https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/dealing-with-the-syrian-regime-is-a-sad-but-inevitable-reality-1.807444

By assuming a role in Syria’s future, Gulf states hope to loosen Iran’s hold on Syria

The United Arab Emirates will reopen its embassy in Damascus, and Bahrain and Kuwait are following suit. Sudan’s President Omar Al Bashir just visited Syria, the first time an Arab League leader has been there since the nation’s uprising began in 2011. All this marks a new phase in the struggle for Syria: a regional re-engagement with the regime of Bashar Al Assad.

Many Arab governments, including those of Egypt and Algeria, never really broke with the Syrian regime. But for those that did, hopes of regime change effectively ended with the fall of Aleppo to pro-Assad forces in January 2017.

That was the culmination of a massive joint intervention launched in September 2015 to save the Syrian dictatorship by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. The intervention left the regime in control of what it deemed “necessary Syria”, as opposed to areas it viewed as relatively marginal and still held by rebel groups or ISIS. The Syrian war was effectively over at that point.

Then it was simply a matter of when and how Arab countries that had backed the rebels and demanded the removal of the Assad regime would come to terms with the practical necessity of dealing with the government in Syria.

It is not surprising that the UAE has taken the lead in this process.

Unlike Turkey and Qatar – and even, to some extent, Saudi Arabia – the UAE was never enthusiastic enough about the Syrian uprising to support armed rebel groups. It preferred to work with Jordan and the United States, mainly on humanitarian and intelligence undertakings, in the south of the country.

While everyone agreed on the need to combat ISIS, the UAE was always sceptical of the Arab Spring uprisings, even when directed at regimes such as those in Libya and Syria. Those doubts persisted even as UAE forces participated in the international intervention to prevent a massacre in Libya in 2011.

Over time, a series of disastrous developments doomed the Syrian uprising.

The administration of Barack Obama abandoned any serious US effort to engage with, and influence the outcome of, the conflict.

The Assad regime, nonetheless, appeared on the brink of collapse, but then Russia, Iran and Hezbollah charged to the rescue and flipped the momentum back in its favour.

For this and other reasons Turkey abandoned its efforts to promote regime change in Syria and focused instead on combating Kurdish groups near its southern border.

The final blow, as if one were needed, was US President Donald Trump’s announcement that all American forces will be suddenly withdrawn from Syria in coming weeks.

The few voices in Washington who support this move dismiss the efficacy of the American presence in the north and east of the country.

But while the US base at Al Tanf and troops near Al Bukamal may not have much impact on power in Damascus, they do effectively block the creation of an Iranian military corridor to the Mediterranean at the two major crossings from Iraq into Syria.

Mr Trump’s backers claim Israel can block Iran on the other side of Syria, towards the south-west. But that could allow Iran to get within 60km or even less of the Lebanese border – just waiting for a chance to complete the circuit.

Even if Washington goes through with the colossal folly of abandoning Al Tanf and other highly strategic areas – of limited importance to the regime, but strongly coveted by Tehran – that is indicative of the situation in Syria, post-Aleppo and post-ISIS.

The battles now are over Kurdish areas in the north and sparsely populated zones in the east, which have more strategic significance regionally then nationally. All this underscores the fact that the main war in Syria is, and has long been, over.

Few Arabs will be happy about re-opening embassies in Damascus, given the hundreds of thousands killed and millions displaced by the regime – a perfect example, if ever there was one, of a rogue government’s war against its own people.

But the struggle for Syria, like that in Iraq, must now be pursued at political and diplomatic registers. Re-engagement in Syria is essential, because the goal now must be to split the Astana talks partnership of Russia, Turkey and Iran, and to even draw the Assad regime away from Iran and Hezbollah.

Recent developments in Iraq suggest that serious diplomatic and political efforts based on positive inducements, promoting Arab identity, and leveraging specific national interests, rather than dependency on Iran can be effective even under circumstances where Tehran once seemed to be in complete control.

The realities of Syria’s dictatorship may make this task even more complex than the fragmented politics of Iraq did. But there is no way Russia or the Assad regime wish to remain forever at the mercy of Iran.

