Biden and Netanyahu at Odds, Putin Responds to ISIS-K Attack, Cuba Food and Electricity Shortages, and More

ROBBINS:
In the coming week, the U.S. and Israel try to manage an increasingly strained relationship. The Kremlin responds to a horrifying ISIS attack, and Cubans face escalating food shortages and power outages as long as eighteen hours a day. It's March 28th, 2024, and time for The World Next Week. 

I'm Carla Anne Robbins, and today we're lucky to be joined by Miriam Elder, who's filling in for my intrepid co-host, Bob McMahon, who dared to go on vacation. Miriam is the Council's Edward R. Murrow press fellow. She spent eight years in Russia as a foreign correspondent, charting the rise of Vladimir Putin first for the Moscow Times, and then as Moscow bureau chief for The Guardian. Then she worked for BuzzFeed News and was an executive editor at Vanity Fair. Miriam, thank you so much for being here.

ELDER:
I'm so happy to be here, Carla. 

Carla, let's start with Gaza. On Monday, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza through the end of Ramadan and an unconditional release of all hostages. What was notable about this vote first was the U.S decided to abstain rather than exercise its veto, something it's done repeatedly since October 7th, and second, the furious reaction of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who immediately canceled a visit to D.C. by a top Israeli delegation. What do these events mean for U.S.-Israel relations and also for the war in Gaza?

ROBBINS:
Miriam, we've talked a lot on this show about the growing tensions in this U.S.-Israeli relationship over the war in Gaza. This week for the first time...and I know all the experts are going to tell me I'm wrong about this...I began to imagine that President Biden could apply more than just rhetorical pressure on Bibi Netanyahu to try to head off the thing that Washington is most worried about, which is a threatened ground assault on Rafah. More than a million Palestinians have sought refuge there, and if that ground invasion were to go through, it's going to likely kill thousands more civilians. That is that delegation, which the White House is now saying is going to be coming, but Bibi Netanyahu's people have said, "We haven't said yes yet," so we'll have to see what's going forward.

Biden isn't there yet. He may never get there, but it has been a really tough week, and it's going to continue to get tougher as they wrangle over Rafah and wrangle over whether or not they can get ceasefire negotiations going again. As you said, this decision to abstain on this resolution after vetoing so many of them before that, it made the Israelis so anxious that Axios was reporting that a top Israeli aide called a top Biden aide the night before and got into a really heated conversation about it. The next day, once the abstention went forward, Netanyahu canceled this visit. There's also reports that Netanyahu may have decided that he went too far, which is why the betting is that this visit will go forward.

The question, of course, is what will that visit produce. Can they come to some an understanding? The Israeli defense minister was already in town and he did have conversations, and what the Pentagon is pushing is the notion of much more targeted strikes. They're not saying, "Don't go after Hamas," but what they are saying is that, "If you level Rafah the way you're leveling the rest of Gaza, thousands are going to die." Biden has some really tough choices.

ELDER:
You said that Biden has some other choices to put real pressure on Netanyahu in terms of the war and the invasion of Rafah. What are the concrete things that Biden could be considering, and why do you think that he might not get there?

ROBBINS:
Well, I have no sign that he's actually considering them. Certainly we know that there are other people in the administration who always come up with options, but I think they also know that for Biden so far, this has been a bridge too far. The U.S. is the major supplier of military aid to Israel. In the past, of course, if we're dissatisfied with the way other governments behave, we threaten to cut off military support or we cut off military support. It is interesting.

Of course it has all been rhetorical, but it has been pretty fiercely rhetorical. When you considered that Chuck Schumer—we talked about this before—came out and said that Bibi was an obstacle to peace, that there should be elections. Everyone knows that Bibi would lose the election, which is one of the reasons why he has been pushing back as well at Biden, saying, "I'm the only one who can push back at the U.S." For Schumer, the highest-ranking Democrat after Biden, to come out and say that, to say that Bibi is an obstacle to peace, and then for Biden to say, "What a great speech," things are really, really tense.

To actually use the real leverage, everybody who watches Biden and has watched the long history of Biden's relationship with Israel doesn't think that that one's going to happen. On the other hand, every military planner in the U.S. government, everybody who watches what's going on here, says that a ground invasion of Rafah would be an utter disaster. Biden has some really tough choices to make.

