Tag: ISIS
Defeated, yet still a threat
June 5 the Middle East Institute hosted Ambassador James Jeffery, Special Envoy for the Coalition to Defeat ISIS and Special Representative for Syria Engagement, Edmund Fitton-Brown, coordinator for the United Nations Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team on ISIS, Al-Qaeda & Taliban, and Jessica Lambert-Gray, First Secretary for Counter-Terrorism and Extremism at the British Embassy for a conversation on countering terrorism in the Middle East. Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, moderated the panel.
Jeffery qualified the declaration of the Islamic State (ISIS)’s defeat. Although it should be lauded and the US-led coalition of over 80 countries praised for their efforts, the United States and other international forces ought to remain wary of ISIS affiliates and pockets of resistance in Syria and Iraq. The US will need to continue to arm and train Iraqi soldiers to fight ISIS resistance. The US will also continue to support the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), despite the recent withdrawal of close to 95% of US ground support in Syria. A small force of American troops and strategic personnel will remain to stabilize and secure the SDF-controlled areas along the Euphrates.
Jeffery touched on how broader political issues in the Middle East catalyzed the formation of ISIS. He pointed specifically to how the Assad regime, backed by Iran, lashed out against peaceful protesters in Syria in 2011, fomenting the unrest needed to strengthen ISIS.
Lambert-Gray echoed Jeffery’s statements, positing that while the caliphate is gone, the threat is not. Her analysis portends the rise of “Daesh (ISIS) 2.0” and “Al-Qaeda 3.0” if international forces do not maintain pressure on these groups in Iraq and Syria. She fears that both groups may be able to expand, evolve, and rise again.
Lambert-Gray notes that ISIS’s most concerning weapon is its ability to inspire extremism and terrorist attacks globally. The production of online propaganda has become key to the survival of ISIS during its current “hibernation.” Regarding the Al-Qaeda, Lambert-Gray argues that the threat had never actually subsided. Its Iran-based leadership is becoming increasingly powerful, but she declined to provide any further details, stating that her team is still researching the issue.
In an effort to reduce risks, the UK has banned travel to Syria and provides no diplomatic support to citizens who elect to travel without authorization. The UK is also trying to diminish the online presence of ISIS. Countering Daesh can only be achieved with strategic patience and by an unrelenting drain of their resources.
Fitton-Brown complemented Lambert-Gray’s comments, noting that the “Islamic State’s covert network is forming now in Syria as it did in Iraq in 2017.” He also fears that ISIS will be able to further spread its network through the ongoing refugee crisis at the border of Turkey. In Iraq the government is having trouble containing and trying detained IS fighters. With the prospect of extremism re-emerging in the Levant and possibly spreading into Turkey, Fitton-Brown identifies building inclusive governments for Sunni citizens as the key challenge for Iraq and Syria. Detaining, trying, and eventually releasing foreign ISIS fighters in Iraq and the possibility for further radicalization present additional challenges.
The key message from the panel is that extremism in the Levant still poses a serious threat , with the potential to generate unrest globally. Mitigation of extremist activity has seen modest success, but continued pressure is essential to ensure that groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda do not recover. Among the most dangerous and far-reaching tools that extremist groups can employ are online propaganda and recruiting campaigns.
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What next for the US in Syria
I spoke today at SETA with Charles Lister, Bassam Barabandi, Geoffrey Aronson, and Kadir Ustun on Syria. Here are the talking notes I prepared. I started at number 13 and didn’t use them all. The video of the event is below:
- I find it difficult to know what to say about Syria.
- I could of course just repeat what many others have rightly said: the war is not over, Assad has not won because the country is in ruins and he lacks the means to fix it, it is all tragic and more tragedy impends because the underlying drivers of conflict have not been resolved.
- I could even go further and say that President Trump’s decision to withdraw was foolish, the US must stay in Syria, because otherwise we will have no say in its future, and that those who are trying to at least partially reverse that decision are correct.
- But I really don’t believe much of that: the policy implications for the US merit deeper examination.
- Assad has defeated any chance for a transition to democracy in Damascus: who in Syria would trust others to govern them today? Assad is demographically engineering the part of the country he controls to ensure regime security and has for most practical purposes won.
