hard and Chinese music (with a few exceptions) suck?
The answers are partially historical. In the 20th century, Mongolia was a Soviet satellite state. The Soviet policy toward music was to promote folk music that represented the national consciousness while remaining wary of foreign imports. Folk songs were collected, recorded, and performed to create a sense of anti-imperial multiculturalism. It helped that Mongolia didn’t suffer the same level of cultural destruction as some communist states. While there were brutal purges in the 1930s, Mongolia’s nomadic and dispersed culture allowed its music to survive under a softer form of communist rule.
Unfortunately, the kids wanted blue jeans and rock. Noticing the passion that Ulaanbaatar teenagers held for their secret recordings of Western music in the 1970s, the Mongolian culture ministry embarked on a campaign to blend the mandatory folk music with rock ’n’ roll. But this Mongolian rock wasn’t really popular at the time.
“It was very watered down and safe,” said Lauren Knapp, the director of the 2015 documentary Live From UB, which tells the story of rock music in the new Mongolia.
Yet the state-backed rock of the 1970s gave young Mongolians enough of a ground that in the 1980s, when students started pushing for democracy, rock music became an important force. The new wave was straightforward Western-style protest rock, akin to that of other dissident artists like Russia’s Viktor Tsoi and China’s Cui Jian. Songs like “The Ringing of the Bell” united Mongolians as they gathered in Ulaanbaatar to demand democracy.
Its political weight meant that Mongolians took music seriously. Fights between fans of different genres wrecked clubs in the early 2000s, with hip-hop aficionados swinging at metalheads. In the new millennium, though, musicians in Ulaanbaatar’s growing rock scene regained interest in developing a distinctively Mongolian sound. The pioneers included Altan Urag, conservatory-trained folk musicians who thought they might be able to get more of their friends to come to their concerts if they gave their music a harder edge.
They successfully electrified the morin khuur, the traditional Mongolian horsehead fiddle, and started experimenting with a new style. It was a hit, and the band remains beloved. A few years later, the group Mohanik, which is followed throughout Live From UB, decided to abandon its pop-punk beginnings and return to its roots. Even though the band members were all born and bred city kids, they say in the documentary, they believed they had the ability to create something fundamentally Mongolian.
Young Mongolians are acutely aware that their country was once a world-spanning power but is now dominated and threatened by neighbors.
“It’s not like we grew up riding horses,” Mohanik bassist Enerelt Otgonbaatar tells the camera in Live From UB. “But it’s there, we think.”
Knapp says the sense of a shared cultural music remains strong. Musicians are highly respected and play a role in the daily life of Mongolians. People still hire morin khuur ensembles to play at the opening of their new businesses or at their children’s coming of age ceremonies, she points out.
And maybe it helps that Mongolians are angry. The country’s economic boom ended sharply in 2016 after a slowdown of demand from China caused a hard crash in the minerals market. Local rage comes out in the country’s thriving hip-hop scene, where the most popular songs have often been violently racist toward Chinese. Young Mongolians are acutely aware that their country was once a world-spanning power but is now dominated and threatened by neighbors. Mongolia’s traditional sports—horseback riding, archery, and wrestling—are almost inherently metal.
The Chinese rapper Gai, right, who tied for first place on The Rap of China, performs with the Hong Kong singer G.E.M. in Guangzhou, southern China, on Dec. 31, 2017.
Most young Chinese wouldn’t recognize their own folk music if it were blaring right in front of them. Of course, just what comprises traditional music in China isn’t anywhere near as clear as it is in Mongolia, with its small population and strong sense of culture. Confucius famously disdained all music except the ceremonial tunes of the past state of Zhou, which had vanished before his time. And nobody actually knew what those were, though earnest attempts to re-create them were made over the centuries. The music that ordinary Chinese actually preferred, on the other hand, was a product of globalization even back in the days of the Silk Road. The erhu, one of the instruments central to Chinese music, originated in the Central Asian steppe, while the four-stringed pipa came to China via the Middle East during the Tang Dynasty. Ninth-century Chinese kids slammed to “the whirl,” a dance craze that temporarily seized the capital of Changan. Literati penned flute tunes in their spare time.
The music that ordinary Chinese actually preferred, on the other hand, was a product of globalization even back in the days of the Silk Road.
And in a country as vast as China, there was also intense regional variation. Folk music in the southern canal city of Suzhou differed significantly from that in the mountainous region of Shaanxi, a thousand miles away—and even from that in Wuxi, just 15 miles away. Even within Chinese opera—a younger tradition than Western opera, mostly dating back only to the turn of the 19th century—there were plenty of local variations, with the shrill trilling of Peking opera only the most famous. Folk music collectors loved picking through local traditions for unknown tunes and rare instruments.
China’s varied musical tradition, as with almost every other part of Chinese culture, was gutted during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Most forms of traditional music struggled to survive during the decades in which politics dictated art and culture.
The onset of the Cultural Revolution demanded that all art be revolutionary art. Peking opera and Chinese folk traditions were explicitly banned. A few pieces survived in repackaged form. One of the most famous songs from this era, “The East Is Red”—briefly the Chinese national anthem—is set to the tune of an old Shaanxi folk song.
