Tag: Israel/Palestine
DC’s fine-tuned machine
Donald Trump yesterday called his team a “fine-tuned machine” in a press conference that prompted one Republican senator to say “He should do this with a therapist, not on live television.” The President was unable to keep his cool even in response to a question about well-documented recent anti-Semitic incidents, instead berating the journalist for his hostility. My first question to would-be foreign government speakers in Washington is whether they can respond to a provocative question without attacking the questioner. After almost a month in office, Trump is still not ready for prime time.
Instead he is spewing falsehoods, making exaggerated claims for his own prowess and experience, denying well-established facts, and conducting a vituperative campaign against the establishment press. He is also promising to catch leakers who are filling the headlines with news about his campaign’s links to Russia and the related ongoing investigations, which could lead to criminal charges against his now resigned National Security Adviser. The chosen replacement is reported to have turned down the job, unable to get a commitment that he would be able to choose his own staff. Trump’s immigration ban, blocked in court, will be withdrawn and replaced with something the President says will be even better.
There is a fine-tuned machine in Washington, but it is not Trump’s White House staff or even his cabinet appointees, most of whom are making it through Senate’s confirmation. The US government’s permanent civil and foreign services are beginning to gain traction. That is apparent in Defense Secretary Mattis’ meeting with NATO allies, where he sought both to get them to spend more on defense (a well-worn talking point that pre-dates Trump) and to reassure them that the Administration is committed to the Alliance. It is also apparent in UN Ambassador Haley’s tough remarks about Russian aggression in Ukraine and Secretary of State Tillerson’s “listening” participation in a G20 meeting, even if he had trouble explaining the President’s remarks on Israel and Palestine to the French foreign minister.
Trump, who is more radical than conservative, will no doubt want to upend more of America’s traditional positions on international issues, as he did when he ditched the multilateral Trans-Pacific Partnership (delighting China) and suggested that the US was no longer committed to a two-state solution in the Middle East. He is said to be thinking about putting substantial numbers of US troops on the ground in Syria, to accelerate the liberation of Raqqa. But the bureaucracy is trying to hem him in and prevent thoughtless departures from established policy by Twitplomacy. Call it the “blob” or the “deep state,” but the professionals know there are good reasons for why we do what we do (and not what we don’t do). They want to ensure that policy changes are well crafted to avoid the kinds of chaos that the immigration ban generated.
The professionals are of course also protecting their own vested bureaucratic interests, from whence the leaks. Trump has all but declared war on the intelligence community and frozen out the State Department, preferring to rely on a National Security Council staff studded with military and former military officers. The nerds want their revenge. They got some with Flynn’s departure. They may target chief strategist Bannon and his side kicks as well, as they are all too clearly the guardians of Trump’s white nationalist radicalism.
Trump is driving a jalopy of his own making, not the Tesla he is entitled to as President. I dread the day he gets into the right driver’s seat and begins to make effective use of the deep state he is now fighting.
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Trump is losing, but still making chaos
@MaxBoot tweeted last night:
Xi forces affirmation of “One China.” Mexico won’t pay for wall. 9th Circuit stops EO. Flynn/Conway scandals. Is Trump tired of winning yet?
140 characters permitting, he might have added that
- Trump is delaying the move of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
- The administration is forgetting Secretary of State Tillerson’s pledge to prevent Chinese access to the islands it has fortified in the South China Sea.
- The wall is now projected to cost more than twice candidate Trump’s projection.
- The President has expressed displeasure that Kellyanne Conway has been “counseled” for violating ethnics regulations.
- Congressional Republicans are questioning whether National Security Adviser Flynn can remain in place, and the 9th Circuit decision makes it unlikely that the Administration will win an appeal.
- Trump’s Supreme Court nominee has suggested that criticism of judges, which the President has indulged in repeatedly, is demoralizing and disheartening to the judiciary.
From my Schadenfreude perspective, these are all positive developments. To stimie Trump, or at least try to hold him and his minions accountable, is to make the world better place.
But let’s not kid ourselves. the Trumpistas have already had a devastating impact on American prestige and influence abroad. Trump’s doubts about the NATO Alliance have shaken European confidence. He won’t even be able to visit the UK, where giant crowds would protest his appearance. His immigration ban has demoralized allies in the Arab world, especially Iraq, and boosted extremist recruiting. His bromance with Putin has encouraged the Russians to continue their interventions in Syria and eastern Ukraine. His hostility towards Iran has encouraged its worst impulses, including additional missile tests after being put “on notice.”