- He will keep most of the refugees out of regime-controlled Syria because he knows full well he cannot allow them back. He lacks the resources for reconstruction and fears they will threaten his hold on power.
- The Americans are not going to have much say over what happens in Syria, partly because they don’t want to. Neither President Obama nor President Trump thinks Syria is worth a candle.
- They cared about ISIS and Iran, not Syria.
- It is the Astana three that will determine Syria’s fate.
- Iran is there to stay because they have to. They think propping up Assad responds to threats from Israel and from Sunni extremists. Only regular bombing will limit Iranian power projection into the Levant. The Americans should prefer that the Israelis do it.
- The Russians are there to stay because they want to. Syria has given them not only an important naval base and now an air base, but also a toehold in Middle East geopolitics. At the very least, they can now cause trouble for the Americans in most of the region.
- The Turks are there to stay because they want to chase the PKK/PYD away from their borders and enable at least some of the refugees they host to return to Syria.
- The Syria Study Group in its interim report suggested that the Americans stay in northeastern Syria and do what is needed to enable civilians to stabilize it.
- But before a decision like that can be made, the Americans need to ask themselves what it would take. The Study Group put the cart before the horse.
- The six American civilians working there on contracting for rubble removal and a few other basic necessities like demining, water and electricity before being withdrawn by the Trump Administration were nowhere near what is required for a serious stabilization operation.
- That’s what you need if you ISIS is to be prevented from returning: governance and justice decent enough to be preferable to the caliphate.
- Experience, as Frances Z. Brown suggested in Monkey Cage last week, demonstrates that much more will be needed.
- How much more?
- Jim Dobbins is the best guide I know on this subject. For a “heavy peace enforcement” operation in a territory with, let us assume, 2.5 million people, which is my guess at how many are in northeastern Syria (and at least that many in Idlib), Jim suggests a force of more then 35,000 internationals and 13,000 locals costing almost 8 billion dollars per year.
- On top of that, you’ll need dozens if not hundreds of civilians supervising and guiding the disposition of stabilization funding.
- Sure, you can skimp or trade off locals for internationals, but not without consequences. I’ve heard little about Raqqa that suggests reconstruction there is going well there.
- The Turkish reconstruction efforts in the Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch territories, which are said to be “comprehensive” in SETA’s recent description of them, suggest Dobbins’ numbers are not far off.
- The simple conclusion is that nowhere near the required resources are likely to be available for a serious American stabilization effort in northeastern Syria.
- What about the Turks? They want a buffer zone of 30 km or so inside Syria. Could they be relied upon to do the necessary stabilization and reconstruction all across their southern border?
- The answer is likely yes, but not without consequences.
- Upwards of 600,000 Kurds live in northeastern Syria. A significant percentage of them would likely flee, as many did from Afrin during and after Olive Branch, and the PKK fighters so vital to the effort against ISIS would be forced back into the arms of the Syrian regime, which would no doubt expect them to do what they were created to do: attack Turkey.
- US troops remaining in northeastern Syria while the Turks repress the Kurds they think support the PKK and the Syrian regime supports the same Kurds to attack Turkey is not my idea of a place I would want US troops to be.
- What about Idlib? It looks to me as if Assad is determined to retake it, with massive consequences: millions might seek to leave. There is no real ceasefire.
- Maybe these two dire scenarios lead to a standoff? The regime might hold off in Idlib fearing that Ankara would use the occasion to go into northeastern Syria? Maybe Ankara will hold off in northeastern Syria for fear Damascus will go after Idlib in a serious way?
- Might it be possible to deploy Arab peacekeepers to both areas? Now I’m in fantasyland.
- Whatever happens, I don’t think the US presence in Syria, even if doubled or quadrupled, is adequate to the task of enabling stabilization of the territory the SDF now controls, especially as ISIS reconstitutes and the Iranians decide to test our mettle.
- We can’t get out for fear of the consequences. And we don’t want to put enough effort in to make a real difference in repressing ISIS and repelling Iranian-backed proxies. That’s not a good place for America to be.
- My recommendation would be just this: go big and fix Syria or get out and let the chips fall where they may. But neither is likely to happen.
- That will reduce us to putting US troops at risk for the sake of a possible future role in some imagined UN-sponsored peace negotiation. I argued in favor of that 18 months ago. Today it is hard to justify.
- It is fitting that Hulu has revived Catch-22 at this fraught moment.