ELDER:
I think there's been an understanding since the beginning of this war that the moment that it ends, Bibi's political life as such is over. I wonder what you make of some of the high-level visits that have happened to the United States, be it the Israeli defense minister, others. Are these trips that are happening with the blessing of the Israeli government, or do you think that the U.S. is trying to build relationships with other potential leaders that might come after?

ROBBINS:
I think the U.S. already has those relationships, but I think it's good to go into your world, Kremlinology, to look at the body language of these guys who come, like Benny Gantz and Gallant. We know that their relationships are complicated relationships with Netanyahu himself. The people who are going to come in this delegation, at least the ones we think are coming, are very much Netanyahu's guys. Those are the people you've got to talk to, to push, if you want to try to persuade him to do two things. One is not to do this ground assault on Rafah, and to get back to the negotiating table and seriously move ahead with these ceasefire negotiations. We'll see what happens with this. Biden has some really tough choices, and so does Netanyahu.

Miriam, let's shift our conversation to Russia. Last Friday, March 22nd, a gunman attacked the Crocus City Hall, which is an entertainment complex just outside of Moscow, and they killed...it was really horrifying...more than 130 concertgoers and wounded at least 180. This was the worst terrorist attack in Russia in two decades. ISIS has claimed responsibility for this attack, and the U.S intelligence community is saying that the gunman actually belonged to ISIS-K, the one from Afghanistan. Putin, of course, predictably, is accusing Kyiv and the West as facilitators. Why do we think ISIS-K would be targeting Russia, and how do you expect Putin to respond to this?

ELDER:
Carla, as we know, ISIS was deprived of its stronghold in Syria and Iraq, and now functions as a network of affiliates that both prey on local ambitions but also have global capabilities. ISIS Khorasan or ISIS-K is probably the most audacious branch. In addition to carrying out attacks in Iran and Pakistan, it's had its eye on Russia for quite some time.

There's a general sense of grievance with Russia that we get from its propaganda over the past couple of years, from modern Russia's attacks on the group in Syria, for its support for Assad there, for the war twenty years ago in Chechnya, a Muslim-majority republic in Russia, and even further back to Soviet Russia's war in Afghanistan. ISIS-K sees Russia as an infidel empire that has Muslim blood on its hands, but there's something more concrete. Russia's been building ties with the Taliban, which is ISIS-K's main enemy. Earlier this month they allowed the group to send a military attache to Moscow, to be based there. ISIS-K has attacked the Moscow embassy in Kabul.

And finally, and I think this is an interesting aspect that isn't discussed maybe enough, there's the propaganda value in winning recruits among ethnic Tajiks and ethnic Uzbeks that live in the north of Afghanistan. As we know, the attack was carried out by people originally from Tajikistan who were in Moscow. A spectacular attack like this then sends a message back home, to build up support in provinces where ISIS-K is trying to get more recruits.

As for how Russia will respond, Vladimir Putin has acknowledged that the attack was carried out by ISIS-K, but he says they need to know who ordered the attack. In extremely unsubtle ways, he has pointed the finger at both Ukraine and the U.S. Russian propaganda, from TV to newspapers, is absolutely flooded with this unfounded connection. There's always the fear that Russia will escalate its already horrific war in Ukraine, which is killing people every day, let's not forget, but what making that connection also does is it lets off the hook Russia's own security services, who completely failed to prevent this attack.

ROBBINS:
Is that rally around the flag, or do you think...because if they really believed that the Ukrainians were behind this, God forbid. I mean, when you look at our reaction to 9/11, this could be the justification for something...Hard to imagine anything more horrifying than what they're doing in Ukraine, but there are more horrifying things they could do in Ukraine. Do you see any sign that they've changed their military tactics on the ground in Ukraine since the explosions?

ELDER:
Not yet. Frankly, they could use this as an excuse to make it even worse, but this war has been prosecuted in such a horrific way, they don't even really need this excuse. I think the main purpose for pointing the finger at Ukraine is that the war in Ukraine is the main purpose of the Russian state right now.

It is a way to rally around the flag for sure, to get people riled up, but there's also a secondary consideration here, which is Russia received very concrete warnings that this attack was coming, including from the United States. The embassy in Moscow put out a public statement warning people away from large gatherings. Also there's been reporting that the CIA station in Moscow issued a private direct warning to Russian officials that ISIS-K in particular was going to carry out this attack. Russians ignored this. Vladimir Putin, three days before the attack on the entertainment complex, Putin came out and said that the warnings were, "Outright blackmail, and an attempt to intimidate and destabilize our society." This was a real failure by the Russian security services. If you can point the finger and say, "Look over there," at Ukraine, it's a very easy way to divert attention from the huge failings at home, the failure to keep Russians safe.

