Tag: ISIS
Inappropriate happy talk for Syria
Donald Trump, at a loss for something to say as Aleppo fell to Syrian government, Iranian and Russian forces, renewed his call yesterday for safe zones in Syria:
We’re going to try and patch that up and we’re going to try and help people…We’re going to build safe zones…We’re going to get the Gulf States to pay for the safe zones.
What’s wrong with that?
Building a safe zone is not like building a Trump condo. What it requires is US willingness to protect the people concentrated in a particular area. We did this successfully in northern Iraq for many years, with the US patrolling the skies and Kurdish forces keeping Saddam Hussein’s army at bay. It was tried unsuccessfully in Bosnia, because no one was willing to to put their own forces in harm’s way. The result was a slippery slope to on-the-ground intervention.
I might have liked to see “safe zones” once upon a time in Syria, or at least US willingness to destroy the aircraft that attack civilians, including in Aleppo. But the deployment of Russian air forces and defenses more than a year ago precludes the kind of patrolling required for safe zones in western Syria and makes attacks on Syrian aircraft problematic. There are two problems:
- The risk to US aircraft enforcing a safe zone;
- The risk that US bombing of miscreants might kill Russians.
“So what?” some will say with regard to 2, but I think it fair to say that most of America doesn’t think Syria is a good reason for the US to go to war with Russia. Certainly Trump wouldn’t, as he is planning to ally with Russia against terrorists.
As for the Gulf States paying for safe zones, I suppose they might in principle be prepared to contribute, if only to protect fellow Sunnis (and keep them from seeking asylum in the Gulf). This is not the wall the Mexicans aren’t going to pay for, but the Gulf States don’t have the deep pockets they once had either. Trump may get more out of them than Obama has, but it won’t be much.
Trump’s bombast about safe zones is far from today’s reality and his own priorities. If he wants to make common cause with Russia, he is going to have to cut off aid to the relatively moderate Syrian opposition fighters the CIA has been cultivating for years. Assad would then be able to end resistance to his rule in the remaining parts of western Syria (especially Idlib), as well as in the south. The Turks would continue to control both the northern border of Syria and some its territory west of the Euphrates, where there is already a kind of informal no-fly zone.
The big question mark remains Raqqa in the east, where the Islamic State still holds court. There the Americans need to decide if Turkey and allied Arabs, currently investing Al Bab farther west, will be permitted to do the honors, or if the Defense Department-backed Kurds and allied Arabs will get the prize.
An American-sponsored safe zone in eastern Syria, first at Raqqa and later at Deir Azour, is possible. The Russians haven’t deployed air defenses there. Neither they nor the Syrians fly there often even now. But do the Americans really want to create and protect a kind of Sunnistan in eastern Syria where at least some people would want to think about combining their territory with contiguous Anbar and part of Ninewa in Iraq? We could end up destroying the Syria/Iraq border that the Islamic State was so anxious to erase and creating a Sunni state they would find appetizing in whatever their next incarnation is to be.
There are not a lot of good options left in Syria. Happy talk from the president-elect won’t change that. And it is insulting to the Syrians who have fought so hard and been so badly disappointed.
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Peace Picks December 12-16
- US Security Assistance and Human Rights | Monday, December 12 | 10:00am – 11:30am | Brookings Institution | Click HERE to Register Understanding the linkage between U.S. security policy and human rights policy is a complex and difficult challenge, but critical to ensuring that U.S. national interests in promoting stability and peace are properly served. While protection of human rights is integrated in U.S. security policy through such mechanisms as the Leahy Law and international military education and training, large gaps exist in both policy and practice. As a new Congress convenes and the Obama administration prepares to pass the baton to a new administration, the time is ripe to examine the effectiveness of the tools at hand and how they can be strengthened.On Monday, December 12, the Project on International Order and Strategy at Brookings will host a discussion on the complex issue of understanding how U.S. assistance to foreign security forces is linked to U.S. human rights objectives, with particular attention to cases like Afghanistan, Colombia, and Mexico. Assistant Secretary of State Tom Malinowski will offer opening remarks, followed by a discussion with Brookings Senior Fellows Daniel Byman and Ted Piccone.
