Tag: United States
When you are in a hole, stop digging
The world awaits retaliation against Israel for its assassinations last week. Both were relatively surgical affairs that killed the military commander of Lebanese Hizbollah in Beirut (as well as some women and children) and the political spokesman of Hamas in Tehran. Expectations for retaliation focus on a large missile and drone attack from all directions.
I doubt that. If successful, such a raid might mobilize the US to join Israel in a further escalation. That is something the Iranians don’t want.
It need not be an air raid
Israel has seemed invulnerable for decades. Its sophisticated air defenses have prevented thousands of missiles and drones from reaching population centers.
Iran and its partners might be better served to assassinate one or more major Israeli political or military figures. That would be a symmetrical response that some might argue does not justify further escalation. It would also strike fear into the hearts of every Jew in Israel. The only major Jewish figure murdered in modern Israel was Prime Minister Itzhak Rabin, killed by a Jew.
The Israelis have demonstrated that they can track and strike major figures in the capitals of their adversaries. Is it really possible that the “axis of resistance” has not developed a comparable capability inside Israel?
The capability need not necessarily be technologically sophisticated. Knives, guns, and grenades can be smuggled and murderers deployed or hired. Targets of opportunity should not be difficult to find in a small and relatively open society.
Iran has assets it doesn’t want to lose
The Iranians will decide. Hizbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis may have been relatively free to do what they wanted since October 7, but no doubt Tehran is now coordinating the retaliation.
Iran has reached nuclear threshold status. It is able to build a nuclear bomb within weeks with material in its possession. Prime Minister Netanyahu is looking for an excuse to damage that capability. In April, the Israelis demonstrated their ability to reach Iran’s nuclear facilities with drones that went undetected. Iran may want to hide its hand in the retaliation, mirroring Israel’s refusal to confirm its hand in the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
Netanyahu wins, Israel loses
A successful assassination or two, or a successful air raid, will put the Israelis again on the spot. President Biden has already made clear to Netanyahu that the US will not back further escalation. If Netanyahu pays heed, the cycle will end. If not, it will continue.
That said, Netanyahu has already accomplished several of his own goals. The Gaza talks can go nowhere until the escalation ends. He does not want the ceasefire/prisoner exchange that Washington is insisting on. The Democrats risk a major war during the election campaign, giving advantage to Trump, whom Netanyahu favors. The crisis will enable him to stay in power at least until October, when the Knesset returns from recess, and likely beyond.
Israel is the big loser. The ferocious October 7 attack was far from an existential threat, but Netanyahu and many Israelis have characterized it as such. That justified the ferocious response in Gaza that has in turn led to the assassinations and potential war with Iran and its partners. That really is an existential threat. When you are in a hole, stop digging.
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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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Assassinations could mean war with Iran
Israel killed Fuad Shukr, military deputy to Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, in Beirut yesterday with a targeted air strike. Though they have not confirmed their involvement, the Israelis apparently also killed Ismail Haniyeh, political leader of Hamas in Tehran today, likely also with an air strike. There is I suppose some possibility that this was not their doing, but rather an Iranian maneuver due to displeasure with his leadership of Hamas, but that is 100% speculation.
The ultimate impact of these two assassinations, if such they be, is uncertain. Sometimes decapitation works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But the success of both operations tells us a good deal about Lebanon, Iran, and Israel.
Lebanon and Iran have weak air defenses
That Lebanon has ineffective air defenses is not surprising. The country has been on the ropes at least since the Beirut port explosion in 2020, but even before that its army could not match the Israelis on the ground or in the air. Lebanese Hizbollah is the main threat to Israel from the north. Its air defenses are improving. But the killing of Shukr demonstrates that Israel has the intelligence capability to track Hizbollah leadership and the precision strike capability to hit a single building in crowded southern Beirut without apparently activating either Lebanon’s or Hizbollah’s air defense.
The same is true, and even more impressive, for Iran, if in fact the Israelis did it. Haniyeh was killed in a residence facility of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The Israelis would have had to track him there, evade Iranian air defenses, and strike accurately at a distance of almost 1000 miles from Jerusalem. Iranian inability to prevent this in the aftermath of the presidential inauguration yesterday suggests weak air defenses. Or a special forces unit might have penetrated on the ground.
Israel wants war with Iran
The Israeli willingness to undertake these two assassinations, if in fact Haniyeh was their doing, would suggest that Prime Minister Netanyahu is prepared to risk escalation of the already simmering regional conflict. The two assassinations may well provoke another direct attack from Iran, which tried and failed in April to punish Israel for an earlier Beirut assassination. Escalation this time could be rapid.
There is no question that Tehran backs Hamas, Hizbollah, and the Yemeni Houthis. This is the much-vaunted “axis of resistance,” whose leaders were in Tehran for the inauguration of a new president. Netanyahu earlier this month in his speech in Congress blamed Iran bluntly for their activities. He appears to want a direct confrontation with Tehran, rather than dealing only with its allies.