ROBBINS:
Nobody knows what goes on inside the head of Vladimir Putin, but you know better than a lot of people. This is a guy who's a spook. He comes from the intelligence community. Why would he ignore something like this? Do you think he really did believe it was a disinformation campaign by the West to get inside his head, or why would he ignore this?

ELDER:
I think there is a deep suspicion of the United States in general and of the U.S. intelligence services in particular. There's been incredible reporting of just how paranoid Putin has become in the past four or five years. The COVID pandemic, where he was completely isolated, seems to have sent him into a real tailspin, but also this is not unusual for Russia. It's the worst attack in let's say twenty years, but Russia has a long history of really horrific attacks that were continuously allowed to happen, that were not prevented, be it the hostage-taking at Dubrovka Theater, be it the hostage-taking at the elementary school in Beslan. I don't know yet to what degree they would publicize attacks that they manage to disrupt, but there's a long history of these kinds of attacks hitting the Russian state all over the country.

ROBBINS:
Would we know, in Russia, whether or not this was costing Putin anything?

ELDER:
You mean in terms of his popularity or approval rating? That is so hard to judge right now, but what we have seen is, just like in any country, public opinion there is varied. There will be people who will take the opportunity, and who are sitting and watching state-run television and reading state-approved newspapers, and will firmly believe that Ukraine was behind this. They've been primed to believe that by years of propaganda demonizing Ukraine.

Then there are some people maybe with access to freer information who might not believe that. As there is after any spectacular attack in Russia, there was immediate chatter among people about, "Did the state do this so that they could commit some further escalation of the war In Ukraine?" It leads to all sorts of conspiracies and questioning. There's a lack of faith in the state among certain people, but it'll be varied. It's hard to judge.

Carla, let's move over to Cuba, your old stomping grounds. Protests erupted in several cities on March 17th over persistent food scarcity and extended blackouts. Cuba's economy has been in crisis since the pandemic, but last week, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel denied that there were any government protests at all. On his YouTube show, "Desde la Presidencia," Spanish for "From the Presidency," he blamed the U.S. blockades for Cuba's economic situation. He said the demonstrations were not protests, but a chance for the people to voice their concerns to the government.

ROBBINS:
What a democrat.

ELDER:
Indeed. Will the Cuban government really open a dialogue with its people to address their problems, do you think?

ROBBINS:
No. Protests in Cuba are incredibly rare events, far rarer than they are in Russia, and they're pretty rare in Russia. This is why the sight of hundreds of Cubans marching in the streets in five cities, including Santiago, which is the country's second largest city, drew so much attention. This is the third time in the last three years the Cubans have dared to challenge the government. After the major demonstrations in July 2021, the Cuban government broke heads and threw as many as seven hundred people in jail. I really think it's a sign of the desperation the Cuban people are feeling that they dare once again to take to the streets, even if only for a brief period of time. 

They were shouting, "Power and food," which is what they really want, but they were also shouting, "Patria y vida," and that's this, "Motherland and life," chant, which comes from 2021. This is a clear challenge to the government's, "Motherland or Death," chant, which has always been the chant of the Castro regime.

This desperation, you can see the stats from the government. Who knows what to believe, but government inflation levels are 30 percent, they said in February. Other analysts put it at 50 percent or higher. The strict electricity rationing has led to daily blackouts stretching as long as eighteen hours a day. In an attempt to get things under control, they were increasing fuel prices, because through taking off subsidies, going up as much as five-fold. The cost of public transportation was so high that in February, the Cuban government suspended all sports tournaments. The Cubans love baseball. No baseball, which that's just a sin in Cuba as it would be in the United States, certainly in my household. Subsidized food is scarce, and there are hugely long lines at the subsidized markets. It's really, really tough there. 

The Cuban economy has never been great. Even before the pandemic, things were really, really getting bad. A good part of that is because a lot of their backers cut them off. Venezuela, which is giving them really cheap oil, cut back radically because they had their own problems. I don't know if you remember, but the Cubans used to export these doctors which were a source of hard currency, not for the doctors but for the government. Once right-wing governments came in in Brazil and Colombia—of course, now they've gone out again—that trade went away as well. Then the Trump administration reimposed a whole bunch of sanctions, and then COVID hit. All of this has put the economy in really bad shape.