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Peace Picks April 29-May 3
1. Withdrawal or Realignment? The Future of U.S. Middle East Policy After 2020| Monday, April 29, 2019| 11:45-1:30| Hudson Institute|1201 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Suite 400 Washington, DC 20004| Register Here|
Hudson Institute will host a discussion on the future of U.S. policy in the Middle East. Panelists will include Hudson Senior Fellow Michael Pregent; Daily Beast columnist and author Gordon Chang; the Washington Institute’s Anna Borshchevskaya; and Hudson Fellow Blaise Misztal. Al Arabiya’s Nadia Bilbassy-Charters will moderate the discussion.
Iran, Russia, China, and others are closely monitoring U.S. policy in the Middle East ahead of the 2020 U.S. presidential election. As 2020 candidates’ foreign policy platforms come into focus, this election outcome could have significant ramifications across established policies impacting regional fault lines, such as the polarizing Iran Deal. Additionally, recent efforts by the Trump administration to decrease the U.S. presence in Syria and Iraq have raised questions among allies about America’s long-term ambitions for the Middle East, while adversaries eye the moves as an opportunity to fill potential power vacuums left in the region.
Speakers
Nadia Bilbassy-Charters Moderator, Bureau Chief, Washington D.C., Al Arabiya
Gordon G. Chang, Author, Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes on the World; and a columnist at The Daily Beast
Blaise Misztal, Fellow, Hudson Institute
Mike Pregent, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
Anna Borshchevskaya, Senior Fellow, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
2. Trump’s Iran escalation| Monday, April 29, 2019| 12:00-1:15| Carnegie Endowment for International Peace|1779 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, DC 20036-2103| Register Here|
One year after exiting the Iran nuclear deal, the Trump administration officially designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization and is seeking to strangle Iranian oil exports. What is the likely outcome of the Trump administration’s escalating pressure campaign against Iran? How will Tehran react, and what lessons can be drawn from the last four decades of U.S.-Iran history?
SPEAKERS
GENERAL DAVID PETRAEUS, former director of the CIA and is currently the chairman of the KKR Global Institute.
WILLIAM J. BURNS, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal.
SUZANNE MALONEY, senior fellow at the Brookings Center for Middle East Policy and Energy Security and Climate Initiative.
MODERATOR, KARIM SADJADPOUR, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
3. After the caliphate: A global approach to defeating ISIS| Tuesday, April 30, 2019| 2:00-3:30| Brooking Institute|1775 Massachusetts Avenue N.W. Washington, DC 20036| Register Here|
The Islamic State took the world by surprise in 2014 when it conquered much of Iraq and Syria and declared a caliphate there. Today, the so-called caliphate is no more. Nevertheless, the Islamic State has branches and affiliates in many countries, a large underground presence in Iraq and Syria, and numerous sympathizers around the world. The future of the group, and of the broader movement it claims to champion, are uncertain, and U.S. policy must ensure that it continues to retreat.
On April 30, the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings will host a discussion on this topic. Nathan Sales, ambassador-at-large and coordinator for counterterrorism at the U.S. Department of State, will offer a keynote address after which Brookings Senior Fellow Daniel Byman will moderate a discussion with Ambassador Sales. Following the conversation, the speakers will take questions from the audience.
AGENDA
Introduction
Bruce Jones, Vice President and Director – Foreign Policy Senior Fellow
KEYNOTE
Nathan A. Sales, Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator for Counterterrorism – U.S. Department of State
MODERATOR
Daniel L. Byman, Senior Fellow – Foreign Policy, Center for Middle East Policy
DISCUSSANT
Nathan A. Sales, Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator for Counterterrorism – U.S. Department of State
4. Pursuing Effective and Conflict-Aware Stabilization | Tuesday, April 30, 2019| 3:30-5:00| Center for Strategic and International Studies|1616 Rhode Island Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20036| Register Here|
Please join the CSIS International Security Program and Project on Prosperity and Development for a discussion on pursuing effective and conflict-aware stabilization in light of the new Stabilization Assistance Review framework, released by the U.S. administration in June 2018.