For a little while after Mao Zedong died, it seemed young Chinese people might regain interest in Chinese folk. As a generation struggled to make sense of the changes of the 1980s, China was swept by the xibeifeng (“northwest wind”) sound. Drawing on the folk traditions of the hardscrabble northwestern Shaanxi province and using traditional instruments played over forceful beats and loud, rough vocal delivery, xibeifeng music at once gave voice to defiant Chinese nationalism and increasingly bitter dissatisfaction. It was part of the larger xungen (“searching for roots”) movement of the era, when young Chinese tried to rediscover their own lost traditions. In songs like “My Old Hometown,” xibeifeng musicians drew on the imagery of the barren windswept plateau to reflect their bitterness over the bleak prospects for youth of their generation. It wasn’t quite rock ’n’ roll, but it was close, and indeed some xibeifeng tunes became popular anthems during the Tiananmen Square democracy movement.
This authentic and organic Chinese sound was crushed along with the student movement after the tanks rolled in on June 4, 1989. Rock ’n’ roll, which was closely associated with xibeifeng, was briefly banned. More importantly, culture itself became dangerous to a generation that had seen hope end in blood. Throughout the 1990s, Chinese were more interested in getting rich than searching for their roots. At the same time, with hundreds of millions of people leaving their villages to work in cities, regional music and traditions were diluted—or lost forever. And even though new wealth created a vast commercial demand for music, the last thing it could be was dangerous. Instead the 2000s saw a vast expansion of musical banality, from twee pop numbers and nostalgic revolutionary songs to the repackaging of ethnic music as a harmless fancy rather than an expression of cultural passion. Han Chinese Singers such as Peng Liyuan, President Xi Jinping’s wife, became famous for singing Uighur and Tibetan music.
Even though new wealth created a vast commercial demand for music, the last thing it could be was dangerous.
There were small local scenes, such as metal in Wuhan and punk in Beijing, but they spluttered and died, unable to reach the national stage thanks to censorship. Anything that did make it through was carefully neutered, as witnessed by the recent purging of hip-hop—hugely popular among Chinese born after 1995. After an uncomfortably authentic (and beloved) first season of the hit online show The Rap of China that got several of the most popular contestants banned, the second season went to great lengths not only to adhere strictly to nationalism and cut out any mention of sex, drugs, or cops but to overcompensate by encouraging contestants, including several Uighurs, to adopt a “Chinese style” (zhongguofeng) in their raps.
The main proponent of this style throughout the season was the show’s host, the former K-pop idol and infamously poor rapper Wu Yifan aka Kris Wu. For his performance of “Young OG,” Wu came out clad in a retooled Mandarin jacket backed up by a quivering orchestra of Chinese string instruments. At the climactic moment of the show, he seized a hammer and smashed it into an enormous gong, cuing a burst of fog from which emerged a half-dozen Peking opera performers in full traditional garb.
Put this Disneyfied version of Chinese music up against raging Mongolians on horseback, and it’s no wonder the northern barbarians come out the victor.
This article appears in the Winter 2020 print issue.


foreignpolicy--2020-01-10--Iran’s Proxy Threat Is the Real Problem Now

Iran ’ s Proxy Threat Is the Real Problem Now Iran ’ s casualty-free and largely symbolic missile strike early Wednesday against Iraqi bases that house U.S. troops appeared designed to satisfy Tehran ’ s need for a prompt response to last week ’ s U.S. assassination of Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani .
Alongside the missile strike , Iran simultaneously released a statement that it did not seek to escalate further unless the United States struck back—and U.S. President Donald Trump appears to have forsworn a military response for now , as well .
But even if Iran itself @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whether proxy groups close to Tehran feel so as well—or whether they will continue to seek vengeance for Suleimani ’ s death by launching further attacks on U.S. interests or those of its allies .
As the primary architect of Iran ’ s strategic efforts to promote its expansion and undermine U.S. influence , Suleimani was particularly beloved by proxy groups like Hezbollah .
Constantly traveling , Suleimani oversaw the vast web of forces Iran has spent years methodically establishing .
Essentially the crown prince of Iranian fighting forces , Suleimani was a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s sphere of influence and was known as a “ living martyr.
” His image can be found on posters from southern Lebanon to Yemen , often next to that of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei , Iran ’ s supreme leader .
It was Suleimani ’ s face that fighters saw on the front lines , rallying them to the cause .
That ’ s why Iran ’ s proxies were some of the loudest voices to demand Iran hit the United States as hard as possible in retaliation for his killing .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hassan Nasrallah , the leader of Hezbollah , a Shiite militia and political party that controls much of the Lebanese government and is said to be the most formidable nonstate military actor in the world , delivered a harsh warning to the United States.Iran ’ s proxies were some of the loudest voices to demand Iran hit the United States as hard as possible in retaliation for his killing .
“ It is the American military who killed him , and it is they who will pay the price , ” Nasrallah said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ U.S .
military bases , soldiers , officers , and warships.
” That attitude percolates down the ranks , particularly with Iranian proxies in Iraq , the battlefield for the recent flare-up of hostilities .
Abu Hussein , a midlevel fighter in the Hashd al-Shaabi , or Popular Mobilization Forces ( PMF ) , a collective of Iran-backed militias wielding increasing influence in Iraq , seemed determined to show that Iranian generals can not be killed without consequences .
“ The [ Jan. 8 Iran missile ] attack was not enough , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ More attacks are coming , and more bases are going to be hit .
Iran will not stop attacking until America is out of the Middle East completely.
” Since the day of Iran ’ s strike , several rockets have reportedly hit bases in Baghdad ’ s Green Zone , which also houses U.S. forces , causing no casualties .
The rockets were likely fired by PMF units disgruntled with statements from senior leadership urging their followers to remain calm and not provoke the United States any further .
