Month: January 2017
Own goals
The Trump Administration has had a busy few days committing what look to me like “own” goals, that is goals scored against the interests of the United States and its citizens. Let me list them:
- Renunciation of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP): this will please no country more than China, which correctly saw TPP as an effort to ensure American influence in Asia and limit Beijing’s sway with its neighbors. If you believe that Beijing aims at regional political and economic as well as military hegemony, the path is far more open today than it was last week.
- An executive order instructing government agencies to act to the maximum extent permitted by law to undo the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare: before issuing this order, the Republicans had some chance of convincing people that Obamacare was collapsing under its own weight, but now the administration has taken on responsibility for destabilizing the system Obama established. A replacement is nowhere in sight, so 20 million people will likely have Trump to blame for getting nervous about losing their health insurance (and maybe eventually losing it).
- The pledge to prevent China from “taking over” international territories in the South China Sea: It is difficult to imagine how this would be implemented in practice if not by war, but just as important is that several other countries friendly to the US have also built islands in the South China Sea, well before China embarked on that enterprise. Even to pretend to be consistent, we would need to block take overs by at least Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia, which wouldn’t get us far in enlisting their help against the Chinese.
- A rambling and partly incoherent speech at the CIA that disrespected the intelligence community with which he was trying to repair relations: If I hadn’t been told he was a teetotaler, I’d have thought him tipsy. He brought a claque to applaud and managed to say little (some would say nothing) to suggest that he appreciated or understood the sacrifices our intelligence operatives and analysts have to make.
- Continued insistence on obvious lies: These include gross overstatements of the crowds at Friday’s inauguration as well as the number of people who voted illegally. The media is now getting used to calling out these falsehoods bluntly. Republican members of Congress, who are the only hope for upending this administration, should be chagrined. Trumpkins will continue to believe the lies, but there is no evidence that the majority of Americans are Trumpkins.
The nationwide demonstrations Saturday suggested the opposite: the reservoir of people concerned with protecting Obama’s achievements is large and activated. Trump wisely avoided denouncing the demonstrations, which suggests someone in the new administration understands the risks involved in alienating women, the men who support their rights, and perhaps even minorities, who turned out in force. Few previous administrations have excited such opposition so early, none on the scale of last weekend.
More own goals await. With Israel expanding settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, a move of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is likely to arouse a strong Arab reaction, one that could damage warming Sunni relations with Israel and handicap the administration’s intended hostility towards Iran. Ditto any move to ban Muslims from entering the US. The hostility to Iran, if realized, could hurt prospects for cooperation with Russia, which is allied with Iran in supporting Bashar al Assad in Syria. Trump has promised to “eradicate” violent Islamic extremism. That would require a far greater presence abroad of American troops and civilians than the administration has indicated it wants. Trump’s reference to a possible future opportunity to “take Iraq’s oil,” which is an obvious war crime, will have generated resentment in the Arab world and should generate concern in America about the possibility of massive new intervention abroad.
The Trump administration is rife with contradictions. The more it attempts to realize its radical changes in American foreign and domestic policy, the more apparent those contradictions will become. Admittedly, I don’t wish Trump well. But if the last few days are any indication, the administration will fail on its own way before its opponents have gotten organized to make it do so.
PS: For those in need of comic relief:
PPS: And this, from the Dutch:
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Peace Picks January 23-27
- Powerplay: The Origins of the American Alliance System in Asia | Tuesday, January 24 | 3:00pm – 4:30pm | Woodrow Wilson Center | Click HERE to Register Join the Wilson Center’s Hyundai Motor-Korea Foundation Center for Korean History and Public Policy and Asia Program as Georgetown University professor and CSIS Korea Chair Dr. Victor Cha discusses his newest book, Powerplay: The Origins of the American Alliance System in Asia. Dr. Cha investigates the origin of American alliances in Asia, how the system has changed over time, and what must be done to navigate a complex new era of international security. Looking from the time of Truman and Eisenhower, through the Cold War, and into today, he offers a compelling perspective on U.S.-China relations that pays heed to historical and contemporary contexts alike, and argues that the U.S. must maximize stability and economic progress amid Asia’s increasingly complex political landscape. Joining the conversation are Ambassador Stapleton Roy, Founding Director Emeritus of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, and Dr. Andrew Yeo, Associate Professor of Politics at the Catholic University of America.
