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U.S. officials are scrambling to determine how two leaked, highly U.S. classified documents conveying potential Israeli plans to attack Iran got on the Telegram app. According to the New York Times, the documents were prepared “in recent days” by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which analyzes information and images collected by U.S. spy satellites.
There are several theories regarding these leaked reports.
The first theory reads that the Iranians hacked the U.S. intelligence services and leaked the document as part of their psy-ops against Israel. Given previous Iranian hacks, it is not outside the realm of possibilities that they have the capacity to hack the United States.
Iranians also have a clear motivation, though it also suggests that they may not have the capacity to defend against the planned Israeli attack — even with the forewarning that the hack provides — and instead opted to leak it to forestall Israel’s plans.
Two, an actor within the U.S. government may have leaked it, but the investigation of the U.S. government itself appears to have concluded otherwise. They have moved on to investigating outside actors.
Three, the Biden administration may have orchestrated the leak itself in order to delay the Israeli attack. Biden clearly lacks the courage to say no to Israel, so instead, he sneaks out intelligence with the aim of delaying Israel’s plans at least until after the U.S. elections, at which point he may find the semblance of a spine.
Four, the Israelis may have leaked this themselves with the aim of diverting Iran’s attention by getting them to look for an attack in all the wrong places.
Five, finally, since the U.S. investigation is looking at outside actors, the question is if a close American ally — a Five Eyes state (FVEY) or a NATO ally with access to FVEY intelligence — leaked it. If so, it would suggest that close U.S. allies are so frustrated with Biden’s refusal to stop Netanyahu from starting the largest war in the Middle East since World War II that they are taking matters into their own hands to sabotage Netanyahu’s escalation plan.
A Western diplomat recently told me that the only way to stop the war is to have the players who forced President Biden off the Democratic ticket in July repeat their feat by forcing Biden to stop Netanyahu.
All of this while Washington continues to nurture the mythology that its “leadership” is what holds the world together.
Georgia’s parliamentary election on October 26 is set to be the country’s most consequential in its over 30 years of independence.
With polarizing political rhetoric and foreign interest in the election’s outcome at a peak, nuanced discussion or analysis on the background and implications of the upcoming vote have, unfortunately, been mostly eschewed from the Western media.
Georgia, remembered fondly as a “beacon of liberty” by President George W. Bush during his 2005 trip to the capital, Tbilisi, has indeed long been one of the most successful former Soviet states (excluding the three Baltic republics) in terms of its ability to implement Westernizing reforms and, therefore, enhance its ties with the European Union and NATO.
However, Georgia is maybe less remembered as the state that, just a few years subsequent Bush’s trip, was labeled as responsible for reigniting a war with its separatist territory in August 2008 that saw the Russian Army quickly become involved and swarm deep into Georgian territory before that bout of fighting was ended through European mediation. Nevertheless, Russian armed forces remain in the separatist territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia — whose independence Moscow recognized following the 2008 war — and where they have since pursued a policy of “borderization.”
Today, Georgia itself is reportedly viewed as one election away from the shadow of “Russian-style authoritarianism” and isolation from its Western partners. That election, a parliamentary vote on October 26, has over the last year become the focal point of all Georgian politics and external attention on the country.
However, as my co-authors and I lay out in a new report for the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, “A more nuanced perspective is justified based on the complexity of internal Georgian politics and the reality of Georgia’s geopolitical situation.”
The election is preceded by the passing of a law this spring that seeks to limit foreign influence in Georgian politics through the imposition of strenuous reporting measures and public registration for media, civil society, non-governmental, and other such organizations which receive 20% or more of their funding from external sources. (Over 90% of funding for Georgian civil society organizations comes from international donors or development agencies.)
Large-scale protests erupted in Tbilisi both in 2023 (when a similar bill was first introduced but subsequently withdrawn) and this spring when the ruling party reintroduced and ultimately passed a slightly modified version of the legislation.
There has since been increased pressure from Brussels and Washington in the form of freezing aid, Georgia’s EU accession process (the country received candidate status last December) and high-level contacts, and the advancing imposition of sanctions against members and allies of the ruling Georgian Dream party for “undermining fundamental freedoms” and “anti-democratic actions.”
The U.S has also reportedly prepared sanctions against the founder and financier of the GD, Bidzina Ivanishvili, who is widely believed to be the party’s key decision maker.
The diffuse, pro-Western opposition parties and blocs in Georgia express concerns that center around the country’s now-uncertain Euro-Atlantic future, its further embrace of authoritarian practices, and its “appeasement” of Russian interests in Georgia. As the election nears, these have been turned into political tools as many oppositionists and likeminded partisan NGOs and media outlets have framed the upcoming vote as a binary pro-European or pro-Russian choice.
