Tag: Israel
Harris is gaining while Trump steps in it
Donald Trump managed yesterday to turn an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists into a campaign debacle. He claimed that Kamala Harris, who went to historically Black Howard University and became a member of a Black sorority, had not always identified as Black but rather as Indian. She in fact is Black and Indian. Her father was a Black Jamaican and her mother was an Indian Tamil. She grew up identifying as both.
Why would a presidential candidate even mention a competitor’s racial origins? Why would he do so in a demonstrably false way? What did he hope to gain from this strange assertion?
What did he think he was doing?
Trump’s faux pas could be just a mistake. His cognitive capacity is in doubt. He often says “weird” (and offensive) things. This could just be another one.
That is hard to believe. His campaign has surely briefed him extensively on Harris’ background and biography. He should know by now where she went to university. He has a particular interest in immigration and had for years challenged Barack Obama’s illegibility for the presidency based on the false claim that he was born in Kenya. Trump certainly knows the origins of Harris’ immigrant parents.
Trump was trying to cast aspersions. He was suggesting that she had been dishonest about her Black identity and is now only using it for political purposes. Trump may have hoped to suggest that she, like Obama, was not a legitimate candidate. He wanted to drive a wedge between Black voters and Harris, hoping to prevent her from reversing the modest flow of (mostly male) Black voters the polls show he has gained.
Failure is its own reward
He failed miserably. His audience knew that Harris identifies as Black as well as Indian. The country knows too. This faux pas makes him look worse in the eyes of Harris supporters and independents without gaining him much among his own fans. They already knew he is an insensitive racist and like him for it.
Harris has now drawn even with Trump in national polling and is improving in battleground states. Biden before withdrawing his candidacy had been running consistently behind Trump. Harris’ campaign has energized Democrats while the Republican vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, has been dragging down Trump. He told the Black journalists it doesn’t matter who the vice presidential candidate is.
The election is still a long way off
Anything can happen between now and November 5. But for now Harris is gaining and Trump is lagging. Harris will name her vice presidential candidate in the next few days. The Democratic Convention August 19-22 should give her a bump, provided demonstrations don’t ruin it. The economy is weakening and inflation is flattening, which could mean a Fed interest rate cut in September. Today’s release of US prisoners from Russia is an unexpected plus.
But war between Iran and Israel? A jump in unemployment or inflation? A third party candidate who gains more traction? Violence against one or the other candidate? Catastrophic harm to US troops abroad? All of these downers?
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Biden is toast, but don’t burn him
I expect President Biden will soon announce the withdrawal of his candidacy. That’s good. His decline since I saw him up close last winter is obvious. While I would still far prefer him to Trump, he is wise to throw in the towel. He has a fantastic record of restoring the country to sanity and steady economic growth, reknitting its alliances, appointing capable and diverse officials, getting a lot done on climate change, meeting the Russian challenge in Ukraine, shoring up defenses against China, and I could go on. Bowing out now ensures a positive legacy.
Challenges ahead
The rumor mill suggests the convention will be an “open” one with several candidates to replace Biden on top of the ticket. That seems to me a bad idea. It ensures a floor fight that will necessarily be divisive. It could also stimulate street demonstrations, which could get out of hand. I favor handing the baton to Kamala Harris. Biden has repeatedly avowed that she is ready to take over. He should let her do so.
The campaign against Trump will still be an uphill battle, no matter the candidate. The Democrats need not only to unify. They need to present a clear and compelling alternative to Trump’s lying, criminality, and immorality. He is a terrible candidate. That Biden in his weakened condition is still running neck and neck with him in the polls suggests the Democrats can recover from the last few weeks to win.
Biden can help
Biden can be a useful surrogate in the effort. He still has strong Democratic support and could help to get voters to the polls. He is a formidable fundraiser and a savvy political operative. His sterling record contrasts dramatically with the chaos and decline of Trump’s presidency. Biden may be toast, but it would be a mistake for any successor candidate not to use his record and his savvy.
Whoever the Democratic candidate, s/he should rely a good deal on Biden, whether or not he remains in the presidency. The mistake Al Gore made–not to rely on President Clinton’s record–should not be repeated. Biden has been a successful president. Running away from him would be a big mistake.