While I have good friends who think Barack Obama was a frighteningly weak foreign policy president, his retrenching America is looking coherent and even visionary by comparison. In a few short weeks, Trump has weakened America, not strengthened it.
The ramifications are many. I had a note this morning from the Balkans that read in part:
I have to say that Trumpizm effects the rest of the world in which provinces like Balkans can not understand who is who and what is real American politics and interest towards them!
The same thing might be said in eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Asia Pacific and even in Latin America. At the current rate, it will be true in the Arctic and Antarctica before long. All American presidential transitions are unsettling, but this one is an order of magnitude more chaos-producing than most. It has brought people to power in the White House who simply do not adhere to the well-established lines of American foreign policy, which have served pretty well since 1945. When you need to be reading an obsure Italian Fascist writer to understand the intellectual antecedents of the chief strategist to the President, you know something is wrong.
I’m not immune to radicalism. I indulged in it during the civil rights movement and the Vietnam war. There are things today that merit hard opposition in my estimation, including Trump’s appointment of cabinet members who oppose the missions of the agencies they are supposed to lead and his appointment of a documented and committed racist as Attorney General. But Trump’s radicalism appears to have little more than his own impulsive and erratic whims as its basis, combined with a few repugnant right-wing shibboleths about race, public education, the environment, and energy production.
The bully is already backing down on some of his worst impulses, but that does nothing to give the world an America that it can understand and rely on. Trump likes unpredictability. Friends and adversaries alike do not.
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Challenges Trump can expect in the Middle East
As the inauguration of the 45th president of the United States nears, the Middle East Policy Council explored the challenges facing President-elect Trump in the region. The panel featured Derek Chollet, Counselor and Senior Advisor at The German Marshal Fund, Jake Sullivan, Visiting Lecturer at Yale Law School and Senior Policy Advisor for the Hillary Clinton campaign, Dimitri Simes, President of the Center for the National Interest and Publisher of The National Interest, and Mary Beth Long, founder and CEO of Metis Solutions and Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Chollet said that the Obama administration faced several challenges: doubt over the future US role in the region, diverging interests in dealing with the Iran nuclear program and the conflict in Syria, and the perception that the US cares less about the region than before 2008. Chollet called the US approach to the Middle East under Obama a recalibration rather than a dramatic shift, stressing America’s sustainable commitment to the region. Most notably, this includes decreasing the US role as a problem solver in the region and encouraging collective security. The new administration will have to decide how to proceed on the Iran deal, the ISIS threat, Syria’s President Assad, and Gulf partnerships.
Sullivan identified five hard questions the incoming administration must answer. First, Trump will need to navigate the US relationship with Iran, both in approaching the nuclear deal as well as holding Iran accountable for its actions outside of the nuclear context, such as human rights abuses. Second, the administration must limit Iranian influence in the region while defeating ISIS in Iraq, a move that could very well strength Iran’s position. The third question concerns creating a long-term stability in Syria beyond supporting the strong man, whether Putin or Assad. Similarly, Sullivan’s fourth question asked whether supporting authoritarian regimes in the region is still sustainable post-Arab Spring, and whether regimes could hold up under pressure for reform. Finally, Sullivan questioned the new administration’s understanding of Russia’s role in the Middle East and where US interests converge with Putin’s objectives.
Simes focused on the US-Russia relationship and expanded on Trump’s challenges in working with Putin. The primary challenge in working with Putin, who Simes noted is not Trump’s friend, will be strategic confrontation with Russia. Because Russia and the US diverge greatly on issues such as Syria, it would be prudent to pursue a more effective relationship with Russia and prevent a rivalry from forming. Simes believes that a poor relationship with Russia will be detrimental to the US and could lead to a stronger Russia-China relationship or even Russian use of terrorism as a weapon against America. Trump has an opportunity to develop a strong relationship with Russia, but must first determine US interests and take Russia seriously as a player on the world stage.
Long said the incoming administration will take a more transactional and pragmatic approach to foreign policy based on US interests. This will result in more straightforward relationships. However, she warned this also has the potential to create inconsistency in the Middle East, because policy will be situational and reactionary in nature. Although the challenges in the region are great, including the battle for Mosul, the refugee crisis, and the US relationship with Iran, Long said the US cannot afford to do everything at once and must rely on regional partners to step up.