This rhetoric has, unsurprisingly given the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, caught the attention of Western commentators, analysts, and members of government who repeat these refrains with limited skepticism or further investigation of their own. It is arguably true that over the last few years the increasingly antagonistic policies and statements of the GD have ultimately, even if inadvertently, contributed to a deterioration of Tbilisi’s ties with Brussels and Washington. However, it is equally true that it takes two to tango and that Western actors are not irreproachable.
On the whole, the resonance of such a black-or-white geopolitical framing among voters in Georgia, where the majority of the population has long stressed poverty and economic concerns as the main contributors to a sense of insecurity, is questionable.
The GD came into power in 2012 with the goal of pursuing pragmatic relations with Russia following the previous government’s severing of relations with Moscow after increasing tensions boiled into open conflict. The ruling party has maintained this objective even following Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
While Georgia has condemned Russia’s actions in Ukraine at international fora and has provided humanitarian aid to Kyiv, Tbilisi has also reopened direct flights with Russia, refused to adopt European sanctions (though generally restricting sanctions-busting trade) or supply arms to Ukraine, and increased its bilateral trade turnover. While some have been understanding of Georgia’s uniquely challenging position amid the war in Ukraine, others have been less forgiving and more circumspect of the underlying motivations of the ruling party’s actions.
Therefore, it may be more accurate, and certainly less politically motivated, to instead view the policies of the GD as an attempt to position the country as a “hedging middle” node in a still nascent but developing Eurasian connectivity network. While Georgia’s room for maneuver is certainly not on par with Turkey or Kazakhstan, Tbilisi does have an interest in pragmatic relations with all of its neighbors and global centers of power, especially amidst proliferating regional conflicts.
The position that Ivanishvili and GD governments have taken may further be explained by three interconnected observations: (1) in order to restore Georgia’s territorial integrity, be secure, and achieve real prosperity it is ultimately essential for Georgia to resolve its disputes with the separatist territories; (2) that the use of military means to achieve this goal will neither be successful nor have the support and backing of the Europeans and Americans; and (3) it is therefore essential to pursue a diplomatic and political track that ultimately requires improved relations with the separatist populations themselves as well as Russia.
While many Georgians have come to realize that a military solution to their country’s division is likely impossible, it is nevertheless challenging to hear a Georgian leader (especially one pejoratively characterized as a “Russian”) speak about the need for apologizing to and reconciliation with those living in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, whom Georgians have fought several wars against which have included ethnic cleansing and war crimes on all sides. (This challenge is especially true for a younger generation that has been almost entirely cut off from contact with the “other” besides their own community’s often hostile rhetoric).
This view, however, comes into direct conflict with an effervescent zeitgeist in Georgian politics: that Russia has been, is, and will continue to be an enemy and occupier of Georgia. Successfully challenging, or even ameliorating, these convictions, held also by GD supporters, is a daunting political task.
The October 26 election presents an opportunity for the Georgian population to either re-endorse or reject the GD government and, by extension, Ivanishvili himself. Its free and fair nature will be closely scrutinized and it's likely to be a hotly contested election, no matter the actual results.
Nevertheless, as Americans and Europeans loudly stress, our elections and their outcomes (regardless of their contestation by the losing side) are our elections, and ours alone. The same principle ought to apply to Georgia’s upcoming parliamentary election. What we can, and should, do to influence domestic developments in other countries is to work on once again embodying those values and beliefs that we hope others will seek to emulate.
If that initial strategy falls short of achieving our desired outcomes, then our next step ought to be adjusting our existing policies to fit the realities that develop beyond our borders without unnecessarily alienating those whom we seek to influence.
Kenyan President William Ruto has confirmed that Haiti will receive 600 more Kenyan police officers next month, doubling the size of the strained international anti-gang force known as the Multinational Security Support (MSS).
The announcement came less than two weeks after the U.N. Security Council unanimously agreed to extend the U.S.-coordinated mission for another year, and just days after members of Haiti’s Gran Grif gang launched an unencumbered massacre on a farming village that killed at least 115 people.
“Haiti’s future depends on the return to democratic governance,” President Biden said in a statement supporting the mission’s initial deployment in June. “While these goals may not be accomplished overnight, this mission provides the best chance of achieving them.”
Gang violence and influence in Haiti have escalated this year in the power vacuum left by its unelected prime minister, Ariel Henry — who resigned in March amid growing international and domestic pressure — further upending a nation already shaken by the assassination of his predecessor and a recent history of natural disasters.
“Gang violence is not new in Haiti — it is something that has always existed,” said Robert Fatton, a professor in the University of Virginia’s Politics Department. “What is new now is that the gangs have gained a very serious degree of autonomy vis-à-vis the people who used to nurture them financially and politically.”