- Understanding ISIS and its Followers | Tuesday, January 24 | 5:30pm – 6:30pm | AEI |
Click HERE to Register In March 2015, The Atlantic magazine ran a cover story titled “What ISIS Really Wants.” The author was Graeme Wood, journalist, correspondent for The Atlantic, and lecturer at Yale University. His reporting and research on ISIS has now become a book, “The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State” (Random House, 2016), which examines the origins, plans, and followers of ISIS. In this Bradley Lecture, Mr. Wood will discuss his firsthand encounters with ISIS’s true believers, which will help clear away common misunderstandings about this distinctive variety of Islam. Please join us for Mr. Wood’s first public lecture on the book in Washington, DC. A reception and book signing will follow. - Libya Beyond ISIS: Prospects for Unity and Stability | Wednesday, January 25 | 10:00am – 11:00am | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace | Click HERE to Register Despite a successful campaign this summer against the self-proclaimed Islamic State in Sirte, a war-weary Libya is still wracked by mounting internal divisions, and its United Nations-backed unity government remains fragile. Jonathan Winer, who has served as the U.S. State Department’s special envoy for Libya, will reflect on his tenure in a tumultuous period, Libya’s prospects for the future, and what the next U.S. administration and the international community can do to help.
- The Iran Deal Under Trump | Wednesday, January 25 | 11:45am – 1:30 pm | Hudson Institute | Click HERE to Register During the campaign, President-elect Donald Trump promised significant changes to U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, centered around a repeal of the Iran Deal. Will he deliver? How would a repeal impact such a highly unstable region? What would it mean for future nuclear nonproliferation efforts? The Hudson Institute will host a panel of experts to analyze the fate of the Iran Deal and examine potential changes to U.S. policy in the Middle East under the incoming administration. Moderated by Suzanne Kianpour of BBC News, the panel will feature Michael Pregent, Hudson Institute adjunct fellow and former U.S. intelligence officer, Trita Parsi, an award-winning author and president of the National Iranian American Council, and Gary Samore, executive director for research at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. This event will be live streamed on Hudson’s homepage.
- Iranian Attitudes About US-Iranian Relations in the Trump Era | Wednesday, January 25 | 3:30pm – 5:00pm | Atlantic Council | Click HERE to Register The Atlantic Council’s Future of Iran Initiative and the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland invite you to a panel discussion on Iranian public opinion toward the United States following the election of Donald Trump. The event will present new public opinion data gathered since the election on Iranian attitudes toward domestic and international economic and political issues. In particular, the event will explore current Iranian attitudes toward the recent nuclear agreement, potential changes in US policy toward Iran, the upcoming Iranian president elections, and Iranian economic policy. The conversation includes Ms. Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini, Co-Founder and Executive Director at the International Civil Society Action Network, Dr. Ebrahim Mohseni, Research Scholar at the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland at the University of Maryland, and Dr. Paul Pillar, Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University.
- Islamists movements in the MENA: Adaptation and divergence | Thursday, January 26 | 6:00pm – 7:30pm | The Elliott School of International Affairs | Click HERE to RegisterIn the post-Arab uprisings political landscape, Islamist movements across the Middle East and North Africa are adapting in unique ways to face challenges from the evolution of Salafi-jihadist movements to local insurgencies and repression. Some – like Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood under President Sissi – have faced severe domestic and regional repression disrupting their organization, ideology and strategy. Others have found new opportunities, whether in formal politics or as members of military coalitions. These structural changes have produced an intriguingly diverse array of responses at the ideological, strategic and organization level.This panel, including Khalil al-Anani, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Monica Marks, University of Oxford, Jillian Schwedler, Hunter College CUNY, and Eva Wegner, University College Dublin, will seek to address timely questions such as: what explains the variation in the ways in which Islamists have adapted to these new challenges and opportunities? To what extent have Islamist parties, movements, members or intellectuals engaged in significant strategic adaptation, ideological rethinking, or internal reorganization? What are the appropriate historical or cross-national comparisons to make sense of the current political moment?
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36 hours
Donald Trump’s first 36 hours as president:
1. He gave a dark inauguration address repeating the dystopian tone of his campaign, despite well-established facts on the economy and crime disproving his allegations.
2. He and his spokesman lied about the size of the crowd at the inauguration, with the latter threatening to hold the press accountable for what he claimed was their false (but thoroughly verified) reporting.
3, Trump appeared at the CIA with a claque to ensure applause while he falsely claimed not to have criticized the intelligence community, seemed not to understand the distinction between it and the military, and rambled on about the size of the inauguration crowd and taking Iraqi’s oil, whatever that means. If he weren’t a teetotaler, I’d have thought him drunk.
4. Well over a million people attended peaceful rallies countrywide against him, in particular his attitude towards women. Trump’s surrogates were busy claiming the demonstrations were disorderly. No one was arrested at the big one in DC.
Can the country take another 1460* days of this?