Agenda
3:30 PM – 4:00 PM: Keynote
Dr. Denise Natali, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, U.S. Department of State
Moderator: Erol Yayboke, Deputy Director and Senior Fellow, Project on Prosperity and Development, Project on U.S. Leadership in Development, Center for Strategic and International Studies
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM: Panel Discussion
Ambassador Barbara Bodine, Director and Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University
Frances Brown, Fellow, Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Robert Jenkins, Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance, U.S. Agency for International Development
Moderator: Melissa Dalton, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director, International Security Program, and Director, Cooperative Defense Project, Center for Strategic and International Studies
5. The Christian right in the Trump and post-Trump eras| Wednesday, May 1, 2019| 10:30-12:00| Hudson Institute|1789 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, DC 20036| Register Here|
Donald Trump was not the first choice of many conservative Christian voters for the 2016 Republican nomination. However, they strongly backed Trump in the 2016 presidential election, and they remain among Trump’s most ardent supporters. Are conservative Christians, in backing Trump, wagering that his policies are worth the baggage? Or have their priorities fundamentally changed?
More broadly, the percentage of Republicans who attend church regularly and who identify as Christian traditionalists is dropping, and the issues that animate Trump’s GOP appear different than those of the 1990s and 2000s. At a time of growing secularization, rising religious pluralism, and identity-based political polarization, has the role of Christianity in the Republican Party fundamentally changed?
Agenda
10:15 AM
Registration
10:30 AM
Opening remarks:
Daniel A. Cox, AEI
10:45 AM
Panel Discussion
Panelists
David Barker, Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies; American University
Emily Ekins, Cato Institute
Emma Green, The Atlantic
Joanna Piacenza, Morning Consult
Moderator:
Daniel A. Cox, AEI
11:45 AM
Q&A
12:00 PM
Adjournment
6. Instability and Opportunity in North Africa| Wednesday, May 1, 2019| 2:00-3:30| United States Institute of Peace|2301 Constitution Ave NW, Washington, DC 20037| Register Here|
Since 2011, popular protests have forced four of the five governments in North Africa out of power. As these long-standing regimes fall, the resulting political vacuums are creating security challenges that could undermine internal efforts to promote reform. Weak or non-existent government institutions are being exploited by terrorists, human traffickers, and criminals—threatening the stability of immediate neighbors while having a direct impact on Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and U.S. national security interests. Yet, all this upheaval may also present an opportunity to advance deep, regional security cooperation that has been historically unattainable.
Across North Africa, instability is at its highest level since 2011. In Algeria, President Bouteflika’s resignation was a necessary step to democratization, but it remains to be seen if the political structure can survive protesters’ demands for reform and ensure a peaceful transition of power. In Libya, the hope for a compromise to end the stalemate between the internationally recognized government in Tripoli and armed opposition forces seems to be lost. In Egypt, President el-Sisi’s supporters have proposed constitutional changes that will concentrate executive power, alarming human rights and democracy advocates around the world. And amid all this turmoil, Tunisia is trying to consolidate its own democracy and reform its security institutions following decades of autocratic rule.
Speakers
Abdelkrim Zbidi, Minister of Defense, Republic of Tunisia
Thomas Hill, Senior Program Officer, North Africa, U.S. Institute of Peace
Michael Yaffe, Vice President, Middle East and Africa, U.S. Institute of Peace
7. A new Palestinian Government: Is reconciliation possible| Friday, May 3, 2019| 12:30-2:00| Middle East Institute|1319 18th St NW District of Columbia, Washington 20036| Register Here|
The Middle East Institute (MEI) is pleased to host a panel discussion to examine the implications of the Palestinian Authority’s recent power shift. On April 14, Mohammed Shtayyeh took office as Prime Minister, a position held by Rami Hamdallah since 2014. Shtayyeh’s appointment comes during a turbulent time in Palestine, amid protests over a new social security law and escalating confrontation with Israeli occupying forces. Unlike his politically-independent predecessor, Shtayyeh is affiliated with Fatah, President Mahmoud Abbas’s party, and Hamas has announced that it will not recognize his authority, saying he was appointed without national consensus.
How might this change in leadership affect Palestine’s political environment? Will Shtayyeh further sideline Hamas in negotiations with the Israeli government? What prospects are there to promote human rights and the rule of law amid heightening tensions between Palestine and Israel?