In response to a question about US strategy in combating terrorism, specifically ISIS, and the strengths and weakness of US engagement, Chollet said a key US strength lies in its ability to militarily target states. The Islamic state is no different. To this point, Sullivan argued that US military action against terrorism targets the symptoms rather than the causes of radicalization, and more needs to be done to win over moderates, create strong state structures, and increase the confidence of US regional Sunni partners. Long stressed the danger in creating vacuums in which terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda can resurge and become powerful.
The panel also addressed the implications of moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Chollet said a move to Jerusalem would be disruptive and could undermine the strategic convergence between Israel and Sunni states working together to confront their shared adversaries in the region. Sullivan agreed that the embassy move would jeopardize efforts to balance the terrorist threat in the region and said the US needs to recognize the challenge, be honest, and identify what it can do to support its partners. Long hoped the embassy issue would lose its primacy in the early days of the administration. The panel agreed the embassy move would not serve US strategic interests.
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Serbia’s choice
Milana Pejic at Belgrade daily Blic asked about 2016 the “world between Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Angela Merkel? Their publication of some of my response is here. This is my full response:
2016 was a difficult year on many fronts. Resurgent nationalism in several EU countries, Brexit, and the Italian constitutional referendum have cast doubt on the European project. The long American electoral campaign and Donald Trump’s victory in the electoral college (but not in the popular vote) have raised questions about America’s long-standing commitments to NATO, to Ukraine, to the Syrian opposition, to the two-state solution in Israel/Palestine, to nuclear nonproliferation, and to free trade. No one really knows what the next US administration will do, as Trump prides himself on unpredictability, but the cabinet he has appointed and his provocative tweets during the transition suggest that there will be radical departures in American domestic and foreign policy.
Vladimir Putin appears to be riding high, having intervened in Ukraine, Syria, the US electoral process, and in the politics of many European countries by supporting nationalists. But Russia is overstretched internationally even as its domestic economy is a shambles. Moscow is the capital of a declining regional power with little to offer but oil and gas, arms deals, vetoes in the UN Security Council, and surreptitious destabilization. Those in Serbia who look to Russia as a savior are likely to be disappointed in the long run. Europe has much more to offer once it gets past its present rough patch.
Angela Merkel is today Europe’s de facto leader and defender of liberal democratic ideals. But right-wing nationalists in Germany have gained traction, largely due to the big influx of refugees that Merkel welcomed to a country that needs young workers. Will the wave of nationalism inundating Europe end the Chancellor’s political career? Or will she survive to lead a revival of the European project?
These are important questions for 2017. So too is the question of whether Serbia will continue on the difficult path of preparing itself for European Union membership, with all the sacrifices that entails, or instead choose the much easier but less rewarding road of becoming a Russian satellite, with all the limits to independence and prosperity that entails. The choice is yours, not mine, but you know which I would choose.
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2016 sucked, but the world really doesn’t
John Oliver has already said it:
For me, 2016 was a lousy year on many fronts:
- Russian and Iranian intervention reversed the tide of war in Syria and chased many more innocent civilians from their homes and their country.
- North Korea has continued its increasingly capable missile and nuclear weapons programs.
- Major terrorist attacks have succeeded in Paris, Nice, Brussels, Berlin, Orlando, Lahore, Istanbul as well as on board a Paris/Cairo Egyptair flight.
- Britain voted in a referendum to leave the EU.
- Donald Trump won the American presidential election, despite a notable lack of qualifications, reasonable policy proposals, and a majority of the popular vote.
Sure some nice things happened too, like the Paris climate change agreement, but global warming continued apace. The Islamic State lost a lot of territory in Syria and Iraq, but many innocent people got killed in the process. The Cubs won the World Series, but Cleveland lost.
Really unalloyed good news has been rare. Or at least not enough to counter the sense of an inexorable slide into more instability, less equity, and more confusion.
Most concerning is that liberal democracy–based on individual rights and rule of law–is losing ground. It’s not just Putin and Russia, but also Xi Jinping and China, Sisi and Egypt, Netanyahu and Israel, Erdogan and Turkey, Duterte and the Philippines, Khamenei and Iran, Kabila and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, even Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma. Leaders and countries are turning in illiberal if not outright autocratic directions. Hopes for liberalizing politics and economics are limited to places like Tunisia and Taiwan, important in their own right but peripheral to the center of gravity in their regions.