I doubt it. Something has to give. It will either be American democracy, which depends on established rules of the game that Trump violates often. Or it will be his presidency, which is built on shaky foundations: he lost the popular vote by a substantial margin, he benefited from Russia’s cyber intervention, and he enjoyed a boost–intended or not–from an FBI director who breached his own organization’s rules to publicize an investigation (that then came to nothing).
American democracy is also looking shaky. Trump is lambasting the press and pledging to keep it in line. Fantastic quantities of money are pouring into elections at every level. Trump is defying ethics laws, regulations, contractual provisions, and expectations. He refuses to make an even modest effort to avoid conflicts of interest. At least two of his cabinet nominees are already tarred with scandal for nonpayment of taxes and failure to declare assets.
My Republican friends: this mess can only be sorted if you use your majorities in the House and Senate to channel the new administration into propriety and moderation. There is no sign of either yet. Trump is still trash talking the NATO Alliance, encouraging the breakup of the European Union, trying to befriend Putin, and threatening China with trade war and war in the South China Sea. Is that what you want? Have you done everything you can to stop him?
Propriety will be even tougher. I’m willing to predict now that this will be the most scandal-ridden administration in a century. Without more transparency on Trump’s taxes and businesses, suspicion will be rife, journalists will be digging deep, and prosecutors will be having a field day.
These 36 hours should be giving Republicans pause. But the campaign didn’t, so why should they wake up now?
*I originally gave an incorrect number here.
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The Chinese are awaiting opportunity
As I’m in China, a few words about how Trump is viewed from here are in order. I don’t speak Chinese, so this appraisal draws on pre-inauguration elite conversations and articles in the English-language government rag China Daily, hardly a representative sample but possibly a significant one.
While Trump thunders about protection, the Chinese are following their own leader in supporting globalization but at same time avoiding confrontation. They hear Trump loud and clear. I suspect some admire the bluntness and bravado. This they, think, is the way we’ll be able to behave when we are sitting atop the world. Great powers make the rules but also break them. Same rules as Beijing traffic: the bigger vehicle has the right of way.
In the meanwhile, China is studiously avoiding over-reaction. The biggest headline in today’s China Daily is not about the inauguration but rather the appointment of a new Chinese navy commander. He led participation in an American naval exercise in 2014 and brought his ships into San Diego for a five-day port visit.
Trump’s unpredictabilty is, the Chinese think, dangerous, not only to China. They know all too well that trade and investment are two-way streets. Tariffs on Chinese goods will slow US growth, hurt American companies with investments in China, and raise costs to American consumers. Beijing’s own priority is in any event to increase domestic Chinese consumption, not increase exports. They have been supporting their currency, not devaluing as Trump has falsely claimed.
The pre-inauguration coverage focused on interviewing American Trump enthusiasts and professors urging caution and patience, with some hoping for improved cooperation. None of this would get published if it were inconsistent with government views. But the Chinese will be quick to take advantage of any mistakes Trump makes. That’s one of their traffic rules too: stay calm until there is opening, then go for it.
But for now they are staying in lane and making American-style noises about the possibility of win/win outcomes. They don’t want to be the victims of Trump’s first mistake, or even his second. But you can be sure they’ll be ready when the time comes to profit from them. One likely opening will come when he bags the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Another could come in a military confrontation, perhaps in the South China Sea. Watch this space.
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Getting to enough
Americans elected Donald Trump president and he will be inaugurated tomorrow. I’m with John Lewis. Trump will be legal, but not legitimate.
Congressman Lewis cited Russia’s interference in the November election to justify his view. That is certainly one good reason for doubting that the Electoral College outcome reflected the will of the American people. Trump now denies the cyber hacking had an impact, but at the time he appealed for it and mentioned the leaked material frequently in support of his candidacy. Consistency is not one of the man’s few virtues.
Just as important is Trump’s behavior after the election. He first tried to deny the Russian interference, then grudgingly admitted it while maintaining his commitment to improved relations with Moscow and lifting sanctions, so long as Russia joins with the US in fighting international terrorism (or reaches an agreement to reduce nuclear weapons he said later). The Russians already claim to be doing the former (and have their own reasons to do so), so this essentially would give away the store without getting anything in return. Lifting sanctions without any Russian concessions on Ukraine would give Moscow Crimea and possibly Donbas for free,. This guy is a tough negotiator?
It now really is difficult to see an argument against viewing Trump as a Russian pasty. Despite a clear record of war crimes in Syria, aggression in Ukraine, and destabilization in the Baltics, the Balkans, Georgia and Moldova, Trump has issued not a peep of criticism of Putin and his little green men. Despite Republican sentiment in Congress, the new administration seems determined to give Putin whatever he wants while asking little or nothing in return.