Speakers
Tamara Kharroub, Assistant executive director and senior Middle East fellow, Arab Center DC
Grace Wermenbol, Non-resident scholar, MEI
Ambassador Gerald Feierstein, moderator, Senior vice president, MEI
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Empowered decentralization
The Brookings Institution held a panel discussion March 12 about a city-based strategy for rebuilding Libya, with Jeffrey Feltman, Fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution, Alice Hunt Friend, Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Frederic Wehrey, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Karim Mezran, Senior Fellow at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East and Federica Saini Fasanotti, Senior Fellow in the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence. The report outlining the city-based strategy is “Empowered decentralization: A city-based strategy for rebuilding Libya.”
The report recommends focusing the country’s economic, political and security activity on its major cities, with the return of US permanent presence in Libya.
Wehrey asserted that General Khalifa Haftar has gained ground in Libya, extending his control over oil and water sources. In addition, on territory and population still out of his control some armed groups and political actors have declared themselves with him, while other militias are still negotiating. Haftar also provides cash and protection for some towns and municipalities in the south, but clashes among different armed groups still flare up and militias still hold sway in some places. Haftar’s meeting at the end of February in Abu Dhabi with Fayez Al Sarraj (chair of the officially recognized Presidential Council) was an important step forward, but ordinary Libyans are upset with the UAE’s role in deciding their country’s future. Reconciliation among elites is important, but so too is grassroots involvement in the political process.
Mezran emphasized that the main goal of the Libyan revolution is to ensure dignity, freedom, human rights, and a pluralist political system. In most cities, local authorities have handled the security situation. The UN has to understand local dynamics and help to strengthen their work. This work at the local level needs to be inserted in a national framework to create a decentralized state, not establishing merely a state of cities and villages. Just as Libya was supported by the US and the UN to get independence, international guidance is still very much needed today. The US can play a key role in settling the conflict.
Feltman made clear that any agreement among the Libyan elite needs to have grassroots support. The Abu Dhabi meeting was a promising start for a top-down agreement. Long-standing political proposals such as reform of the presidency council, unification of the institutions, setting up a new government, and holding elections were on the table. Polls show that the Libyan people expect to choose their own leaders through elections, but Feltman cautions that elections alone do not create a democracy.
Fassanotti spoke about the tribal and ethnic differences that are still present in Libya. Most of the people reside in big cities, but people in the desert have not changed and desert culture is still influential and widespread. The idea of federalism can be a solution for a democratic Libya in the future. The type of federalism Fassanotti contemplates for Libya is similar to that of Germany and Switzerland, with a strong center able to govern the state. For the time being, a city-based model might be more viable as the state is still in the process of reconstructing itself.
Friend stated that the primary security institution in Libya is the militias, who are extremely variable in their size, shape, power, and territory, along with ideological commitment and economic leverage. Although there is a government-organized security institution, national security provision is lacking. Control over security provision in Libya is thus a major source of political power. General Haftar and the National Libyan Army have consolidated most of the territory but not all of it. Since security is a major issue, decentralization of politics and power remain a challenge. The presence of ISIS, though a minor issue for Libyans, is a major concern for the US that might incentivize more US involvement in Libya in the future.
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Needed: better Arab armies
The Middle East Institute (MEI) hosted a book talk on February 14 with Kenneth Pollack, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), former CIA intelligence analyst, and the author of Armies of Sand: The Past, Present, and Future of Arab Military Effectiveness.
Pollack argues that since the second world war, Arab armies had underperformed. He believes that the size, material factors and the weaponry with which they waged war could have enabled Arabs to win easily, but instead they lost catastrophically. The few times they won were modest victories. Reflecting on the core reason for Arab military backwardness in the last seventy years, Pollack attributes it to Arab society itself. He argues that what defines a good and bad military in the industrial age warfare is a hierarchy based on mission-oriented orders in which the general gives the subordinate a sense of what he is trying to achieve and leaves it to them to figure out how best to do it. Arab culture’s educational system, though, inculcates a rigidly top-down system of organization and hierarchy.
Pollack explained that every culture develops in response to its own circumstances. And Warfare is usually a competitive activity against the organization of another society that organizes itself differently. Arabs were trying to fight industrial warfare in a way that their culture and society did not equip them to do, against foes who were way better equipped l(ike, for instance, the Israelis).