- The Arab Spring and the Shia-Sunni Divide | Monday, December 12 | 12:00pm | Atlantic Council | Click HERE to Register
Nearly six years after the Arab uprisings began, the dream of a pan-Islamic awakening is now more elusive than ever. The wave of unrest has deepened ethnic and religious tensions between Sunni and Shia, pushing them once again to the fore. Religious differences and how Muslims define themselves have emerged as salient characteristics within Arab society, rivalling the broader conflict between Muslims and the West as the primary challenge facing Islamic societies of the Middle East.The New Sectarianism considers the causes of the growing Sunni-Shia animosity in key countries such as Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. This renewed sectarianism is particularly corrosive in the face of generally weak states, which today characterize many countries in the region. The event will illustrate how Shia and Sunni perceive one another after the Arab uprisings, and how these perceptions have affected Arab life. Featuring Ms. Geneive Abdo, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East and Ms. Joyce Karam, the Washington Bureau Chief for Al-Hayat Newspaper. - The Tribes of Israel: Diversity, Cohesion and Conflict | Tuesday, December 13 | 2:30pm – 5:00pm | Brookings Institution | Click HERE to Register
Israel is undergoing a profound transformation, from a society with one politically and socially dominant group—secular Jews—to a society of several groups of roughly similar size. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin has gone as far as to describe four “tribes” of Israeli society and has proposed the creation of a new social compact among these groups. Others argue that Israel should resist institutionalizing identity-based politics, and should focus instead on society-wide concerns.On December 13, the Center for Middle East Policy will convene a public event to explore these social rifts and what Americans might learn from the Israeli experience about managing diverse societies and about the proper role of group identities in national politics. The event will feature two sessions titled: “Visions of Israel: Citizenship, common cause, and conflict” and “Secularism, religion, and the state.”This event is part the center’s series on “Imagining Israel’s Future,” which is designed to help Washington audiences engage with voices from today’s dynamic Israeli society.Featuring Martin S. Indyk, Exective Vice President of the Brookings Institution, Natan Sachs, Fellow for Foreign Policy at the Center for Middle East Policy, Stav Shaffir, Member of Knesset, Labor, Mohammad Darawshe, Co-Executive Director at The Center for a Shared Society at Givat Haviva, Yehudah Mirsky, Associate Professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University, Shibley Telhami, Nonresident Senior Fellow for Foreign Policy, at the Center for Middle East Policy, U.S. Relations with the Islamic World, Ksenia Svetlova, Member of Knesset, Hatunah, Rabbi Dov Lipman, Former Member of Knesset, Yesh Atid, Noah Efron, Senior Faculty Member, Department of Science, Technology & Society at Bar-Ilan University, Elana Stein Hain, Director of Leadership Education at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. - The Annual Michael Van Dusen Lecture on the Middle East: Syria, Sectarianism and ISIS, Where are we Heading? | Wednesday, December 14 | 4:00pm – 5:00pm | Woodrow Wilson Center | Click HERE to RegisterFeaturing Joshua Landis, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma’s College of International Studies and Henri Barkley, Director, Middle East Program at the Wilson Center.
- Polling Middle Eastern Views: Current Conditions and the Road Ahead | Thursday, December 15 | 11:00am – 12:30pm | Middle East Institute | Click HERE to RegisterThe Middle East Institute (MEI) and the Arab-American Institute (AAI) are pleased to host James Zogby (AAI and Zogby Research Services) for the presentation of fresh polling results from across six Arab countries, Iran, and Turkey. With the public release of the report Middle East 2016: Current Conditions and the Road Ahead, Dr. Zogby will examine views about the war in Syria, the roles of the United States, Russia, and Iran in the region, and causes of extremism, violence, and instability.Commentators Steven Cook (Council on Foreign Relations), Ellen Laipson (Stimson Center), and Hassan Mneimneh (MEI) will provide their analysis of the poll’s findings in a discussion with Dr. Zogby moderated by Gerald Feierstein (MEI).The poll and resulting report were commissioned by the Sir Bani Yas Forum, convened annually in the United Arab Emirates on the initiative of H.H. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the U.A.E. Foreign Minister. The findings are being made available for use by the public; print copies of the report will be available.