The contrast between @ @ @ @ @ @ @ things even with the United States and the continued bellicose rhetoric from its proxies hints at a potentially huge problem in the near future .
Iran has traditionally , officially at least , sought to distance itself from the activities of groups like Hezbollah , but in the wake of the Suleimani killing and subsequent missile retaliation , it has publicly embraced many of those groups .
On Thursday , Amir Ali Hajizadeh , the commander of Iran ’ s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force , held a press conference in which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ regional allies were ostentatiously displayed behind him .
It was a clear warning to the United States : If you strike us , we will hit back , and we have a wide reach .
No matter how calculating Iran is in its military strategy , its proxies can ’ t always be counted on to remain in complete lockstep with their patron country , said Dina Esfandiary , an Iran expert at the Century Foundation .
“ I think the proxies can make America ’ s life hell , ” she said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is that because Iran has painted itself as the entity completely controlling these proxies , it will then bear full responsibility for what they do .
But it ’ s important to realize that these proxies don ’ t always answer directly to the Iranians … so we might find ourselves in a situation where people are misreading each other ’ s actions .
That ’ s actually dangerous because it might then lead to the scenario of a full-scale conventional war.
” And there ’ s another risk that is easy to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the death of Suleimani : The U.S. drone strike also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis , the military commander of Kataib Hezbollah , part of the PMF and the group responsible for the Dec. 31 storming of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad .
Asked if the PMF will cease retaliating if Iran stands down , Abu Hussein was adamant that the militias will not give up the fight.No matter how calculating Iran is in its military strategy , its proxies can ’ t always be counted on to remain in complete lockstep with their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t matter if Iran stops , ” he said .
“ Iran has avenged the killing of Suleimani .
The Hashd must still avenge the killing of al-Muhandis.
” What Iran ’ s proxies ultimately do is so important because it is very unlikely that Iran will seek a conventional military confrontation with the United States , let alone seek an immediate nuclear solution to its rivalry , though it is boosting its uranium enrichment capabilities and shortening its breakout time toward a bomb .
“ A full-scale conventional conflict between Iran and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Esfandiary said .
“ It ’ s unlikely because Iran knows that it will eventually lose , and Iran doesn ’ t want to lose , especially if that puts its actual survival at risk.
” Iran ’ s influence can be compared to an outstretched hand , leaving fingerprints across the region .
The Islamic Republic has long nurtured proxy groups scattered across the Middle East , North Africa , and , increasingly , South Asia , as the primary actors to carry out its agenda .
Some of its more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ PMF , and the Houthi movement in Yemen , as well as , to some extent , Hamas in Gaza .
Hezbollah is also very active in Syria , where it has been fighting on behalf of Syrian president and Iranian ally Bashar al-Assad , and , given the group ’ s military expertise , members of Hezbollah are often present in an advisory capacity in other places where Iran has proxy groups .
Various other militias Iran influences are scattered from Bahrain to along the eastern borders of Saudi Arabia .
Many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Suleimani ’ s killing , and the extent to which they are satisfied with Iran ’ s retaliation varies .
A well-positioned Hezbollah political official in Beirut , who requested anonymity because Hezbollah is not permitted to speak with Western press , maintained that the Lebanese Shiite group stands ready to do its part in the event of continuing hostilities between the United States and Iran .
“ There will be a lot of escalation against American interests in the Middle East in the future , ” he said grimly .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attack the Islamic Republic , we will cut off the American hand at the Lebanese border .
We will hit Israel.
” He also mentioned the possibility that , were the United States to attack Iran , Hezbollah would move against U.S. assets in Lebanon , such as the Special Forces contingents that train the Lebanese armed forces .
This would be another dangerous element of any Iranian proxy response to further U.S. aggression .
Of course , Hezbollah is given to inflammatory rhetoric .
The group has lost leaders such as former @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the past without responding with anything more than vows of revenge.Tehran had to assuage its regional proxies that it would strike back and try to avenge Suleimani , as well as send a message to Washington that it had teeth .
The differing responses to Iran ’ s missile strike on Wednesday reflect , in part , the need to speak to two different audiences .
Tehran had to assuage its regional proxies that it would strike back and try to avenge Suleimani , as well as send a message to Washington @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wider war .
“ I would say that the Iranian government needed the strike to satisfy its constituencies in Lebanon , in Iraq , and inside Iran that they are taking action , ” said Vali Nasr , a professor of international affairs at Johns Hopkins University .
“ It ’ s conspicuous that they launched so many missiles at two bases , and there were neither Iraqi nor American casualties … but at the same time , I think that they also wanted to send the signal to the United States that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hit things they want and not things they don ’ t want.
” Some of Iran ’ s proxies understood the limited strike in just that way .
“ We imposed on [ America ] a new defense strategy by using advanced weapons without U.S. interception of them , ” Mohammed Mohey , a member of Kataib Hezbollah , told Foreign Policy .
“ On the other hand , the American reaction of not responding to the strike shows how the United States fears our own retaliation .
Trump ’ s speech in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and did not convince even his followers.
” But despite what he sees as a successful demonstration of Iran ’ s military reach , Mohey , too , said the strike was not in itself enough to compensate for the loss of Suleimani—suggesting further proxy retaliations could well come in the not-too-distant future .
“ This missile attack was only a slap and not revenge , ” he said .
“ Revenge will be total confrontation of the American presence in the region .