Strikingly similar patterns of underperformance in Middle Eastern wars suggest recurrent problems. Descriptions of Egyptian performance in 1948 and Iraqi performance in 2014 read like plagiarized versions of one another. Arabs have not experienced the industrial revolution, or the information revolution of today.
Apart from the cultural piece, Pollack identifies a set of problems Arab armies suffer. Most Arab generals were inexperienced and did not know what they were doing. Junior officers are passive, inflexible, unimaginative, and unable to respond to battlefield developments. At the bottom of Arab chain of command, personnel had difficulties handling their weapons and maintaining them properly. The more sophisticated a weapon it is, the harder for them to handle. For instance, All countries who trained Arab armies (the Russians, French, Americans, and British) attest that they performed better with the older Soviet MIG 17 and MIG 21 than they did with American F4 and F16. Providing Arab armies with sophisticated weapons did not improve their combat capability.
In addition, the Arab world is replete with bad civil military relations. Many regimes lacking legitimacy tend to be concerned the generals surrounding them, as the leaders themselves came to power by overthrowing others. They seek therefore to hobble the military so that can not do likewise. Saddam Hussein was an outstanding example, as he put people in charge whom he knew to be incompetent. The golden rule has thus always been loyalty over competence.
It is important for those who want the US out of the region that it not to be replaced by Iran, Hezbollah, ISIS, or Al-Qaeda. Without the US, it is imperative to leave behind a strong Arab army able of defending against these threats.
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Not the deep state
Yesterday’s testimony in Congress by America’s intelligence elite was dramatic: it contradicted President Trump’s ill-founded opinions on Iran, ISIS, North Korea, Russia, and China. Iran, the intel chiefs said, is still observing the nuclear deal. ISIS is not gone from Syria or Iraq. North Korea will not give up its nuclear weapons, which Kim Jong Un views as vital to regime survival. Russia not only interfered in the 2016 election but is expanding its efforts. China’s economic difficulties are not due to America’s tariffs. It is almost as if they decided, with Ben Franklin, that we all hang together or we all hang separately.
Trump remained unimpressed. He denounced them all for failing to agree with their master. The President thinks he knows better. He is unwilling to entertain even the possibility he might be wrong. This is ignorance compounded with lack of intelligence. Only a profoundly stupid and lazy person would fail to ask himself why so many well-informed and manifestly intelligent people disagree, even at peril of losing their jobs. The notion that they would do it to protect their country from its greatest security risk–the man in the Oval Office–is anathema to Trump. He recognizes only egotism as a motive, since that is the only one he knows.
Fortunately, the Congress is moving for good reason to hem Trump in. You don’t have to think the US should stay in Syria or Afghanistan forever to believe that Trump’s tweeting and leaking of precipitous withdrawals is unwise. American diplomats needed more time than the President gave them to get a decent price for shipping out and making sure that whoever fills the vacuum will not put the US at risk. Pretending that North Korea will exchange its nukes and missiles for Trump-like hotel developments is silly.
Trump’s meeting with President Putin in Buenos Aires last November with no US officials present was revealed today. This is not just a breach of protocol. It is profoundly dangerous, since Moscow knows more about the meeting than Washington. Only a neophyte maverick would allow himself to be trapped into such a meeting, unless of course the purpose was to get instructions from Putin. Which do you prefer, a President who is embarrassingly unsophisticated or a President who qualifies as a Russian dupe or maybe even agent?
There is another explanation: that Trump enjoys defying convention and is happy to see his name in the headlines, no matter the occasion. No publicity is bad publicity for him and Roger Stone, who is blabbering himself into a lifetime in prison. Trump’s eldest son, Don Jr., looks set to follow him soon, as he was also enmeshed with Wikileaks during the campaign and lied to Congress about it. The missing link is evidence that the President was privy to or even ordered the contacts with the Russians that led to the publication of the Democratic National Committee’s emails. But there too doubts are hard to harbor: he appealed to Moscow in public to hack Hillary’s emails. Putin gave Trump the closest approximation within his control, in precisely the time frame Don Jr. favored.
President Trump really is America’s greatest security risk today. The intelligence people I know would find that proposition appalling but incontrovertible. Are they aiming to unseat him before he does much more damage? Their well-founded, professional testimony to lawmakers who have that power is one more step in the right direction: removing a president who is endangering the United States.
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