The MSS is the most recent gambit in a long history of U.S.-led strategies in Haiti with the stated intentions of pulling the nation out of despair and into a future of stability and democracy. So far, it has not found much success.
The MSS mission has liberated the capital’s main airport and main public hospital from the gangs, but the force is vastly outnumbered; the nearly 200 gangs in Port-au-Prince, estimated to have around 15,000 total members, still control over 80% of the city and its main roads in and out, as well as other parts of the country.
The humanitarian situation remains dire as well: as of September 27, the UN says at least 3,661 people have been killed in 2024 as a direct result of gang violence. At least 700,000 people across the country have fled their homes, and about half of the population — at least 5.4 million people — are experiencing food insecurity.
Past American attempts at intervention in Haiti put the current mission into a bleak context, as some scholars have pointed out.
“25,000 U.S. troops in the mid-90s couldn’t put Haiti back together,” said Christopher Fettweis, who teaches political science at Tulane University. “I don’t know how anybody can think, ‘Oh, 600 more Kenyan [officers] — they’ll get it done.’”
While the additional numbers will provide much-needed support for the mission, Executive Director for Justice and Democracy in Haiti Brian Concannon emphasized their limited capacity to engage with and aid the Haitian population.
“It’ll make some difference, but that doesn’t replace the amount of Haitian police that have left in the last two years,” Concannon said. “You’re replacing them with people who don’t speak French or Creole, don’t know the neighborhoods, can’t interact with people or do intelligence work — all these things that make a Haitian police officer much more effective than a Kenyan one.”
The force was initially planned to have 2,500 officers from Kenya and a smattering of other nations, but it remains undermanned and underfunded. This new deployment will bring the force’s numbers to just over 1,000, consisting mostly of Kenyans, as well as two dozen Jamaicans and two officers from Belize. On top of $369 million in funding from the U.S., UN officials have reported around $85 million in other donations to the mission, primarily from Canada.
Despite optimism from Biden, Ruto, and other international leaders, the MSS clearly lacks adequate funding and personnel for addressing the country’s current crisis and setting Haiti on a path towards stable governance. But, as Senior Research Associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research Jake Johnston described, even a fully supplied MSS would not be the proper solution.
“The last two years have been sort of consumed by finding a force, authorizing the force, funding the force, and I think it's sort of missing the forest for the trees here. Even with a perfectly well- funded, well-armed force, there is no actual strategy to restore peace and security in Haiti, and we've seen sort of shockingly little engagement on any of the other pieces that would be critically important to actually doing so,” Johnston said.
It was Henry who initially requested the mission’s deployment in 2022 — which many saw as an attempt to protect himself and his grip on power.
“Another armed foreign intervention in Haiti will not result in the necessary Haitian-led transition to a democratic government, rather it risks further destabilizing the country, endangering more innocent people, and entrenching the current, illegitimate regime,” several members of Congress wrote in a December open letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Manpower and lack of planning are not the only challenges. A long history of American meddling and propping up corrupt regimes in Haiti’s politics also casts an ominous shadow of doubt over the Biden administration’s claims that its strategy even aligns with Haitian interests.
Haiti’s 2010-2011 presidential election looms particularly large. After interfering in the election on his behalf in November 2010, the U.S. imposed sanctions on former president Michel Martelly this August for charges related to drug-trafficking, with one American official citing the role he and other figures have played in “perpetuating the ongoing crisis in Haiti.”
Fatton underscored the legacy of Martelly’s regime and its significant influence on the current situation, particularly in relation to the trade and import of small weapons used by the gangs. A U.N. report from last year also alleged that the former president financed, negotiated and established relationships with gangs — using them to expand his influence over certain neighborhoods and “contributing to a legacy of insecurity, the impacts of which are still being felt today.”
In this sense, the U.S.-backed interim Haitian government, the Transitional Presidential Council (TPC) — designed to carry out presidential duties until elections can be held — seems to be a step in the right direction. However, the Council’s infancy has been racked by backroom coalition-building and corruption, controversial appointments, and unanimous support for the MSS despite widespread opposition among Haitian civil society groups.
“I think the Presidential Council was welcome, because Henry had been such a disaster, and there was hope that you have very different groups and personalities in there that usually never collaborate. … But now you have divisions and a scandal in the Presidential Council, and people feel disaffected,” Fatton said.
To Johnston, it is the broad and enduring external influences on Haitian politics that has prevented the continent’s poorest country from reaching a smoother path toward stability.
“The political class has become oriented towards external actors, as opposed to the internal population, and that has significant repercussions,” Johnston said. “That is what exacerbates and breaks down this relationship between the state and the population, and ultimately leads to state failure.”
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