Month: November 2016
Saudi Arabia’s regional challenges
While the United States faces daunting foreign policy decisions in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is facing big challenges while also positioned firmly inside the fray. To discuss its approach to regional policy the Atlantic Council hosted Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud, a businessman and investor in the Saudi defense and security sector, and Mohammad Khalid Alyahya, a Saudi political analyst and commentator. They did not speak on behalf of the Saudi government.
The discussion predictably centered around Saudi Arabia’s relationship with Iran. Al Saud disagreed with the premise of President Obama’s comments that the two must learn to “share the neighborhood.” Neither Saudi Arabia nor Iran has the right to seek dominance beyond its own sovereign state. In Al Saud‘s view, The Kingdom has demonstrated a policy of working with other governments to promote stability rather than displaying hegemonic ambitions. The same cannot be said of Iran. Since the 2003 Iraq war, Iran has taken advantage of domestic instability to build the power of proxies in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Saudi Arabia has demonstrated restraint in the past but is not going to sit back and let Iran take over consecutive states, many of which are immediate neighbors of the Kingdom.
Regarding the war in Yemen in which more than 7,000 civilians have been killed, Al Saud defended Saudi Arabia’s actions as occurring in the specific context of a decade of Iranian aggression in the region. He believes Iran’s motives in backing Houthi rebels were to distract Saudi Arabia from the Syrian civil war rather than a genuine concern for the Houthi movement. Saudi Arabia was aware of this tactic, but had to respond to prevent Iran from gaining an easy win and installing another proxy on Saudi Arabia’s borders.
Alyahya presented an alternative analysis of the Yemen war. He suggests that Iran never intended the Houthis, who’s total population is only 60-70,000, to pursue political control of the country. Rather they intended to establish a powerful Hezbollah-like paramilitary force running parallel to and prodding the Yemeni state.
In discussing drivers of Saudi regional policy, Al Saud emphasized the role of public opinion. Because of the social contract between the Saudi government and the population, the Kingdom is particularly sensitive to public opinion and must respond as a matter of legitimacy. There is palpable anxiety among the Saudi population. Unlike the US, the Kingdom is not in a position to ignore Iran’s oftentimes absurd rhetoric.
Saudi Arabia has also been adjusting to changing US policy in the region. Al Saud praised the positive relationship the two countries have had for decades, but explained that the Kingdom found itself caught off-guard and having to adjust rapidly following Obama’s disengagement from the Middle East and perceived acquiescence to Iran’s actions. He pointed to support of Maliki in Iraq as a potent example. Saudi Arabia is comfortable with the US taking a leadership role in regional security but will continue to build the ability to act on its own in case US policy continues along the same trajectory. One area where the Kingdom continues to rely heavily on the US, however, is intelligence. He cited mistargeting of civilian facilities in Yemen as an intelligence failure on Saudi Arabia’s part, not a disregard for civilian life, and so hopes the US will assist in building the Kingdom’s capabilities.
Regarding the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), Al-Saud is not concerned that any legal cases will find sufficient evidence. His fear is around public perception in Saudi Arabia of the US and how JASTA promotes links between the Kingdom and terrorism regardless of actual legal outcomes. He is also concerned by the negative media environment. which has been stirred by Trump’s election campaign and the acceptability of anti-Muslim rhetoric. He believes Saudi Arabia’s history of opacity and neglect of public relations has been harmful and hopes to pursue improved relations with the US and its citizens
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Russia’s increasing Middle East influence
As Russia becomes increasingly influential in the Middle East, US policymakers question what that might mean for American interests in the region. The Atlantic Council convened a panel Monday to discuss Russian interests in the region, how they might shift in a Trump presidency, and where the Russian relationships with Turkey, Iran, and Syria are heading. The panel featured Anna Borshchevskaya, Ira Weiner Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Thomas Cunningham, the Deputy Director for the Global Energy Center at the Atlantic Council, Alireza Nader, a Senior International Policy Analyst at the RAND Corporation and Aaron Stein, a Senior Fellow at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council.