I might like to think this is all due to the much-rumored Russian dossier on Trump’s personal behavior. But if it exists, it would likely have become public by now. Russian finance for Trump’s real estate deals is another possibility, but that too would likely have leaked in detail by now.
I’m afraid the explanation is all too obvious and even less salubrious: Trump likes Putin’s autocratic ethnic nationalism and thinks it is a winning ticket. Criticizing John Lewis, who is a tireless advocate of equal rights and integration, is not an aberration or a random one-off. It is consistent with Trump’s white supremacist and blatantly racist views. That is the heart of his (admittedly meager) political philosophy as well as his (declining) popular appeal.
Racism is inherently self-limiting. It is not going to appeal to those you regard as inferior. It is also inconsistent with America’s founding creed, at least as interpreted in the 21st century by our public, our courts, and our Congress. Trump does not understand “all men are created equal.” For the first time since the 1940s, we are now faced with the prospect of an executive branch that has no commitment to equality before the law. To regard such a government as illegitimate is not going too far. Trump regarded President Obama as illegitimate for more than seven years on much flimsier grounds.
The first step in denying Trump the legitimacy he so obviously craves is boycotting the inauguration. I know Michelle Obama wants to take the high road, but I was delighted to hear that scalpers are losing money on the tickets. I wish Hillary Clinton would stay away. Unfortunately America’s companies are said to have anted up record amounts, and foreign diplomats Lining up to offer toasts.
Not wise, as this new Administration is bound to suffer serious problems before spring, when the stupidity of denigrating NATO, wishing ill to the European Union, pledging to prevent China from reaching facilities it has built in the South China Sea, and abandoning Ukraine and Syria to please Russia will be all too glaring.
We are in for a rough ride. It will end the day Republicans decide they have had enough. Getting them there will require a tough and smart opposition, starting with denying legitimacy.
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Next US steps in Syria
Knowledgeable people gathered last Thursday under Chatham House rules to discuss shifting US objectives in Syria and how the new administration might pursue its ends. The explicit intent of American involvement in the conflict, most thought, should be population protection, because the greatest threat to US interests and security stems from violence against civilians and the resulting population displacement. The most likely outcome for post-conflict Syria is a fragmented and weakened state. The issue would then become how the United States could influence and stabilize the various regions.
The current Russian ceasefire is likely to prove little more than a strategic reset; a true end to the violence will not be realized. There are various strategies the United States might undertake to stop the bloodshed, including reducing the regime’s capacity for aerial bombardment and incentivizing a cessation of violence. It should be made clear that these moves aim to exact a cost on those who thwart US funded humanitarian efforts or directly harm civilians, rather than to engender regime change.
The United States needs to work with partners outside of the regime to establish a lasting ceasefire and dismantle terrorist control. It is particularly important to secure the borders of Syria, an effort in which both Turkish and Kurdish fighters need to be involved. The hostility between them derails peace efforts. One commentator called for senior US leaders to demand a ceasefire between Turkey and the Kurds as a necessary benchmark before any meaningful objectives or lines are drawn. Some participants demonstrated concern for the potential success of this strategy given a growing desire within the Pentagon to leave areas in the east under Assad’s control, and America’s general reluctance to get involved.
The conversation made it clear that the security of post-conflict Syria as a federal system of statelets depends on the “de-marbleization” of opposition groups. Separation of the groups would lead to their turning against Al-Qaeda and subsequently the stabilization of the country. International support today is not sufficient to achieve this. In addition the moderates must be linked to civil society to lead and maintain the separation. Though one speaker was averse to the moderate label, remarking that “moderates never win,” he described a need for a genuine Syrian nationalist movement. There is a lot of local discontent with extremist control. It is urgent to consolidate and support this resentment before it is supplanted with anti-Western rhetoric. The US government must determine which areas to support, and whether or not it is willing to trade off regions of control.
The United States is not alone. Turkey has actively worked to demarbleize opposition groups, and the upcoming peace talks in Astana are an example of its efforts. The Turkish government has reached out to local civil society and non-militant groups to attend these talks in addition to opposition political leaders, though no one expressed confidence in the potential of success of these efforts.
Turkey’s intentions are questionable. The growing power of Erdogan and his willingness to make territorial concessions to the Assad regime are worrisome to US interests and values. Successful implementation of US strategy in Syria requires long term commitment as well as clear limits on the expenditure of US blood and treasure. While the US must wholeheartedly commit to the effort, it cannot do so alone, nor can it dictate the outcome.
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