The Boston Bombers: Preliminary Thoughts

This has been a wild week, here and elsewhere. Besides the events in Boston, there were ricin-laced letters in Washington, the plant explosion in Texas, and so on. The ricin seems to have been a homegrown US radical, but now that we've learned the identity of the Boston bombers, the talking heads are having a field day talking about their Chechen backgrounds.

There's obviously a lot still to be learned. I think we should learn a bit from the misreporting we've seen already this week. The New York Post printed a photo of alleged "suspects" who were nothing of the sort, and there have been other rushes to judgment, false reports of an arrest, etc.

It may well prove that this act of terror in Boston was indeed a blowback of some sort from the Chechen conflict, and the perpetrators were radicalized by that. But I would also urge caution until we understand their motives better: apparently it's not clear that either of these men ever set foot in Chechnya. Before coming to the US, they live in Kyrgyzstan and Dagestan. The older brother, who traveled to Russia last year, might have gone to Chechnya, but the links to that conflict are still pretty shaky and unclear.

Juan Cole has an intriguing, if also unproven and perhaps premature suggestion: That the father and family were supportive of the Russian crackdown in Chechnya, even perhaps with security, and that this could be a sign of sons' rebelliousness against a father (and yes, he mentions Turgenev). It might explain some of the lingering questions. But my own instinct is still, let's wait and see before we "explain" the bombers' motives.

And, as is often the case, The Onion may have the best observation: "Study: Majority of Americans Not Informed Enough to Stereotype Chechens."

"A Language Hunter, a Legend Hunter"

My most loyal readers know by now that just when you figure out what the subject of this blog may be, I skid off the main road and launch off into God Knows Where. You know I'm interested in minority peoples and languages, and those who have studied them. But sometimes you stumble onto a passage like this:

Aleksandr Gruenberg-Cvetinovic turned out to be a fascinating figure, an Iranologist and obsessive field researcher who documented countless small languages in the remote mountain valleys of the Caucasus and Central Asia, and saved and translated great many legends and folk poems.

At 22, he graduated from Leningrad University with a degree in Iranian Linguistics. In 1953, Gruenberg started graduate studies in the Institute of Linguistics. His Ph.D. project studied the languages of the Tats of Northern Azerbaijan who lived in an array of semi-isolated foothill villages (unlike the then more numerous Mountain Jew Tats of Dagestan, some of the Azerbaijani Tats were Shia Muslims, and some Armenian Christians; one group, the famed Lahiji copper-smiths, still considered themselves to be Persian transplants, albeit from the legendary times of a Shahnameh king Kai Khosrow).

And how can you NOT read on? It describes an indefatigable student of languages and folklore in the then-Soviet Caucasus and Central Asia, who publisned a collection of Sistani tales from the Shahnameh. Oh, and there's an expedition to look for the yeti in the account as well.

Blue Smoke and Mirrors: The "Israel Will Strike from the Caucasus" Rumors

Trying very hard to get our summer issue caught up despite being sidelined by my hip replacement, I have so far neglected to comment on one of the more bizarre stories that ran around the region starting over the weekend: that Israel (and/or the US) is preparing to strike Iran from air bases in Georgia and Azerbaijan, and that Israeli aircraft in the Caucasus managed to get there by deceiving Turkey.

At first glance, it seems like a wild and crazy idea. At second glance, it seems even crazier. Despite some superficial arguments in favor (Israeli aircraft would have a shorter strike range; Iran's air defense system is presumably not as concentrated on the Caucasus front as in the Gulf), neither Georgia nor Azerbaijan is in a position to throw themselves into a confrontation with Iran. (Of course, two summers ago, Georgia provoked a fight with Russia and got invaded, so perhaps self-interest only goes so far as an argument.) Azerbaijanis and Iranian Azeris are one people speaking a common language. The ex-Soviet air bases in the Transcaucasus would need some work to service Israeli aircraft. So what is the source of this strange story?

The story seems to originate with an American radio/web commentator of sensational bent named Gordon Duff, who was talking about this a week or so before it broke in the region. The story in its present form broke in the region over the weekend with the Bahrain Arabic daily Akhbar al-Khaleej, citing "Western political and military sources" (article is in Arabic). A short version appeared in the newspaper's English-language partner Gulf Daily News, thus gaining more traction outside the Arab world. It has been commented upon by Stratfor, with appropriate skepticism, though the full article is available only to subscribers.

I'm betting this is disinformation, but then the question becomes: whose? Just a bit over a week ago we had the kerfuffle over the Harry S Truman strike group transiting the Suez Canal, and we are indeed in a moment when the Truman and Eisenhower strike groups are both on station in the Gulf before the Eisenhower comes home. The US and Israel may both have motives for keeping Iran off balance (and Iran did back off its "Gaza flotilla" effort citing the risk of Israeli attack). It could also be an attempt to foreclose any cooperation, even logistical support, that the Transcaucasus countries might provide Israel or the US by making allegations now. It could also just be conspiracy theorizing at its most fervid, or of course, some elements might even be true. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not plotting against you. Other countries (including Russia) might have some reason to spread a story like this, though: undermine Georgia and Azerbaijan, hurt their relations with Turkey and Iran, perhaps?

But do I think Israel, with or without the US, is about to launch a strike against Iran from the Caucasus? No, I don't.

Of course, they wouldn't tell me if they were.