Borshchevskaya said Putin has had his eye on the Middle East since he first took power in 2000. However, it wasn’t until recently that he has made his interventions more obvious. The most obvious move was Russia’s increasingly friendly relationship with Iran, even though the two countries have been historic rivals. Russia’s and Iran’s mutual resentment towards the US has led them to cooperate in the region. Their cooperation is most obvious in the Syrian crisis, where both are working to legitimize Assad’s rule over Syria. Trump has said he will cooperate with Russia in Syria, but it is still uncertain as to whether he will actually do so.
Stein said that Turkish-Russian cooperation is also a very new phenomenon. There was a sense that the two might have become enemies once Turkey shot down a Russian plane in 2015 when Russians pilots tested the Turkish safe zone on the Syrian-Turkish border. However, at the same time, Turkey had begun to distance itself from the US, partly because the US wasn’t doing enough to combat Kurdish forces in both Turkey and Syria. Thus, Turkey was pushed into Russia’s arms. Since the July coup, Turkey has reoriented itself as a hyper-nationalist, isolationist and anti-Western state that is looking to Russia as a “replacement ally” (for the US).
Cunningham said that since both Russia and some Middle Eastern countries are the world’s major oil producers, they are natural competitors and not cooperators. This is the major reason why Russia wants to maintain influence in the Middle East. Russia is producing tons of oil in response to the depreciation of the ruble and trying aggressively to sell this oil to Turkey. Russia is pushing for the creation of a Russia-Turkey oil pipeline, which many European countries oppose. It would be bad from a European diversification standpoint, since at least some of this oil would be directed west. Additionally, Russia is operating oil refineries in Syria, which will give them a leg up with the Assad regime once the civil war in Syria ends.
Nader echoed what Borshchevskaya said about the Russian-Iranian relationship being one that is mutually beneficial to both parties. However, he said, if Putin and Russia begin to cooperate in the region, it is possible that Russia might abandon Iran, since Iran is a weaker ally for them. If they do that, then Iran would have no powerful allies, which would be a major blow. However, Nader does not expect any US-Russian cooperation to be long term. Their goals in the region are much too different. An Iranian-Russian friendship is much more sustainable, since Iranian and Russian hegemonic ambitions in the Middle East can coexist.
I asked whether Russia’s aggressive support for Shiite groups in the Middle East would have repercussions for Sunni groups. Bolshchevskaya responded that Putin maintains that he is friends with everyone and is not favoring Shiite groups over Sunni groups. Instead, he claims, his ultimate goal in the Middle East is to combat terrorist groups and alliances with Shiite entities like Iran and the Assad regime are the best way to go about doing this. Thus far, Sunnis in the region and even Sunni Russians have accepted this explanation.
The panel was also asked to explain Russia’s relationship with Israel. Bolshchevskaya said that Russia is successfully restoring relations with Israel through economic cooperation, tech cooperation and tourism. However, there are limits to this partnership since Israel is still a Western democracy. The partnership between the two states is fundamentally pragmatic rather than idealistic. But given the chill between Obama and Netanyahu, Israel has found Putin to be a welcome new friend.
When asked whether the US is losing out by allowing Russia to exert their influence in the region, Bolshchevskaya said that that we absolutely are. Prior to Russian intervention in Syria, Assad was weak. Once Russia began intervening, the conflict got much, much worse. Additionally, increased Russian influence degrades US credibility in the region. Stein disagreed, saying that there is a lot of hype about the loss of US credibility in the region. ISIS isn’t as big of threat to the US as many politicians make it out to seem and there is no good reason for the US to make any big commitments to eliminating ISIS. Instead, he thought, the US should focus on strengthening relationships with NATO allies and stay away from the Middle East.
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Assad reaps the whirlwind
Syria’s almost six-year struggle with itself is coming to an ignominious end for an important contingent of its motley revolutionaries, who are facing defeat and even obliteration in eastern Aleppo. Idlib, where the opposition has generated an elaborate set of governing structures, will presumably be the next target of the Iranian/Russian/Syrian offensive. Provided that coalition continues its support, President Assad will soon control all of Syria’s major western population centers though still face Turkish-backed resistance in the north as well as CIA-backed resistance in the south. The Kurdish cantons along the Turkish border can’t be counted as revolutionary, but they aren’t likely to give up their autonomy any time soon.