The Americans do not, but what they can do about it at this point is not clear. Netanyahu sees an opportunity to damage Israel’s enemies while the Arab states stand by. They too want to see Iran diminished. He likely figures the Americans will be pleased if Israel is successful. He appears little concerned with the possibility of failure.
Implications for the US
It will be hard for the US to stay aloof if Netanyahu is successful in provoking Iran into entering the regional war. The Middle East would once again have to take priority. Ukraine and China would have to wait. American military supplies to Israel would be vital.
An Israel/Iran war would likely affect the US presidential race. Kamala Harris would find Democrats divided. The aging leadership in Congress would want to back Israel. But many Democrats, like most Israelis, want Israel to end the war in Gaza by cutting a hostage deal with Hamas. Donald Trump would gain some advantage in the presidential race, even if his running mate has wanted to shift attention from the Middle East to the Pacific. American popular opinion will heavily favor Israel if there is war with Iran.
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Trump is in trouble for now
Less than a week after President Biden withdrew from the race, Donald Trump is in trouble. Vice President Harris has momentum. His best move lately was a round with pro golfer Bryson DeChambeau. I doubt that grabs a lot of middle class voters. She is dancing all over the internet and mobilizing the Democratic base in battleground states. The latest poll shows she has erased Trump’s margin over Biden.
Trump’s problems
Trump’s campaign was entirely geared towards running against an aging Joe Biden. His incessant complaints about the Biden family and the President’s cognitive abilities had gotten some traction. Biden was still a point or two from Trump in national polling, but he was lagging in most of the battlegrounds.
Trump’s attacks against Harris are not landing outside his base. Calling her an extremist and a liar just isn’t working well with either the mainstream media or independents. What are her extremist views? What is she lying about? The country seems tired of Trump, who is now the brunt of remarks about age. At 78, he is almost 20 years older than Harris and only three younger than Biden. He commits many verbal faux pas and delivers lengthy, rambling, incoherent speeches.
He also makes his assault on democracy explicit:
Trump chose as a running mate a relative unknown first-term senator, JD Vance, who has bizarre views on many topics. Just for starters, he wants people with children to get more votes. Trump is already showing regrets for that pick.
Harris’ pluses
Harris has come out of the gate remarkably fast. Within days, she gained the votes needed for nomination at the Democratic convention in Chicago next month. Her candidacy has raised a mountain of money from both small and big donors. “We’re not going back” is her pitch, a clever reference to Trump’s chaotic term in the presidency. She is aggressively campaigning and also considering her own VP pick. It would be hard for her to go wrong. The Democratic lineup has half a dozen highly qualified officials from swing states.
Biden was trailing but still far from defeat. Harris appears to have inherited his support. She is also gaining with independents and those who might have voted for third party candidates. Her support among women and younger voters is better than Biden’s.
Harris in her remarks after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu proved adept. Without shifting away from Biden’s support for Israel’s right to defend itself, she forcefully emphasized her sympathy with ordinary Palestinians and the need to end the Gaza war. “I will not be silenced,” she vowed. Netanyahu will do everything he can to help Trump. But Harris will have taken an important step in healing the rift within her own party and in regaining Arab and Muslim American votes in Michigan and other battlegrounds.
Towards the goal
There are still more than 100 days to the election November 5. But for now Harris has the ball and is moving it fast to the goal line. Expect Trump to react with all the lies and dirty tricks he can muster. He will continue to call her a liar and extremist. He’ll have doubts about her eligibility to run, as she is the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India. His campaign will resurrect controversial positions she took in the past. Trump is trying to get out of the debate with her. Who knows what else he’ll pull. But if she can hold on to the ball, a goal is inevitable.
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Montenegro needs to right itself, now
Miodrag Vlahović, former Foreign Minister of Montenegro, writes:
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić should be gratified. Politicians close to him have finally become part of the 44th Government of Montenegro, Serbia’s neighbor to the southwest.
Others are not so pleased. The US Embassy in Montenegro has expressed concern that there are pro-Russian parties in the government. The EU Mission warns of hindrance to the European agenda. The new government uses European and NATO rhetoric, but their political practice and decisions follow the Belgrade-Moscow lead.
What happened
A Bosniak party enabled this governing coalition. It holds six ministerial mandates in the farcically cumbersome cabinet of Prime Minister Milojko Spajić. That is what it got to compensate for joining with parties that deny the Srebrenica genocide and treat war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladić as heros.
The new government has the two-thirds majority (54 out of 81 deputies) needed to enact significant legal and constitutional changes. They will want to enable dual citizenship and enact changes that would eliminate the civic concept of Montenegrin society. Already political leaders are presenting themselves as “the only authentic representatives” of their ethnic group. The dysfunctional Bosnian model of governance, based on ethnic group rights, is the daydream of ethnic nationalists in Montenegro.
But that is only one dimension of the new political constellation. The government includes no one who identifies as Montenegrin. The shrunken opposition includes parties of a civic, European and democratic orientation, but American and European diplomats have deemed them not “reformed enough.”