- Long Game or Gamble? Middle East Policy from Obama to Trump | Friday, December 16 | 10:00am – 11:15am | Bipartisan Policy Center | Click HERE to Register The Middle East continues to challenge U.S. policymakers. From the rise of ISIS, to the spread of ethnosectarian violence, to dealing with Iran, the region played an outsize role in President Obama’s foreign policy and is one of the top concerns for President-elect Trump. Two recent books, the first by an outspoken critic of Obama’s foreign policy, the second by one of its most articulate defenders, examine how presidents have defined and pursued U.S. interests in the Middle East.Michael Doran’s (Former Senior Director in the National Security Council and Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute) Ike’s Gamble retells the story of President Eisenhower’s handling of the Suez Crisis in 1956, suggesting that many of the same pitfalls encountered then still plague policymakers today. And in The Long Game, Derek Chollet (Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs
Counselor and Senior Adviser for Security and Defense Policy, German Marshall Fund) describes how President Obama – seeking to model himself on Eisenhower – transformed U.S. foreign policy to overcome the obstacles of the Middle East.Please join us for a debate between Chollet and Doran about the lessons learned from Eisenhower and Obama about U.S. Middle East policy and how President-elect Trump might apply those lessons.
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Jihad and the next administration
USIP’s discussion today of “Getting Ahead of the Curve: the evolving threat of violent extremism” was a study in contrasts. The first panel, of experts who contributed to The Jihadi Threat: ISIS, Al Qaeda and Beyond was devoted to hard-nosed analysis. The second, which discussed both CSIS’ Turning Point and Communities First: A Blueprint for Organizing and Sustaining a Global Movement Against Violent Extremism, was devoted to right-minded but airier policy propositions, at least until I left about 45 minutes before it ended.
The analysis panel, ably chaired by Robin Wright of USIP and the Woodrow Wilson Center, offered a gloomy picture: each generation of jihadis is larger than the last, mobilizes faster, draws on more diversified sources of foreign fighters, gets more extreme, and spreads to more locations and causes.
That said, Brookings’ Will McCants noted that ISIS has lost perhaps half its territory as well as 50,000 killed, Raqqa and Mosul are under attack, and its finances are under pressure. It won’t disappear but will return, as it did during the near-defeat in Iraq in 2008/10, to terrorist tactics and prison breaks. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies concurred that the ISIS star has fallen, because of its brutal tactics and readiness to make enemies of too many people. But Al Qaeda is reviving and spreading, especially in Syria, Yemen, Libya, Mali and Somalia. It is even controlling territory, it financing has become more open, and it is embedding Al Qaeda Central cadres, like the Khorasan Group, with its franchisees.
The franchises are increasingly important, Carnegie Endowment’s Fred Wehrey concurred. Al Qaeda has been more successful than ISIS in establishing durable franchises, partly because it focuses on “Dawa” (proselytizing), is relatively “moderate” in behavior towards the local population, and integrates more effectively with local forces. Egypt is particularly fertile ground, as is Yemen.
Hassan Hassan of the Tahrir Institue for Middle East Policy underlined that jihadism is not going away any time soon. Its narrative and appeal are increasingly entrenched. Al Qaeda and ISIS share the objective of creating a caliphate, but Al Qaeda is the more dangerous as it often works quietly and is more successful at “marbling” (interweaving) local and global strategies.
McCants views state failure as fuel for the protean diversified jihadist resurgence we are witnessing. The diversification and rapidly shifting organizational landscape are big problems, as they make prioritization difficult. Gartenstein-Ross believes the Middle East states will continue to weaken, as they face dramatic challenges like lack of water and parlous finances. Internet penetration in the region is still low, so jihadi mobilization is likely to become more effective and quicker as it expands. Social media are particularly adapted to boost secret identities across boundary lines. Hassan concurred, noting that ISIS in defeat will retreat into the desert, as it did in Iraq in 2008, leaving sleeper cells who will kill its enemies in newly liberated areas. Sunni disenfranchisement, alienation, and lack of leadership make ISIS a viable political option.
Wehrey concluded the first panel by underlining that terrorism is a political strategy and requires in part a political response. Jihadism is not really about religion but about the need for reform. Governance issues are central, vastly compounded by population displacement and Western intervention.
The second panel chaired by USIP’s Georgia Holmer focused, far less decisively, on non-military responses to jihadism.