The smart money is betting that the regime victory in Aleppo will tilt the playing field in Assad’s direction, lead at least some of the revolution’s external supporters to abandon their surrogates, and cause them to seek a modus vivendi with the Assad coalition. This will mean local surrenders and population transfers, which have become common. There will indeed be a political solution, but not of the kind Washington has sought. Assad will not need to agree to a political transition but instead claim to direct a “transition” himself, perhaps even including trappings like another Potemkin election.
The war against the Islamic State, especially the US-supported offensive investing Raqqa, will presumably continue, though a big question mark hangs over who lead the fight and govern in Raqqa (Kurds? Arabs? backed by Turkey? the US?) once ISIS is removed. The Assad regime has better prospects in Deir Azzour, where it has managed to maintain a presence.
Driven from control of cities, the Islamic State will presumably do in Syria what it has done in Iraq: head for the hinterland, go underground and revert to terrorist attacks on regime-controlled areas. This will help the regime to justify its repression, which relies on a bewildering half dozen security agencies as well as “anti-terrorism” courts that have jailed something like 100,000 Syrians.
Reconstruction faces insurmountable obstacles: Assad’s Russian and Iranian friends have told him they won’t pay. Iran might ante up a bit for resettling Alawites and Shia (Syrian or not) into strategically important areas around Damascus and on the road north, but they can afford little else. The Americans, the Gulf states, and the international financial institutions will refuse all but humanitarian assistance so long as Assad remains in power, unless the Trump Administration surprises all of us and decides to make him America’s latest Great White Hope. Alissa Rubin in today’s New York Times suggests Assad may be able to use the threat of increased refugee flows to blackmail the Europeans into footing some of the bill, but they aren’t likely to write checks in the hundreds of billions of euros required.
Fighting will likely continue even after the fall of Aleppo, Raqqa and Idlib, though likely at far lower levels than for the past year. The Russians and Iranians will be able to remove at least some of their troops and reduce some of their aid to Assad, though the country’s economic catastrophe will render him their ward for a long time to come. Syrian society, which in the leadup to the war was nowhere near as sectarian as Iraq’s, will not revert quickly (or likely ever) to its prior state. Alawites and Shiites, most of whom remained loyal, are going to expect rewards. Sunnis will be sharply divided between those who stuck with the regime and those who joined the revolution, but the latter aren’t likely to forget what Assad, the Russians and Iranians have done.
This is a war whose only winner is Assad, but what he has won is in many places reduced to rubble and unsustainable.
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Peace picks, November 28-December 2
- Can Interfaith Contact Reduce Extremism Among Youth? | Monday, November 28th | 1.30pm – 3pm | US Institute of Peace | click HERE to register
The Pakistani government banned more than 200 groups as extremist or terrorist organizations last year in a significant move to stop the spread of ideological, religious and political extremism that can feed violent conflict. But many ideologically extreme groups still operate openly, especially recruiting young university students. In Sri Lanka, Buddhist ideological extremism fuels negative attitudes about minority ethnic and religious groups. Join a U.S. Institute of Peace Jennings Randolph Fellow Rabia Chaudry and other experts to discuss the findings of her research on these trends.
The panel discussion also will include two USIP experts and Ayub Ayubi, who heads a research organization in Pakistan, the Renaissance Foundation (Mashal-e-Rah), that has been a partner for USIP.
- What’s Next, For America and Israel? Challenges and Opportunities in an Uncertain World| Monday, November 28th | 4.30pm – 6pm | Johns Hopkins SAIS| click HERE to register
Dean Vali Nasr and The Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies cordially invite you to join Ambassador Ron Dermer, Ambassador of Israel to the United States, for a discussion on “What’s Next, For America and Israel? Challenges and Opportunities in an Uncertain World.”
The event will be moderated by Laura Blumenfeld, Senior Fellow, The Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies.
- Domestic Security in the Age of ISIS | Monday, November 28th | 6.30pm | Council on Foreign Relations | click HERE to register
Experts discuss how the United States can better prepare for and protect the homeland with the growing threat of ISIS inspired terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.