The strike achieved a good objective , but it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to such an enormous crime against the enormous personality of the martyr Suleimani.
” Abu Hussein also had a word of advice for the United States if it wanted to avoid future attacks against its assets .
“ [ Withdraw ] forces from the Middle East and specifically from Iraq , ” he said .
“ Second , vote Trump out and elect someone else .
He will bring you only death .
”

Iran’s casualty-free and largely symbolic missile strike early Wednesday against Iraqi bases that house U.S. troops appeared designed to satisfy Tehran’s need for a prompt response to last week’s U.S. assassination of Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani. Alongside the missile strike, Iran simultaneously released a statement that it did not seek to escalate further unless the United States struck back—and U.S. President Donald Trump appears to have forsworn a military response for now, as well.
Iran’s casualty-free and largely symbolic missile strike early Wednesday against Iraqi bases that house U.S. troops appeared designed to satisfy Tehran’s need for a prompt response to last week’s U.S. assassination of Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani. Alongside the missile strike, Iran simultaneously released a statement that it did not seek to escalate further unless the United States struck back—and U.S. President Donald Trump appears to have forsworn a military response for now, as well.
But even if Iran itself feels satisfied, the big question is whether proxy groups close to Tehran feel so as well—or whether they will continue to seek vengeance for Suleimani’s death by launching further attacks on U.S. interests or those of its allies.
As the primary architect of Iran’s strategic efforts to promote its expansion and undermine U.S. influence, Suleimani was particularly beloved by proxy groups like Hezbollah. Constantly traveling, Suleimani oversaw the vast web of forces Iran has spent years methodically establishing. Essentially the crown prince of Iranian fighting forces, Suleimani was a source of inspiration to followers throughout Iran’s sphere of influence and was known as a “living martyr.” His image can be found on posters from southern Lebanon to Yemen, often next to that of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader. It was Suleimani’s face that fighters saw on the front lines, rallying them to the cause.
That’s why Iran’s proxies were some of the loudest voices to demand Iran hit the United States as hard as possible in retaliation for his killing. In a speech on Jan. 5, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, a Shiite militia and political party that controls much of the Lebanese government and is said to be the most formidable nonstate military actor in the world, delivered a harsh warning to the United States.Iran’s proxies were some of the loudest voices to demand Iran hit the United States as hard as possible in retaliation for his killing.
“It is the American military who killed him, and it is they who will pay the price,” Nasrallah said, adding that future targets would include “U.S. military bases, soldiers, officers, and warships.”
That attitude percolates down the ranks, particularly with Iranian proxies in Iraq, the battlefield for the recent flare-up of hostilities. Abu Hussein, a midlevel fighter in the Hashd al-Shaabi, or Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a collective of Iran-backed militias wielding increasing influence in Iraq, seemed determined to show that Iranian generals cannot be killed without consequences.
“The [Jan. 8 Iran missile] attack was not enough,” he told Foreign Policy. “More attacks are coming, and more bases are going to be hit. Iran will not stop attacking until America is out of the Middle East completely.”
Since the day of Iran’s strike, several rockets have reportedly hit bases in Baghdad’s Green Zone, which also houses U.S. forces, causing no casualties. The rockets were likely fired by PMF units disgruntled with statements from senior leadership urging their followers to remain calm and not provoke the United States any further.
The contrast between Tehran’s apparent willingness to call things even with the United States and the continued bellicose rhetoric from its proxies hints at a potentially huge problem in the near future. Iran has traditionally, officially at least, sought to distance itself from the activities of groups like Hezbollah, but in the wake of the Suleimani killing and subsequent missile retaliation, it has publicly embraced many of those groups. On Thursday, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force, held a press conference in which the various flags of Iran’s regional allies were ostentatiously displayed behind him. It was a clear warning to the United States: If you strike us, we will hit back, and we have a wide reach.
No matter how calculating Iran is in its military strategy, its proxies can’t always be counted on to remain in complete lockstep with their patron country, said Dina Esfandiary, an Iran expert at the Century Foundation.
“I think the proxies can make America’s life hell,” she said. “What’s particularly scary is that because Iran has painted itself as the entity completely controlling these proxies, it will then bear full responsibility for what they do. But it’s important to realize that these proxies don’t always answer directly to the Iranians … so we might find ourselves in a situation where people are misreading each other’s actions. That’s actually dangerous because it might then lead to the scenario of a full-scale conventional war.”
And there’s another risk that is easy to overlook with all the attention paid to the death of Suleimani: The U.S. drone strike also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the military commander of Kataib Hezbollah, part of the PMF and the group responsible for the Dec. 31 storming of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
Asked if the PMF will cease retaliating if Iran stands down, Abu Hussein was adamant that the militias will not give up the fight.No matter how calculating Iran is in its military strategy, its proxies can’t always be counted on to remain in complete lockstep with their patron country.
“It doesn’t matter if Iran stops,” he said. “Iran has avenged the killing of Suleimani. The Hashd must still avenge the killing of al-Muhandis.”
What Iran’s proxies ultimately do is so important because it is very unlikely that Iran will seek a conventional military confrontation with the United States, let alone seek an immediate nuclear solution to its rivalry, though it is boosting its uranium enrichment capabilities and shortening its breakout time toward a bomb.
“A full-scale conventional conflict between Iran and the United States is ultimately unlikely,” Esfandiary said. “It’s unlikely because Iran knows that it will eventually lose, and Iran doesn’t want to lose, especially if that puts its actual survival at risk.”