The National Security Council’s Amy Pope underlined that countering violent extremism (CVE) is now established as an important part of the response to terrorism focused on its root causes in particular communities. She and State Department Under Secretary Sarah Sewall were confident that this community-focused approach, based on civil society and holistic investments, is the right one. We need to be able to tell this story across the security and human rights communities.
Shannon Green of CSIS cited the “measured security response” advocated in Turning Point, noting that anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment reinforces extremism. So too have some of America’s traditional partners in the Gulf, who have financed extremists. We need to be able to levy punitive sanctions in response, undertake a global educational partnership to ensure that extremism has no place in curricula, and review assistance to oppressive governments. She also thought an assistant to the president for CVE would help the cause.
The Prevention Project’s Eric Rosand emphasized community-level engagement that recognizes communities have many problems other than violent extremism and offers them incentives to engage locally in CVE. Law enforcement should have a limited, not a dominant, role.
Asked about what they would advise the incoming Trump Administration, Sewall emphasized the need to coordinate military and intelligence counter-terrorism with civilian CVE and the relative lack of resources for the latter (amounting to no more than .1% of the total). Pope also thought the balance out of whack. CVE needs to grow much bigger. There is lots of evidence that democracy and inclusion work and that alienation and exclusion don’t.
Asked to adduce some concrete examples of CVE that has worked, Pope cited a roundtable in The Hague, Sewall an ongoing project pilot project in East Africa and an AID project in Pakistan. Rosand noted that all too often autocrats readily take up the anti-messaging banner, as it enables them to crack down on dissident voices. That, he suggested, does not work.
My bottom line: Little in this discussion gave me any reason to believe that the incoming Trump Administration will take up the cause of CVE, which would require it to drop its anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric, agree to support reformist and more democratic states rather than autocratic ones, invest in aid that is difficult to distinguish from conventional development assistance, accept evidence-based indications of effectiveness, and increase funding for civilian rather than military efforts. #fatchance
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The Aleppo defeat
You can always tell when a cause is lost: the UN General Assembly passes a resolution to stop the bombing, allow in aid, and protect civilians. This was the clear signal this week that Syrian opposition forces in Aleppo are on the verge of defeat at the hands of multinational Shia militias as well as Iranian, Russian and Syrian government forces. Russian efforts to arrange a ceasefire for evacuation of civilians have failed, so far. Fighting age men are reportedly disappearing, likely some of them into prisons from which they will never emerge.
Assad is crowing. For good reason: victory in Aleppo will allow him to concentrate his forces against Idlib, which is the last remaining bit of what he has termed “useful Syria” that he doesn’t control. It runs from Damascus north to Aleppo and west to Lebanon and the Mediterranean. If he doesn’t already, Assad will soon control about one-third of the country’s territory and tw0-thirds of its population.
But the war will still not be over. The opposition will have some territory in the south along the Jordanian border and some in the north (west of the Euphrates), while the Kurds will control the rest of the border with Turkey and the Islamic State will control Raqqa and much of the relatively unpopulated east. The defeat at Aleppo and the impending defeat at Idlib will drive more opposition fighters into the arms of extremist jihadis, strengthening both Jabhat al Sham (the erstwhile Al Qaeda affiliate) and the Islamic State.
Assad now seems likely to survive, if only because the Americans will continue to pursue Jabhat al Sham and the Islamic State, which now represent by far the largest threat to his hold on power. This will make life easy for Trump. In order to ally with Russia as he says he wants to do, he’ll need only to cut American assistance to those few non-jihadi opposition who are still fighting Assad and provide support only to those willing to join the campaign against the Islamic State at Raqqa.
How Trump and National Security Adviser Flynn will square this de facto alignment with Iran I don’t know, but who’s watching? Like George W. Bush before him, Trump is likely to open still another door to Iranian power projection to the west.
Assad’s survival is not however the end of the story. Syria is a shambles. It needs hundreds of billions in aid. The Americans have already provided billions, but that has been overwhelmingly humanitarian assistance, much of which went to regime-controlled areas. I doubt however that the Americans will be interested in providing reconstruction assistance to the Assad regime. Even for a Trump administration, that might be a bit much, and in any event Congress likely wouldn’t go along.