Speakers:
Michael Chertoff – Executive Chairman and Cofounder, Chertoff Group; Former Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Christopher T. Geldart – Director, Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, District of Columbia
Farah Pandith – Adjunct Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations
Presider:
Thom Shanker – Assistant Washington Editor, “New York Times”
- Conference: Facing a World in Turmoil | Tuesday, November 29th | 7.30am – 2pm | Women’s Foreign Policy Group | click HERE to register
Join us November 29th for our conference on Facing a World in Turmoil. The conference will include two panels. The first panel, Security at Home and Abroad, will focus on threats and challenges to national and international security and will include a discussion of the role of cybersecurity. The second, A World in Chaos: Challenges for the Next Administration, will address transnational issues like mass migration and terrorism. We are honored to announce that Secretary of State John Kerry will be our luncheon speaker.
- Beyond Borders: Reshaping Media Narratives around Migration | Tuesday, November 29th | 9am – 11am | International Women’s Media Foundation | click HERE to register
The International Women’s Media Foundation invites you to attend Beyond Borders: Reshaping Media Narratives around Migration, a panel discussion at the Newseum on Tuesday, November, 29th.
The Beyond Borders panel will feature Howard G. Buffett and IWMF Reporting Fellows Kimberly Adams, Raquel Godos, and Jika González. The Fellows joined the IWMF on reporting trips to the Mexico-U.S. border and Colombia as part of the IWMF Adelante Initiative discussing media coverage of migration in Latin America. Their reporting has appeared on Marketplace Radio, EFE and Univision.
The panel discussion will be moderated by Maria Hinojosa, anchor and executive producer of Latino USA on National Public Radio.
- What to Do about Russia’s Rising Profile in the Middle East | Tuesday, November 29th |9.30am | Atlantic Council | click HERE to register
Russia’s dramatic intervention in the Syrian civil war, expanding military relationship with Iran and overtures to long-time U.S. partners such as Egypt and Turkey present a new challenge to American leadership in a vital and conflict-ridden part of the world.
A conversation with:
Anna Borshchevskaya – Ira Weiner Fellow, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Thomas Cunningham – Deputy Director, Global Energy Center, Atlantic Council
Alireza Nader – Senior International Policy Analyst, Rand
Aaron Stein – Senior Fellow, Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, Atlantic Council
- A New Saudi Arabian Regional Policy? | Tuesday, November 29th | 2.30pm| Atlantic Council | click HERE to register
Saudi Arabia is engaged in two simultaneous wars, the first in Yemen, as leader of the Arab Coalition there, and the second, in Syria as a member of the anti-ISIS coalition in Syria. The Kingdom is also challenging the view that its foreign policy revolves around aid: it has cut financial support to the Lebanese Armed Forces while rolling back aid and suspending oils transfers to Egypt. Moreover, Saudi Arabia is witnessing shifting alliances and relationships with traditional partners and adversaries.
In light of the election of Donald Trump, how will Saudi Arabia’s relations with its neighbors and allies change, if at all? On November 29 at the Atlantic Council, the panelists will discuss these and other critical issues including intra-GCC relations, the future of Iraqi-Saudi relations, the war in Yemen, and the growing regional rivalry with Iran.
Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud, a businessman and investor primarily active in the defense and security sector, is the Chairman of Shamal Investments and the Chairman of Alliance Services. Mohammed Khalid Alyahya, a Saudi Arabian political analyst and commentator, is also a research fellow at the Gulf Research Center and serves on the advisory board for the Future Trends in the GCC Program at Chatham House. Frederic C. Hof is the director of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East and specializes in Syria.
- Should We Fear Russia | Wednesday, November 30th | 10.30am – 12pm | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace | click HERE to register
Please join the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace for the launch of Dmitri Trenin’s new book, Should We Fear Russia? (Polity, 2016).
Since the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis, there has been much talk of a new Cold War between Russia and the West. Russian President Vladimir Putin is widely seen as volatile, belligerent, and willing to use military force to get his way.
In this latest book, Dmitri Trenin, the longtime director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, explains why the Cold War analogy is misleading. Relations between the West and Russia are certainly bad and dangerous but, he argues, they are bad and dangerous in new ways. Trenin outlines the crucial differences, which make the current rivalry between Russia, the EU, and the United States more fluid and unpredictable. By unpacking the dynamics of this increasingly strained relationship, Trenin makes the case for handling Russia with pragmatism and care and cautions against simply giving into fear.