Iran’s influence can be compared to an outstretched hand, leaving fingerprints across the region. The Islamic Republic has long nurtured proxy groups scattered across the Middle East, North Africa, and, increasingly, South Asia, as the primary actors to carry out its agenda. Some of its more powerful regional allies include Hezbollah, the PMF, and the Houthi movement in Yemen, as well as, to some extent, Hamas in Gaza. Hezbollah is also very active in Syria, where it has been fighting on behalf of Syrian president and Iranian ally Bashar al-Assad, and, given the group’s military expertise, members of Hezbollah are often present in an advisory capacity in other places where Iran has proxy groups. Various other militias Iran influences are scattered from Bahrain to along the eastern borders of Saudi Arabia.
Many of those allies have their own views of Suleimani’s killing, and the extent to which they are satisfied with Iran’s retaliation varies. A well-positioned Hezbollah political official in Beirut, who requested anonymity because Hezbollah is not permitted to speak with Western press, maintained that the Lebanese Shiite group stands ready to do its part in the event of continuing hostilities between the United States and Iran.
“There will be a lot of escalation against American interests in the Middle East in the future,” he said grimly. “If the situation intensifies, and they attack the Islamic Republic, we will cut off the American hand at the Lebanese border. We will hit Israel.” He also mentioned the possibility that, were the United States to attack Iran, Hezbollah would move against U.S. assets in Lebanon, such as the Special Forces contingents that train the Lebanese armed forces. This would be another dangerous element of any Iranian proxy response to further U.S. aggression.
Of course, Hezbollah is given to inflammatory rhetoric. The group has lost leaders such as former military commander Imad Mughniyeh to Israeli assassinations in the past without responding with anything more than vows of revenge.Tehran had to assuage its regional proxies that it would strike back and try to avenge Suleimani, as well as send a message to Washington that it had teeth.
The differing responses to Iran’s missile strike on Wednesday reflect, in part, the need to speak to two different audiences. Tehran had to assuage its regional proxies that it would strike back and try to avenge Suleimani, as well as send a message to Washington that it had teeth—but without provoking a wider war.
“I would say that the Iranian government needed the strike to satisfy its constituencies in Lebanon, in Iraq, and inside Iran that they are taking action,” said Vali Nasr, a professor of international affairs at Johns Hopkins University. “It’s conspicuous that they launched so many missiles at two bases, and there were neither Iraqi nor American casualties … but at the same time, I think that they also wanted to send the signal to the United States that they do have the military capability to hit things they want and not things they don’t want.”
Some of Iran’s proxies understood the limited strike in just that way.
“We imposed on [America] a new defense strategy by using advanced weapons without U.S. interception of them,” Mohammed Mohey, a member of Kataib Hezbollah, told Foreign Policy. “On the other hand, the American reaction of not responding to the strike shows how the United States fears our own retaliation. Trump’s speech in reaction to our attack was very weak and did not convince even his followers.”
But despite what he sees as a successful demonstration of Iran’s military reach, Mohey, too, said the strike was not in itself enough to compensate for the loss of Suleimani—suggesting further proxy retaliations could well come in the not-too-distant future.
“This missile attack was only a slap and not revenge,” he said. “Revenge will be total confrontation of the American presence in the region. The strike achieved a good objective, but it is certainly not sufficient as a response to such an enormous crime against the enormous personality of the martyr Suleimani.”
Abu Hussein also had a word of advice for the United States if it wanted to avoid future attacks against its assets.
“[Withdraw] forces from the Middle East and specifically from Iraq,” he said. “Second, vote Trump out and elect someone else. He will bring you only death.”


foreignpolicy--2020-01-12--A Public Relations Disaster Overtakes Iran

The Iranian regime ’ s campaign to portray itself as a victim of U.S. aggression following the assassination of Gen. Qassem Suleimani has turned into a public relations disaster at home and around the world as thousands of anti-government protesters have poured into the streets , expressing outrage over the government ’ s lies .
After three days of denial , Tehran took responsibility for firing a surface-to-air missile attack that downed a Ukrainian airliner near the Tehran international airport , killing 176 people , including Iranian , Canadian , German and Swedish nationals .
The admission came after Ukrainian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wreckage , undermining denials by Iranian officials .
Iranian officials admitted that the mistake occurred because the regime ’ s air defenses were on high alert following a retaliatory missile strike on two Iraqi bases last week .
But that was only the latest misrepresentation from the Iranian regime that has fueled demonstrations against the rulers of the Islamic Republic .
U.S. President Donald Trump , who on Jan. 2 ordered the killing of Suleimani , Iran ’ s top general , has been quick to encourage the protesters and warn Tehran against @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worded message of support in Farsi and on Sunday morning added : “ To the leaders of Iran – DO NOT KILL YOUR PROTESTERS .
Thousands have already been killed or imprisoned by you , and the World is watching .
More importantly , the USA is watching .
Turn your internet back on and let reporters roam free !
” Trump tweeted .
“ Stop the killing of your great Iranian people !
” For some observers , the spontaneous protests over the weekend mark a potentially lethal challenge to Iran ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ managed to ruthlessly crush such demonstrations in the past .
“ Regime change is in the air , ” tweeted former U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton , a longtime advocate of overthrowing the Islamic Republic , early Sunday .
But others cautioned that the Trump administration ’ s policies toward Iran have little chance of ending in the toppling of the regime , which has been in place for 40 years .
“ It ’ s not going to happen , ” said Hussein Ibish , a Middle East expert at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the demonstrators represent only one sector of Iranian society .