The Europeans will be under a lot pressure to provide aid, since Assad will provide them with some minimal reason to hope that refugees will return if the Syrian economy revives. That however will be a false promise, as he doesn’t want them to return and restart the rebellion against him. He prefers to provide homes and livelihoods to non-Syrians, mainly Shia, who have fought on his behalf.
The people who should ante up are the Russians and Iranians, who have caused much of the damage and are coming out on the winning side. That entails obligations that the Washington and Brussels recognize, but Moscow and Tehran don’t. They aren’t likely to do more than minimal assistance calculated to help Assad regain and maintain control over strategically important turf.
Without a significant influx of resources, Syria will remain a fragmented basket case for many years to come. Even after Raqqa and Deir Azzour fall (precisely to whom is not yet clear), Islamist insurgency is likely to continue. Turkey and its Arab and Turkmen allies will control part of the north, with the Syrian Kurdish PYD controlling the rest. A bit of the south will remain in opposition control.
The Aleppo defeat may be the beginning of the end, but it is not yet the end.
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I’m disappointed
In his valedictory address on counterterrorism yesterday at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, President Obama waxed poetic about diplomacy, development and the contributions civilians can make to US national security:
…alongside our outstanding military work, we have to draw upon the strength of our diplomacy. Terrorists would love to see us walk away from the type of work that builds international coalitions, and ends conflicts, and stops the spread of deadly weapons. It would make life easier for them; it would be a tragic mistake for us.
Just think about what we’ve done these last eight years without firing a shot. We’ve rolled back Iran’s nuclear program. That’s not just my assessment, that’s the assessment of Israeli intelligence, even though they were opposed to the deal. We’ve secured nuclear materials around the globe, reducing the risk that they fall into the hands of terrorists. We’ve eliminated Syria’s declared chemical weapons program. All of these steps have helped keep us safe and helped keep our troops safe. Those are the result of diplomacy. And sustained diplomatic efforts, no matter how frustrating or difficult they sometimes appear, are going to be required to resolve the conflicts roiling the in Middle East, from Yemen, to Syria, to Israel and Palestine. And if we don’t have strong efforts there, the more you will be called upon to clean up after the failure of diplomacy.
Similarly, any long-term strategy to reduce the threat of terrorism depends on investments that strengthen some of these fragile societies. Our generals, our commanders understand this. This is not charity. It’s fundamental to our national security. A dollar spent on development is worth a lot more than a dollar spent fighting a war. (Applause.)
This is how we prevent conflicts from starting in the first place. This is how we can ensure that peace is lasting — after we’ve fought. It’s how we stop people from falling prey to extremism — because children are going to school and they can think for themselves, and families can feed themselves and aren’t desperate, and communities are not ravaged by diseases, and countries are not devastated by climate changes.
As Americans, we have to see the value of empowering civil societies so that there are outlets for people’s frustrations, and we have to support entrepreneurs who want to build businesses instead of destroying. We have to invest in young people because the areas that are generating terrorists are typically having a huge youth bulge, which makes them more dangerous. And there are times where we need to help refugees who have escaped the horrors of war in search of a better life. Our military recognizes that these issues of governance and human dignity and development are vital to our security. It’s central to our plans in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. Let’s make sure that this wisdom is reflected in our budgets, as well.
So, how well has this eloquent, and eminently logical, president done in ensuring his wisdom is reflected in his budgets?
Okay, but not great, would be my answer.
The ratio of Defense to International Affairs outlays has declined only marginally since the George W. Bush era, when Defense outlays were generally between 14 and 16 times the level of International Affairs expenditures, inflated in large part by the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Declines in this ratio have been pretty steady since FY 2009.
By FY 2015, it was down to 11.4 and projected in FY 2016 to decline to under 11. This has been achieved by a big bump up in International Affairs outlays in FY 2009, followed by years of declines in Defense outlays, largely due to sequestration. Here is the raw data, which I got here. I’m not vouching for the ratios, because I calculated them myself, but I think they are mostly correct.