- A New Approach for the Middle East | Wednesday, November 30th | 12pm| Atlantic Council | click HERE to register
Under the bipartisan Co-Chairmanship of former US Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and former US National Security Advisor Stephen J. Hadley, the Atlantic Council convened the Middle East Strategy Task Force (MEST) in February 2015 to examine the underlying issues of state failure and political legitimacy that drive extremist violence and threaten fundamental interests broadly shared by the peoples of the region and the rest of the world.
The result of almost two years of intensive study, Albright and Hadley’s final report proposes nothing short of a paradigm shift in how the international community and the Middle East interact. Not only does the report present solutions to the region’s most immediate crises in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya, it also puts forward a pragmatic and actionable long-term strategy that emphasizes the efforts of the people of the Middle East themselves, with an eye toward harnessing the region’s enormous human potential.
- China’s Role in the Middle East | Friday, December 2nd | 8.30am – 1pm| Johns Hopkins SAIS | click HERE to register
At the beginning of 2016, President Xi Jinping visited Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt signaling Beijing’s new level of engagement with the Middle East. Chinese state media labeled China’s approach “bright, clear dawn.” But what are Beijing’s goals and how does it aim to achieve them? Focusing on both the security and soft-power dimension as well as energy and infrastructure, the Institute of Current World Affairs and the Johns Hopkins-SAIS China Studies Program will bring together leading experts to illuminate China’s evolving relationship with the Middle East.
SPEAKERS
Keynote: Kent Calder – Edwin O. Reischauer Professor at the School of Advanced Inter-national Studies (SAIS), Director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies, Director of Asian Studies Programs
Naser al-Tamimi (from Doha) – Independent UK-based Middle East Researcher, Political Analyst, and Commentator
Jon B. Alterman – Director and Senior Fellow of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
I-wei Jennifer Chang – Program Specialist in the China Program at the U.S. Institute of Peace
Joshua Eisenman – Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs and Senior Fellow for China Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC
Chaoling Feng – Senior Research Associate, KNG Health
Sarah Kaiser-Cross (from Dubai) – Works for a private financial institution based in Dubai, focusing on the nexus of contemporary security threats and finance in the Middle East.
Camille Pecastaing – Senior Associate Professor of Middle East Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University
Robert Sutter – Professor of Practice of International Affairs at the Elliott School of George Washington University
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Trust is the Middle East’s big problem
A report on the upcoming challenges for the Arab World—titled “Real Security: The Interdependence of Governance and Stability in the Arab World”—was presented at Brookings Monday. The report was launched by the Atlantic Council and Brookings to explore how the US can best help stabilize the Middle East in coming years. The report was written by Tamara Cofman, Senior Fellow and Director for the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings, and commissioned by the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Strategy Task Force, which is co-chaired by former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright and former National Security advisor, Stephen Hadley. All three convened for a panel yesterday, joined by Amr Hamzawy, a Senior Associate for the Middle East and Democracy & Rule of Law Programs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Hadley moderated the panel.
Albright believes that the region is destined for good governance. Many others believe that a country needs to be secure before it can start pursuing practices of good governance, but Albright believes that they must occur at the same time in order to be sustainable. “People want to vote and eat,” she said.
Cofman believes that the civil wars and unrest throughout the region are a symptom of a general breakdown of social order in these countries. With the advent of easily accessible technology and constant global communication, authoritarian ideology began to break down in 2011. People were able to see what they did not have by communicating with others around the world and began to hold their leaders accountable for failing to fulfill their social contract. When people arose in protest, the authoritarian governments responded by cracking down. This did not stop the protests but instead led to the rise of independent militias who could provide security for the people against government aggression.
Trust between the government and the governed needs to be rebuilt in these countries if they want to see peace, Cofman said. Simply building more democratic institutions won’t cut it, since the problem lies with who populates those institutions. Creating more borders will not solve the problem either, as any new borders will be fought over. Dialogue is the only way forward and social trust needs to be built from the bottom up.