Ibish said that Trump ’ s maximum pressure campaign has achieved more than anyone expected in establishing a deterrent and inflicting harsh economic pain on the regime , but history has few examples of such external pressure—short of military intervention—bringing down a regime .
In the past , he noted , such action only strengthened the rule of leaders from Cuba ’ s Fidel Castro to North Korea ’ s Kim Jong Un .
The sudden outburst of popular ire over the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ apparent Iranian national unity in the wake of the U.S. killing of Suleimani , which drove millions into the streets of Iran for funeral processions .
In contrast , protesters at multiple universities over the weekend reportedly chanted “ Suleimani is a murderer , the leader is a traitor , ” and “ Death to the Dictator , ” a reference to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei .
Other protesters called for the resignation of top security officials responsible for both the accidental downing of the airliner and attempted cover-up .
Especially @ @ @ @ @ @ @ funeral processions , was the apparent popular disregard for regime instructions .
Videos showed students at Tehran ’ s Beheshti University going out of their way to avoid stepping on American and Israeli flags that regime officials had laid out on the ground .
Another PR body blow came when Iran ’ s sole female Olympic medalist , Kimia Alizadeh , defected , saying she did not want to be complicit with the regime ’ s “ corruption and lies.
” The latest wave of protests includes students and middle class Iranians , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who took to the streets last year .
The size of this weekend ’ s student mobilizations in particular could be an ominous sign for the regime , given students ’ historical role as a vanguard of change in Iran .
“ Students brought them to power , and students can be part of the equation that takes them out of power as well , ” said Alireza Nader , a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies .
The protests , coming on the heels of months-long demonstrations against Iranian economic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on an already embattled Iranian leadership .
Iran ’ s economy is in free-fall and the country faces a renewed campaign of economic pressure by the United States .
Iran has tried repeatedly to force European signatories of the 2015 nuclear pact to deliver some of that deal ’ s promised economic benefits—in part by restarting its uranium enrichment and edging closer to building a nuclear weapons .
But Iran ’ s tactics so far have only made European countries more willing to kill the deal altogether .
The grassroots anger has dramatically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif , to portray Iran on U.S. news outlets as the victim of a reckless American president and to curry favor with the Europeans .
The message was also undermined by Iran ’ s brief detention of Britain ’ s ambassador to Iran , in violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations .
The diplomat had come out in the streets to take part in what began as a memorial procession after the airline disaster at a demonstration in the capital .
“ Very concerned about the temporary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Iran .
Full respect of the Vienna convention is a must , ” the European Union ’ s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell wrote on Twitter .
Iran ’ s deputy foreign minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi defended Iran ’ s action , replying : “ He wasn ’ t detained , but arrested as unknown foreigner in an illegal gathering .
When police informed me a man ’ s arrested who claims to be UK Amb , I said IMPOSSIBLE !
only after my phone conversation w him I identified , out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s him .
15 min later he was free.
” Meanwhile , Iran ’ s senior diplomats and military officials spent the day Saturday offering apologies on Twitter for having insisted their government was not at fault in the downing of the airliner .
Especially contrite was Hamid Baeidinejad , Iran ’ s ambassador to the United Kingdom , who had insisted that it was impossible for Iran to have been responsible .
“ In my statement yesterday to the UK media , I conveyed the official findings of responsible authorities in my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and hit the Ukrainian plane at that period of time , ” Baeidinejad wrote Saturday on Twitter .
“ I apologize and regret for conveying such wrong findings .
Baeidinejad and other senior Iranian diplomats sought to insulate the government ’ s leadership from charges of lying about Iran ’ s role in the attack , saying that the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had not delivered his final conclusion until Friday night , after the government had already denied responsibility .
But it was not enough to placate many Iranians @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chanting slogans suggesting that Iran , not the United States , bore the greatest share of responsibility for the current state of crisis—especially after Tehran initially claimed , in another misrepresentation , that it had killed 80 U.S. troops in a retaliatory strike .
The missile strikes on two bases in Iraq that housed U.S. troops were later deemed ineffective , causing no casualties , in yet another blow to Iran ’ s credibility .
Though Trump has repeatedly said he is not seeking regime change in Iran , his active tweeting contrasted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s wave of protest .
This came just days after having threatened to obliterate dozens of Iranian cultural sites amidst the standoff with Tehran after the Suleimani killing .
“ To the brave and suffering Iranian people : I have stood with you since the beginning of my presidency and my government will continue to stand with you .
We are following your protests closely .
Your courage is inspiring , ” Trump tweeted .
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo offered similar messages of support .
“ America hears you .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ you , ” he tweeted .
What ’ s unclear is just how the United States can square its rhetorical support for the Iranian people with an intensifying campaign of economic pressure .
On Friday , in the wake of Iran ’ s missile retaliation against Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops , the Trump administration announced a fresh slate of sanctions on some Iranian economic sectors , such as metals .
Those sanctions come on top of a host of other crippling measures that have all but ended Iran ’ s exports of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as measures targeting its finance and broader energy sectors .
Nader said despite the administration ’ s desire to support Iranians while pressuring the regime , it ’ s hard to see any easy way to thread that needle .
“ The real hurt comes from sanctions that undermine the economy , unfortunately , ” he said .
He said proponents of the maximum pressure campaign believe that economic pressure , while damaging to regular people in the short term , will create fissures inside the regime that could accelerate its downfall .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ cheered the protests , which they see as vindication for the president ’ s order to kill Suleimani .