Now, Díaz-Canel, unlike in '21, and I don't know if it's because they were smaller demonstrations or because they're more nervous this time, he was talking about some sort of dialogue. There's no sign that dialogue's taking place, but they have been handing out a bunch of food. There's reportedly more food in the subsidized markets, and they're trying...At least in Santiago there's more electricity for now, but I don't know how long they can keep that up.

ELDER:
You describe a really horrific economic situation. To what degree are they going to have to reach out to external partners to try to help them with this? Or is there something that the president can do domestically to fix the economic situation, beyond handouts?

ROBBINS:
We were just hearing this morning that the Russians are sending a tanker, but I think that's only going to give them slightly more than a month of oil support. The Russians have oil. I don't know if they're going to go back into that relationship and continue to prop them up. They would have to have really vast changes in their economy to get themselves back together. I don't think the Venezuelans can come to their support again. I suppose they could start exporting doctors again to leftist governments in Latin America, but their economic problems are so profound. Tourism has not rebounded there, in part because the U.S. put Cuba on the State Sponsor of Terrorism list, which has all sorts of implications for finance and things of that sort.

And the U.S., President Biden came in and said he was going to restore travel, and he did restore remittances, which is a huge source of hard currency for Cuba, and he has taken off some of the additional sanctions that Trump put on. Every time there's a demonstration and every time the Cuban government lashes back, Biden takes another look and says, "No, I'm not sure that this is really a relationship." That may be another reason why Díaz-Canel is going softly, softly, because he certainly wants to see this tourism come back and would like to see more U.S. sanctions lifted. Basically, this is a profoundly flawed economy, so it would take a lot more than that to get back on track.

Miriam, it's time to discuss our audience figure of the week. This is the figure listeners vote on every Tuesday and Wednesday at @cfr_org's Instagram story. This week our audience selected, "Bolsonaro Hides at the Hungarian Embassy." What was he doing there?

ELDER:
Last month, Bolsonaro was in the Hungarian Embassy for two nights. You'll recall that Bolsonaro is facing his own January 6th-esque investigation in Brazil, for allegedly trying to stay in power following his loss in elections in October 2022 and a riot that took place in January 2023. Last month, several of his top aides were arrested on accusations that they had plotted a coup. As part of that, he was ordered not to leave the country and to hand over his passport, and then Bolsonaro magically finds himself inside the Hungarian Embassy. There's been speculation that because it's technically foreign soil, he was there to avoid arrest. Maybe he was there to seek asylum. He says he was just there to have political conversation.

So why Hungary? It all comes down to what I like to call the global strongman alliance. Bolsonaro, a bombastic populist. He built real personal ties with Viktor Orbán, who's Hungary's far-right leader. During a visit to Budapest back in 2022, he even called Orbán his brother. Orbán posted a photo of the two shaking hands just last month on Twitter, now known as X. Confirming his stay in the embassy, Bolsonaro himself said, "I have a circle of friends with some heads of state around the world. They are worried." Brazil's foreign ministry summoned Hungary's ambassador to clarify what happened, and federal police have launched a new investigation into Bolsonaro.

ROBBINS:
There are other friends that Bolsonaro has. He's got Trump as a good friend. Orbán has Trump as a good friend. We've got Milei in Argentina. There is this interesting axis of friends that are out there. One wonders what they were serving him during his two nights there. Maybe he just likes the accommodations at the Hungarian Embassy.

ELDER:
Yeah, some good goulash. That's our look at the world next week. Here's some other stories to keep an eye on. Turkey will be holding local elections. Malta takes over the rotating UN Security Council presidency. And NATO celebrates the seventy-fifth anniversary of its foundation.

ROBBINS:
Happy Birthday, NATO. Please subscribe to The World Next Week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts, and leave us a review while you're at it. We appreciate the feedback. If you'd like to reach out, please email us at [email protected]. The publications mentioned in this episode, as well as a transcript of our conversation, are listed on the podcast page for The World Next Week on CFR.org. Please note that opinions expressed on The World Next Week are solely those of the hosts, not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.

Today's program was produced by Ester Fang and Sinet Adous with Director of Podcasting Gabrielle Sierra. Special thanks to our intern Olivia Green for her research assistance. Our theme music is provided by Markus Zakaria. This is Carla Robbins saying so long, and thank you so much, Miriam, for joining us.

ELDER:
Thank you for having me. This is Miriam Elder saying goodbye.