Hamzawy complimented Cofman on her report, but suggested that perhaps the Middle East is heading to a revival of autocracy rather than a new democratic order. To reverse this trend, he suggests focusing on generating social capital and reinvigorating civil society, rather than on constitutional reforms and institution building. There also needs to be a new focus on combating corruption in the judicial system and among law enforcement, as people need to feel as though they can trust the state to protect them. Additionally, the US needs to look closely at which countries are being run by the military and which are being run by the people since countries that are run by the military are very difficult to reform.
When asked which countries she sees as fragile, Cofman said she is keeping a close eye on Algeria and the Palestinian Authority. Both governments have aging leaders and no clear plans for succession. In an uncertain environment, people are more likely to rise up in protest. Albright added that Jordan may also be an issue in the future, as the monarchy there is losing trust with the people and not delivering on promises. She summarized saying that in the Middle East, “people are talking to the government on 21st century technology, but the government only listens on 20th century technology and ia responding to problems with 19th century technology.”
Hamzawy pointed out that while supporters of autocracies claim that they provide better national security than democracies, that security is not sustainable. Autocracies may provide better security against external threats, but by breaking trust with their citizenry, they are causing internal insecurity.
During the Q&A session, the German Ambassador to the US asked the panel whether the United States and its allies are doing enough to promote human rights in the region. Albright responded that more can certainly be done, though it cannot be accomplished solely by external actors. People living in the region need to make a commitment to preserving human rights and cannot simply rely on the West to guarantee these rights.
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Will Romney or Mattis make a difference?
A friend brought this to my attention:
He noted that you don’t have to speak a word of Italian to understand the message: make Italy great again! We know how that turned out.
The similarity of rhetorical style to Donald Trump is in fact remarkable. A tweeter pointed out to me earlier this week that Trump’s technique involves “enthymeme,” an ancient Greek device in which the crowd is permitted to complete the thought of the speaker. While Mussolini doesn’t exactly do that, he uses pregnant pauses to allow the crowd to anticipate, if not quite to enunciate, what he will say next. Clearly the effect is similar: the crowd loves this man and is ready to do battle in support of him.
Another friend provided this to me, from Adolf Hitler:
The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force.
I confess I find Trump an inarticulate speaker, one whose facial expressions are at least as silly as Mussolini’s. His hand gestures are worse. But of course I am not Trump’s audience. And though I speak good Italian, Mussolini leaves me cold too. But George Lakoff’s exegesis is pretty convincing (read it to the end): Trump is practiced and successful in knowing how to appeal to those he has rapport with.
What I don’t know is how well Trump’s popularity will hold up as he appoints obvious bigots, it becomes clear that he can’t deliver on many of his promises, those he can deliver on fail to produce the expected results, and he combines his private business interests with his public office. Mussolini ended up hanging upside down in a public square. Hitler committed suicide in his bunker.
Neither end is likely for Trump, who has the advantage of living in a society attached to a long tradition of allowing its former leaders to live out their natural lives in peace and prosperity. The bigger concern is what kind of America he will have created by the time he leaves office. So far he shows no sign of wanting to bridge the divide with his opponents: he has appointed only hard-line white males, signaling unequivocally his attachment to white nationalist goals and aspirations.
Will it make a difference if he appoints Romney Secretary of State or General Mattis as Defense Secretary? Not in my book. My admittedly minor contact with Mattis left me unimpressed. He is tough talking and intelligent, but hardly likely to reform the Pentagon in a meaningful way. He will welcome the flood of money the Republican Congress will throw his way and get on efficiently with the killing of extremists in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere, but he is unlikely to rethink the merits and demerits of that policy, which is essentially identical to President Obama’s.
Romney, as everyone else has already commented, looks the part of chief diplomat and has the considerable virtue of recognizing President Putin as the menace he is. That will put him at odds with Trump, as will his advocacy of free trade and a more forward-leaning American posture in the world. That is much more akin to what Hillary Clinton was offering than what Trump has promised. So if Romney takes the job, he’ll need to knuckle under to a White House that definitely does not share his cosmopolitan views or his commitment to resolute American civilian as well as military leadership in the world.
Romney and Mattis would certainly raise the intellectual level of the Trump administration, which at the moment lies somewhere between the gutter of white nationalism and the cesspool of Benghazi lies. But it will take a lot more than their nominations to convince reasonable people that this new administration wants to govern with respect for us all.
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