“ The American left and media cover relentlessly for Iran ’ s murderous regime , ” Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton wrote on Twitter .
“ But the brave people of Iran are not fooled .
They have no illusions about the evil men who rule them.
” “ The Khamenei regime has never been under more stress .
Regime change is in the air .
The people of Iran can see it .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ try to prop up or negotiate with its illegitimate representatives.
” While Bolton has predicted regime change in Iran before , some observers say that the combination of years of resentment , economic dissatisfaction , and the regime ’ s handling of the airliner disaster have come together to create a uniquely vulnerable moment for the Iranian leadership .
“ I believe Bolton is right , regime change is in the air , ” said Nader .
“ It ’ s not just the protests and the airliner , it ’ s 40 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all been released in the last two years.
” Ibish said that Iran is a politically diverse country , with large swaths of the country loyal to the regime , and a large passionate opposition .
“ There are many different constituencies and coalitions in Iran and it is not surprising that there are very robust voices in angry opposition to the Suleimani killing and angry opposition to the government , based on socioeconomic grievances of the past year and the constant lying and the structural incompetence that leads to action liking the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ killed a lot of Iranians , ” Ibish said .
“ Iran is in rough shape : It ’ s in rough shape in Lebanon , it ’ s in rough shape in Iraq , and there is obviously a lot of tension inside the country , ” Ibish said .
But those problems don ’ t necessarily translate into an existential crisis for the regime .
“ I see no evidence this is a revolutionary situation .
I don ’ t see this regime being toppled from within or without , ” @ @ @

Colum Lynch, Keith Johnson and Michael Hirsh

The Iranian regime’s campaign to portray itself as a victim of U.S. aggression following the assassination of Iran’s Maj. Gen. Qassem Suleimani has turned into a public relations disaster at home and around the world as thousands of anti-government protesters have poured into the streets, expressing outrage over the government’s lies.
The Iranian regime’s campaign to portray itself as a victim of U.S. aggression following the assassination of Iran’s Maj. Gen. Qassem Suleimani has turned into a public relations disaster at home and around the world as thousands of anti-government protesters have poured into the streets, expressing outrage over the government’s lies.
After three days of denial, Tehran took responsibility for firing a surface-to-air missile attack that downed a Ukrainian airliner near Tehran’s international airport, killing 176 people, including Iranian, Canadian, German, and Swedish nationals. The admission came after Ukrainian technicians detected missile parts mixed with the wreckage, undermining denials by Iranian officials. Iranian officials said that the mistake occurred because the regime’s air defenses were on high alert following a retaliatory missile strike on two Iraqi bases last week.
But that was only the latest misrepresentation from the Iranian regime that has fueled demonstrations against the country’s rulers. U.S. President Donald Trump, who on Jan. 2 ordered the killing of Suleimani, considered Iran’s top general, has been quick to encourage the protesters and warn Tehran against suppressing them. Trump tweeted a carefully worded message of support in Farsi and on Sunday morning added:
“To the leaders of Iran – DO NOT KILL YOUR PROTESTERS. Thousands have already been killed or imprisoned by you, and the World is watching. More importantly, the USA is watching. Turn your internet back on and let reporters roam free!” Trump tweeted. “Stop the killing of your great Iranian people!”
For some observers, the spontaneous protests over the weekend mark a potentially lethal challenge to Iran’s leaders, though the regime has managed to ruthlessly crush such demonstrations in the past. “Regime change is in the air,” tweeted former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton, a longtime advocate of overthrowing the current Iranian government, early Sunday.
But others cautioned that the Trump administration’s policies toward Iran have little chance of ending in the toppling of the regime, which has been in place for 40 years. “It’s not going to happen,” said Hussein Ibish, a Middle East expert at the Arab Gulf States Institute, who argued that the demonstrators represent only one sector of Iranian society. Ibish said that Trump’s maximum pressure campaign has achieved more than anyone expected in establishing a deterrent and inflicting harsh economic pain on the government, but history has few examples of such external pressure—short of military intervention—bringing down a regime. In the past, he noted, such action only strengthened the rule of leaders from Cuba’s Fidel Castro to North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
The sudden outburst of popular ire over the weekend stands in sharp contrast to the apparent Iranian national unity in the wake of the U.S. killing of Suleimani, which drove millions of people into the streets of Iran for funeral processions. In contrast, protesters at multiple universities over the weekend reportedly chanted “Suleimani is a murderer, his leader a traitor,” and “Death to the dictator,” a reference to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Other protesters called for the resignation of top security officials responsible for both the accidental downing of the airliner and the attempted cover-up.
Especially noteworthy, just days after the regime-orchestrated funeral processions, was the apparent popular disregard for regime instructions. Videos showed students at Tehran’s Shahid Beheshti University going out of their way to avoid stepping on U.S. and Israeli flags that regime officials had laid out on the ground. Another PR body blow came when Iran’s sole female Olympic medalist, Kimia Alizadeh, defected, saying she did not want to be complicit with the regime’s “corruption and lies.”
The latest wave of protests includes students and middle-class Iranians, a contrast to the largely working-class demonstrators who took to the streets last year. The size of this weekend’s student mobilizations in particular could be an ominous sign for the regime, given students’ historical role as a vanguard of change in Iran.