Trump is worse than too many think
I’m hearing wishful thinking about a second Trump term. To the contrary, it will be far worse than his first. Just listen to what he says. He wants to weaponize the Justice Department, claiming falsely that Biden has done it. He wants to cut taxes for the rich again and raise them on middle class people who (necessarily) spend most of their income. Trump will give Ukraine to Putin and won’t protect Taiwan. And he’ll support extremists in Israel who want to expel Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza. If you think the world is problematic now, just wait until a new Trump presidency.
Trump will also use a return to the White House to deliver retribution to those who oppose him. Take it from the Australians:
Part II isn’t out yet.
And remember this: Trump deployed unidentifiable law enforcement personnel on the streets of Washington (and wanted them to fire on demonstrators), he has praised the January 6 rioters, he is a committed racist, and he has appointed Supreme Court Justices who think a woman shouldn’t be allowed to decide on her own health care. That’s in addition to being a rapist, a tax cheat, and a Russian asset. Trump is far worse than too many think.
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Justice demands the truth
Claudio Gatti, an Italian and American journalist, has updated the results of his decades-long inquiries into an incident known often in Italy simply as “Ustica” (or the strage di Ustica). That refers both to a small Italian island about 49 miles north of Palermo and the crash nearby of an Itavia DC-9 on June 27, 1980. The crash killed all 81 people aboard.
Forty-four years later, the cause of the Ustica crash is still unknown. The crew had no warning. There is no evidence of mechanical failure. Experts have (mostly) discarded the hypothesis of a bomb on board. Gatti examines other hypotheses involving a American, French, Italian, or Libyan missile. Justice demands the truth.
What didn’t happen
He concludes that none of these hypotheses is valid.
There is technical evidence favoring a missile. The downing of the aircraft might have been a mistake. I often noted while Deputy Chief of Mission in Rome 1990-93, and still believe, the Americans could not have kept such a mistake secret. The French or Italians, who some imagine to have mistaken the plane for one in which Qaddafi was traveling, had other, better options for killing him. Qaddafi himself claimed to be the target, but the Libyans have never provided evidence that he was flying (or planned to fly) in the area that night. The Libyans had no motive, even if the later crash in Sicily of a Libyan MIG raised questions about their possible involvement.
The decades since the incident are replete with suspicious behavior, missing data, allegations of coverups, military and technical incompetence, and conspiracy theories. These are standard in Italy. The judiciary, sometimes more serious than the journalism, has failed to elucidate the cause.
What might have happened
Gatti, whom I have known for decades (caveat emptor), thinks he knows the answer: Israel. His theory is that Prime Minister Begin, worried (literally) sick about Iraq’s acquisition of nuclear technology from France and Italy, authorized the downing of a plane carrying weapons-grade enriched uranium fuel for the Osiraq reactor. The Israelis destroyed that in an air raid a year later. Gatti thinks the Israeli pilots, operating in low-visibility conditions at the outer limits of their capabilities, mistook the Itavia plane for one that was supposed to be traveling a similar route.
I won’t rehearse all the details. This RAI documentary by Luca Chianca deals with some of them. I play a minor role there saying no more than intended here. I don’t believe the Americans did it. The Israelis had the technical means to do it. But I have no idea whether they did.
Caveat emptor here as well. I was involved in the late 1970s in American diplomatic efforts to prevent the Italians from transferring nuclear technology to Iraq. I now wonder whether preventing Israel from taking military action motivated my vigorous State Department instructions.
Gatti offers much more in his Il Quinto Scenario: Atto Secondo, but that is available only in Italian. The evidence for an Israeli missile downing the DC-9 is compelling. But not quite a smoking gun. It passes what the experts term a “hoop test.” As in jumping through a hoop. The facts, as best he thinks them determined, are consistent with Israeli culpability. The hypothesis thus fulfills a necessary but not sufficient criterion.
More investigation is needed
In the absence of competitive hypotheses, more investigation is warranted. It is appalling to think any state would down a passenger plane. But of course it has happened in the past. The Israelis downed a Libyan Arab Airlines Boeing 727 in 1973 when it unintentionally flew over Israeli-occupied Sinai. And it could happen again.
The Ustica mystery needs a solution. The families of 81 people should not have to live with uncertainty about what happened. Justice demands the truth, whatever it may be.
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The wider war has arrived, when will peace?