2017 is likely to be worse rather than better. There is no visible barrier to deterioration in the Middle East. The North Korean regime is increasingly consolidated. China is exploiting Trump’s provocations to ratchet up its own defiance, the movement of the US embassy to Jerusalem is likely to provoke dramatic Arab reactions, Angela Merkel is in peril, Marine Le Pen has a chance to win the French presidential election, Italian banks may fail, Khamenei, Erdogan, Duterte, and Kabila are determined to hold on to power.
But despair is no more a policy than hope. What counts more than anything else is not the pace of change. That might be very fast under Trump. But it is the direction that really matters. We need to find ways to make the world safer, more stable, more prosperous and more free. Even small steps in the right direction will eventually get you where you want to go. Let’s keep that in mind as we approach the end and the beginning.
Here’s the proof the pudding, but you have to take the long view to see it:
The next four years is unlikely to reverse any of these fabulously positive developments.
Or watch this via Zack Beauchamp (which dates from 2015 and therefore does not include the uptick in war deaths of the past couple of years, which still leaves the numbers low in historic terms):
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Rein him in!
Let’s count the potential international crises the President-elect has signaled he is prepared to initiate:
- Conflict with China over the South China Sea and/or Taiwan.
- Across-the-board tariffs that would cause a trade war with China.
- A nuclear arms race with his putative pal, Russia.
- Encouraging South Korea and Japan to get nuclear weapons.
- Movement of the US embassy to Israel to Jerusalem, precipitating an Arab and Palestinian reaction.
- Conflict with Russia and Iran by initiation of a no-fly zone in Syria.
- Withdrawal from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), negotiation of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), and/or the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Let’s not count withdrawal from NATO, as he has already reneged on that promise, or withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, as even Prime Minister Netanyahu no longer favors that but rather prefers its strict implementation. Let’s also forget about the wall on the Mexican border, as the Mexicans won’t pay for it and Congress is likely to balk as well, and other immigration restrictions, which are inevitable now but will hurt the US more than any other single country. Let’s however add, because it is probably unavoidable:
8. A North Korean demonstration of nuclear and/or missile technology that threatens the US.
This is a spectacular list of things likely to provoke dramatic international reactions. It is also a list too long for any US government, even one led by experienced statespeople, to manage all at once. The neophytes of the Trump administration–including the President-elect himself, his Secretary of State nominee Tillerson, National Security Advisor Flynn, and his trade czar Peter Navarro–are guaranteed to make a hash of it if Trump tries to do even two or three of these things at the same time, never mind all of them.
Trump is blithely unaware of the challenges. He continues to use Twitter as his main means of communication, not only for his personal vendettas but also for what would be major policy shifts, provided he is serious. His defenders have been reduced to claiming that obviously he doesn’t mean exactly what he says on Twitter, as the issues deserve fuller treatment. Let’s not take him too literally, only seriously, they suggest, espousing something closer to a reasonable position on the issues Trump has tweeted wildly about.
This ambiguity about what Trump really intends is an added peril. Our adversaries no longer know what to think and are therefore compelled to prepare for what they regard as the worst. Minor confrontations are inevitable, as is escalation, given Trump’s irascibility. While the US was definitely under a greater external threat during the Cold War (because of the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons) than it is today, the likelihood of major confrontation is now much higher, due to the uncertainty Trump has perpetrated.
Some are hoping for our institutions to compensate. But Congress and the courts can do little to reign Trump in. The confirmation process for some of his cabinet nominees may give a few in the Senate opportunities to signal their concerns, but there is little that can be done if Trump does not take the signals seriously. The courts rarely intervene on international issues, and then only after years of due process and appeals.
Two other possible brakes on Trump are likewise handicapped. The states can intervene effectively on domestic policy but are able to do little to affect foreign policy. American civil society–its citizens organized in nonprofit groups–will likely focus on domestic policy. The first big demonstration of the new era is likely to be the January 21 Women’s March on Washington. Preserving the benefits of Obamacare is likely to be a major domestic policy concern for civil society in coming months, along with exposure of Trump’s colossal conflicts of interest.
Ironically, it could be the business world that eventually reins in the businessman elect. The kinds of crises Trump is likely to precipitate are not good for US business, which knows how to get its voice heard in Washington. The US Chamber of Commerce was on the outs with Trump even before the election, over trade issues. But a South China Sea crisis or one of the others might be equally devastating to US business interests. Any international crisis will take a toll on economic growth, which is moving along at a decent pace even seven years into the recovery. Trump, whose personal business interests are paltry by big business standards, is going to come under a lot of pressure not to upset the apple cart.
Trump needs to be reined in. Whoever does it will merit the gratitude of the nation.
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