“Students brought them to power, and students can be part of the equation that takes them out of power as well,” said Alireza Nader, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
The protests, coming on the heels of monthslong demonstrations against Iranian economic mismanagement, only add to the pressure on an already embattled Iranian leadership. Iran’s economy is in free fall, and the country faces a renewed campaign of economic pressure by the United States. Tehran has tried repeatedly to force European signatories of the 2015 nuclear pact to deliver some of that deal’s promised economic benefits—in part by restarting its uranium enrichment and edging closer to building a nuclear weapons. But Iran’s tactics so far have only made European countries more willing to kill the deal altogether.
The grassroots anger has dramatically undercut efforts by Iranian officials, especially Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, to portray Iran on U.S. news outlets as the victim of a reckless American president and to curry favor with the Europeans. The message was also undermined by Iran’s brief detention of Britain’s ambassador to Iran, in violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
The diplomat had come out into the streets to take part in what began as a memorial procession after the airline disaster at a demonstration in the capital.
“Very concerned about the temporary detention of the UK Ambassador @HMATehran in Iran. Full respect of the Vienna convention is a must,” the European Union’s foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell wrote on Twitter.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi defended Iran’s action, replying: “He wasn’t detained, but arrested as unknown foreigner in an illegal gathering. When police informed me a man’s arrested who claims to be UK Amb, I said IMPOSSIBLE! only after my phone conversation w him I identified, out of big surprise, that it’s him. 15 min later he was free.”
Meanwhile, Iran’s senior diplomats and military officials spent the day Saturday offering apologies on Twitter for having insisted their government was not at fault in the downing of the airliner. Especially contrite was Hamid Baeidinejad, Iran’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, who had insisted that it was impossible for Iran to have been responsible.
“In my statement yesterday to the UK media, I conveyed the official findings of responsible authorities in my country that missile could not be fired and hit the Ukrainian plane at that period of time,” Baeidinejad wrote Saturday on Twitter. “I appologise and regret for conveying such wrong findings.”
Baeidinejad and other senior Iranian diplomats sought to insulate the government’s leadership from charges of lying about Iran’s role in the attack, saying that the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had not delivered his final conclusion until Friday night, after the government had already denied responsibility.
But it was not enough to placate many Iranians, who headed out into the street chanting slogans suggesting that Iran, not the United States, bore the greatest share of responsibility for the current state of crisis—especially after Tehran initially claimed, in another misrepresentation, that it had killed 80 U.S. troops in a retaliatory strike. The missile strikes on two bases in Iraq that housed U.S. troops were later deemed ineffective, causing no casualties, in yet another blow to Iran’s credibility.
Though Trump has repeatedly said he is not seeking regime change in Iran, his active tweeting contrasted with his hands-off attitude during last year’s wave of protest. This came just days after having threatened to obliterate dozens of Iranian cultural sites amid the standoff with Tehran after the Suleimani killing.
“To the brave and suffering Iranian people: I have stood with you since the beginning of my presidency and my government will continue to stand with you. We are following your protests closely. Your courage is inspiring,” Trump tweeted.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo offered similar messages of support. “America hears you. America supports you. America stands with you,” he tweeted.
What’s unclear is just how the United States can square its rhetorical support for the Iranian people with an intensifying campaign of economic pressure. On Friday, in the wake of Iran’s missile retaliation against Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops, the Trump administration announced a fresh slate of sanctions on some Iranian economic sectors, such as metals. Those sanctions come on top of a host of other devastating measures that have all but ended Iran’s exports of crude oil—a major source of revenue—as well as measures targeting its finance and broader energy sectors.
Nader, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said despite the administration’s desire to support Iranians while pressuring the regime, it’s hard to see any easy way to thread that needle. “The real hurt comes from sanctions that undermine the economy, unfortunately,” he said. He said proponents of the maximum pressure campaign believe that economic pressure, while damaging to regular people in the short term, will create fissures inside the regime that could accelerate its downfall.
Trump’s allies in Congress have cheered the protests, which they see as vindication of the president’s order to kill Suleimani.
“The American left and media cover relentlessly for Iran’s murderous regime,” Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton wrote on Twitter. “But the brave people of Iran are not fooled. They have no illusions about the evil men who rule them.”
Bolton sounded giddy on Twitter.
“The Khamenei regime has never been under more stress. Regime change is in the air. The people of Iran can see it. America, Europe and France should not try to prop it up or negotiate with its illegitimate representatives,” he wrote.
While Bolton has predicted regime change in Iran before, some observers say that the combination of years of resentment, economic dissatisfaction, and the regime’s handling of the airliner disaster have come together to create a uniquely vulnerable moment for the Iranian leadership.
“I believe Bolton is right, regime change is in the air,” Nader said. “It’s not just the protests and the airliner, it’s 40 years of pent-up resentment—and that’s all been released in the last two years.”
Ibish, of the Arab Gulf States Institute, said that Iran is a politically diverse country, with large swaths of the country loyal to the regime and a large, passionate opposition.
“There are many different constituencies and coalitions in Iran and it is not surprising that there are very robust voices in angry opposition to the Suleimani killing and angry opposition to the government, based on socioeconomic grievances of the past year and the constant lying and the structural incompetence that leads to action liking the shooting down of the airplane, which killed a lot of Iranians,” Ibish said.
“Iran is in rough shape: It’s in rough shape in Lebanon, it’s in rough shape in Iraq, and there is obviously a lot of tension inside the country,” Ibish said. But those problems don’t necessarily translate into an existential crisis for the regime.
“I see no evidence this is a revolutionary situation. I don’t see this regime being toppled from within or without,” he said.