Iran yesterday retaliated against Israel for its bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, which killed high ranking officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The barrage of hundreds of drones and missiles was ineffective, due to Israeli, American, British, and Jordanian air defenses. The Iranians made no secret of what they intended to do and presumably are hoping it will not trigger another round.
Multiple vectors
But it is still reasonable to conclude that the wider Middle East war many have feared has already begun. Israel continues its attack on Gaza. Lebanese Hizbollah and Israel are exchanging shots across the border. Israel is frequently targeting Iranian assets in Syria. Yemen’s Houthis are targeting shipping and warships in the Red Sea. Iraq’s Iranian-sponsored “Popular Mobilization Forces” have been targeting American military bases. Israeli settlers have been chasing Palestinians from their homes on the West Bank.
Of course the pace and lethality of this wider war could heighten. So far, its most deadly axis by far has been Israel/Hamas. Hamas has killed about 1500 Israelis and the Israelis have killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, in retaliation for the mass murder, kidnapping, and mayhem of October 7. Elsewhere the wider war is more than symbolic, but still far less fatal.
Worsening prospects
Once such things start, the natural tendency is towards escalation. Certainly things have gotten worse in the past six months. They are likely to get worse still. The murder of an Israeli teenager on the West Bank last week sparked heightened settler violence against Palestinians there. Hizbollah could do a lot more damage if it unleashes its missiles. So could the Israelis if they decide to push into southern Lebanon. Iran still has lots of drones and missiles it could use in a second attack.
The next round will be Israel’s choice. It could choose to write off yesterday’s attack as ineffective and unworthy of response. Or it could decide to reassert deterrence with a direct attack on Iran or on Iranian assets in the region. I suspect the decision will be based primarily on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s domestic political calculations. He faces growing demands for his resignation. Any pause in the fighting could provide the time to bring him down. He is still hoping for enough of a victory in Gaza, Lebanon, or Iran to enable him to remain in power.
That seems unlikely in Gaza. Israel has done significant harm to Hamas there but is still far from the total defeat Netanyahu has set as its war goal. Israel has been hitting Hizbollah in Lebanon without much reaction. That could be a likelier prospect. He may think a devastating blow against Iran would enable him to avoid the inevitable for a while longer. Why anyone in his war cabinet would go along with that is unclear to me, but so far they have generally supported his wartime decisions.
Can diplomacy work?
The still wider and more deadly war in prospect is not in the US interest. Nor do the Europeans want it. Karim Sadjadpour on MSNBC last night pointed out that the Chinese would likewise prefer stability in the Middle East to lower and steady oil prices. The Russians by contrast benefit from de-stabilization and the consequent distraction from the Ukraine war as well as the bump up in oil prices. But even acting together it is unclear that the Americans, Europeans, and Chinese could exert sufficient influence on Israel or Iran to de-escalate.
Both countries have leaders whose political mandates won’t last much longer. Iran’s Supreme Leader is almost 85 years old and ill. Netanyahu is suffering a catastrophic decline in popularity as well as serious corruption charges. Both are claiming not to want to escalate. But neither sees an enticing option other than escalation. Both want victory over the other as a political legacy. The wider war has arrived, but until there is decisively new leadership in both Tehran and Jerusalem peace is unlikely.
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Stevenson’s army, February 17
– NYT says Israel was behind attacks on Iranian pipelines
– WaPo says Russia has been running disinformation campaign against Zelensky
– Politico says UAE limits US attacks in region
– Ukraine withdraws from Avdiivka
– Brookings tracks Ukraine data
– Oscar-winning Navalny documentary is available on HBO MAX
Survey shows Republican parents are raising Democratic daughters.
More on Gen Z views
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My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, February 16
– CBO says interest on the debt will cost more than defense this year.
– CBO also says immigration will add $7 trillion to GDP
– RAND analyst says DOD needs reform, not more money
–WH briefing on Russian ASAT and Ukraine
– Vox summarizes US space capabilities
– US has new satellite system
– Politico says Sullivan worked with Van Hollen on military aid conditions
– NYT investigates how Iran evades sanctions and how Russia mitigated them
– Politico says nobody knows which political ads work
From Punchbowl: Ten House members (five from each party) have drafted a compromise Ukraine-Taiwan-Israel-border security bill. You can read the text here, and the summary here.
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My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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