The real increase (in 2009 dollars) of International Affairs outlays is thus modest: maybe 10/12% over the eight years of the Obama administration. More disturbing is this: I don’t know many people who would argue that American civilian capabilities to do the things the President cites are much greater than they were when he took office. A lot of the increase has been chewed up in increased security expenditures for State and USAID , whose officers find it difficult to leave our fortress embassies, often located in the middle of nowhere. Another slice has gone to increased staff, to the point that all Foreign Service officers I talk with complain about the excessive numbers of people they now need to clear every lousy bit of press guidance with.
President-elect Trump seems determined to make things worse, perhaps much worse. He has promised a big military buildup and a ferocious attack on the Islamic State while pooh-poohing what he terms nation building, refusing to receive most intelligence briefings, and neglecting to consult with the State Department on his initial diplomatic moves. Expect a real slash and burn attitude in Foggy Bottom and at the Reagan building when the time comes.
President Obama deserves credit for some signal diplomatic achievements: the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate change agreement are the two most often cited, including by the President himself. Neither of those however really serves the counterterrorism objective that was the subject of this speech. It is building inclusive states more than anything else that helps counter terrorism. Obama has been allergic to that objective, not only in Syria and Libya but also in Yemen. Only in Iraq has he deigned to weigh in, when he supported the more ecumenical Haidar al Abadi to replace the hopelessly sectarian Nouri al Maliki as prime minister.
So Obama, who many hoped would be a transformational president when it comes to foreign policy, is more likely to represent not much more than a blip in an inexorable trend: putting America’s troops in the front line rather than its diplomats and aid workers. I’m disappointed.
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These are not moderates
Pizzagate is the misnomer we are using today to refer to entirely false reports of a pedophilic child-smuggling ring operating out of the back of Comet pizza, whose ping-pong tables attract a lot of youngsters and their families. I can personally testify that the pizza there is particularly good, if you like the “flat-bread” variety. Yesterday a North Carolinian with an assault rifle and another firearm decided to “self-investigate” the nonsense reports, which have been spread in part by recently designated National Security Adviser Flynn and his at least equally lame-brained son. The gunman appears to have shot once or twice but did not injure anyone.
This was clearly a dangerous situation that the DC police handled well and quickly. Props to them. But it bodes ill. We are used to recognizing attacks as ISIS-inspired. What we are facing now are attacks inspired by America’s very own conspiracy theorists, fake news inventors, and gun-toting defenders of virtue. This is the beginning of an alt_right rebellion against people of moderation.
The incoming Trump administration has taken the lid off the pot in which these characters normally find themselves contained. The Flynns are an extreme case, but Trump’s projected cabinet is full of other, marginally less demented, instances of delusion. Ben Carson, named today as Housing and Human Development Secretary, believes the theory of evolution is the work of the devil. Betsy DeVos, future Education Secretary, is a strong advocate of charter schools, despite their poor performance in her home state of Michigan. Steven Mnuchin, soon to be Treasury Secretary, has distinguished himself as a bottom feeding businessman with no apparent concern for the public welfare. He prepared Trump’s campaign tax proposal to sharply lower tax rates on the highest earners, though he now denies that will happen. Prospective Attorney General Jeff Sessions is a segregationist turned mere racist.
This cabinet is somehow being portrayed as relatively moderate, presumably compared to Trump’s campaign and his closest “strategic” adviser Steve Bannon. I suppose it is, but that’s only because Bannon is a true dyed-in-the-wool anti-Semite, misogynist, racist and conspiracy theorist. None of the cabinet appointees comes down even close to that low standard, but they are mostly just a step above. The early appointment of Nikki Haley as UN ambassador serves as a convenient fig leaf, one that will does little to hide the ugly truth. The only serious moderating influence likely so far will come from Defense Secretary-designate Mattis, who however has pretty extreme views on Iran and its relationship to ISIS.
The latest news is that Exxon CEO Tillerson as Secretary of State. From Trump’s perspective, he has the great virtue of a good relationship with Russian President Putin, whom Trump intends to befriend by surrendering US support for the Syrian rebels and for re-integration of Crimea and Donbas into Ukraine.
In short, we are looking at a White House and cabinet drawn from the margins of American politics, not its moderate center. President-elect Trump feels he owes his election to “out of the box” views, which he is prepared to pursue in office. Neither he nor his appointees will moderate until forced to do so by strong resistance. It is going to be a difficult four years.
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