What it means
Spajić will allegedly try to implement the official European agenda and Euro-Atlantic policy. He will be doing this in cooperation with declared opponents of NATO, advocates of lifting EU-required sanctions against Russia, and parties that want to realize Greater Serbia. Mission impossible, but therefore desirable from the commanding heights of Belgrade and Moscow.
These same parties of the governing coalition, including Prime Minister Spajić himself, naturally look with enthusiasm at the possibility of Donald Trump returning to the White House. That shows precisely how little they are really oriented towards Europe, which Trump despises.
The Western policy of appeasement towards Serbia has now handed Montenegro to Moscow. The Biden Administration wasted four years pushing the anti-European project known as “Open Balkans.” That has enabled Vučić to meddle not only in Montenegro but also in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, with inevitable negative implications for North Macedonia as well.
Deliveries of Serbian arms and ammunition to Ukraine and mammoth contracts for lithium exploitation in Serbia have made this possible. They are both an explanation and a verdict. The EU’s continuing financial support for Serbia, regardless of Belgrade’s other behavior, reveals its true intentions, which condemn the rest of the Balkans to instability.
What needs to be done
Montenegro is on the brink. The Bosniak party is in power with nationalist populists and chauvinists from the Serbian-Russian milieu. A coalition of three nationalist parties presided over the beginning of the 1992 war in Bosnia. The Bosniak leaders who join this coalition will enable threats to Montenegrin sovereignty and independence.
The opposition parties need to answer the question whether this is a “point of no return” for Montenegro. There will be no help from the West. That makes the task of the opposition urgent and dramatic. Montenegro needs to right itself, now.
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Advantage Harris, but the set isn’t over
Those who imagined Kamala Harris lacked charisma and enough time to build the momentum required to run for President have already proven wrong, less than 48 hours after she became the candidate. The campaign has already taken in more than $100 million in smaller donations and even more in large ones. Tiktoks of the dancing Vice President are all over the web. The Democratic Party has united in backing her. She can win.
Republicans are having trouble finding more than her boisterous laugh to criticize. To be sure, Donald Trump is calling her a socialist and extremist. That isn’t finding much traction when applied to a career prosecutor. The contrast with his 34 felony convictions, giant civil judgments against him, and his criminal indictments is dramatic:
What Americans want
What a large slice of American wants is the Biden Administration without Biden. They want the health care provided by Obamacare. They want the access to abortion that Trump’s Supreme Court nominees took away. The pace of inflation is way down and continuing to decline while employment is holding up reasonable well. They like that, even if they complain about price levels. They don’t complain about Biden’s tax policies, which have increased taxes on the rich and reduced them on the middle class. America’s recovery from COVID has outpaced other major countries:
On foreign policy, Americans want support for Ukraine and Israel, while hoping for an early end to their wars. Support for NATO is strong. So too is support for Taiwan and other allies in the Pacific.
They would get none of that from Trump
Trump would disappoint Americans on all those fronts. He has doubted the value of US alliances in both Asia and Europe. He has even suggested that South Korea and Japan should get their own nuclear weapons, rather than sit under the US umbrella. Taiwan would have to defend itself from China.
Trump has repeatedly vowed to end Obamacare, vaunted his Supreme Court nominees, and presided over a confused and ineffective response to COVID-19. His minions have prepared plans to fire tens of thousands of competent civil servants. He intends to reduce taxes on the super rich and increase them on the middle class, via his 10% tariff.
Ad Harris
So Harris is having a good week. Trump is having such a bad one he is reportedly wondering whether he can dump JD Vance as vice presidential candidate. If you don’t get that right, are you qualified to be president?
Harris’ first big decision is likewise choosing a vice president. There is ample talent available. The question is who will help her with the most Electoral Votes. I don’t pretend to know, but I won’t be surprised if it is someone from North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin.
I’ve got friends who suggest it should be a Republican, even Mitt Romney or Liz Cheney. That would be unlikely to please the Democratic base. It’s an idea that will need to await the formation of a cabinet next year.
The long road to November
Sustaining momentum is difficult. Harris will need some future projects to talk about during he campaign. She may focus on the bipartisan immigration legislation that Trump blocked from passing in the House. She will surely push for a clearer path to citizenship for undocumented people, especially those brought to the US as children. Student loan forgiveness is another possibility, as is legislation on national rules for abortion and limits on presidential immunity.
The Democrats are fortunate that their convention is August 19-22, which gives Harris time not only to pick her vice president but also to try to ensure that the convention goes smoothly. I was in Chicago for the 1968 convention that went south. Demonstrations are to be expected. The police need to handle them well. Getting a prominent Republican or two to speak at the convention would be a good idea. Cheney or Kinzinger or fit there well, not because of policy positions. They know who Trump is and are willing to say it plainly.
There is no telling what may happen by fall. Biden and Harris will need to be in sync. She has already demonstrated that she is quick. Now she needs to demonstrate that she can manage a unifying convention, a big campaign, and Trump’s unrestrained attacks.
PS: Here is they guy who wasn’t sharp enough to be president:
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