There is much to work with already, and such fissures can and should be widened and exploited. In an abstracted moral universe, no one would ever again deal with such a blood-soaked regime. But in the real world, everyone is going to have to. They may as well get started now.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/with-james-mattis-gone-the-last-of-the-grown-ups-has-left-the-trump-administration-1.805297

The defence secretary’s resignation after the president’s reckless decision to withdraw US troops from Syria is to his credit, but the world’s detriment

The resignation of defence secretary Jim Mattis last week bears the hallmarks of a significant turning point for the Trump administration. What it stands for in foreign policy, and how it is likely to conduct itself for the second half of its term are now much clearer – and the implications are alarming.

Mr Mattis cited a broad philosophical disagreement with President Donald Trump. In his resignation letter, he wrote of “treating allies with respect”, “being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors”, and doing “everything possible to advance an international order” as core principles to which he is committed. His letter left no doubt that Mr Trump does not share these commitments.

The Trump administration has been steadily shedding the “grown-ups” – seasoned and accomplished professionals and practitioners, such as Rex Tillerson, HR McMaster, Gary Cohen and John Kelly – and now no one with the will, credibility and gravitas to challenge or restrain Mr Trump is left.

Worse, “America first” – the amorphous phrase Mr Trump uses to describe his policies – is finally starting to become clearly defined, in a disturbing manner.

The Trump administration has thus far been Janus-faced, especially in foreign policy.

At times, it has pursued a kind of robust internationalism recognisable from Republican Cold War traditions. But at other times it has appeared to be neo-isolationist and, at best, mercantilist, by emphasising the expansion of exports at the expense of all other goals.

Mr Trump’s idiosyncratic views – such as hostility to trade, multilateral alliances, and traditional partners, his commitment to bilateralism in all things, and his strange affinity for dictators rather than the elected leaders of other democracies – were often held in check during his first two years in office by the dwindling cadre of “grown-ups” around him.

Now that they are all gone, there is no one left who is either willing or able to tell the president when he’s about to make a colossal blunder.

The proximate cause of Mr Mattis’s resignation – Syria – is a perfect case in point.

Mr Trump has long wanted to pull American troops out of Syria and Afghanistan. He has said so many times, and he has tried to order the withdrawal of US forces from Syria in the past.

But Mr Mattis and others repeatedly confronted him with the implications of such a reckless action, and each time he capitulated.

Apparently, he’s no longer willing to do that.

It is widely reported that a week ago Mr Trump called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to warn him not to attack US-allied Kurdish forces in northern Syria. His staff had created a well-thought-out agenda and carefully constructed talking points to try to achieve that uncontroversial goal.

Then Mr Trump went wildly off script.

When Mr Erdogan urged him to withdraw US forces from Syria, Mr Trump shocked both his own staff and the Turkish leader by readily agreeing, leaving Mr Erdogan as the one suddenly warning about the dangers of a precipitous US exit.

But it was too late. Mr Trump was determined to follow through with this folly, no matter what.

Almost no one supported his decision among his own senior staff or knowledgeable Republicans in Congress. Many pointed out that this would be a huge victory for the Assad regime, Vladimir Putin and, above all, Iran, and noted that ISIS is by no means defeated and could well stage a major comeback in the vacuum left by US forces.

They also pointed out that this was an unconscionable betrayal of the Kurdish and Arab fighters who have been the main US ground forces against ISIS, and are now being offered up to their Turkish and Syrian regime enemies.

Mr Mattis went to see Mr Trump in a last effort to convince him to avoid this historic strategic, political and moral misstep.

He was unsuccessful, and therefore resigned.

The lessons are unmistakable and deeply alarming.

Following this episode, and with no “grown-ups” left, there is no one to restrain Mr Trump’s worst impulses. And “America first” now plainly involves some mixture of irresponsible neo-isolationism and an almost wilful disregard for the interests of allies.

It’s understandable that Mr Mattis can no longer, in good conscience, be part of this fiasco.

Major foreign-policy decisions made on the basis of delusions (that ISIS has been thoroughly defeated), disregard of consequences (huge victories for Iran and ISIS), historical amnesia (how ISIS emerged from a similar rushed withdrawal from Iraq), and against the advice of all experts, officials and, especially, allies, can only lead to disaster.

It is to Mr Mattis’s credit that the betrayal of Washington’s Syrian allies in this case, and the global system of alliances in general, underpins his resignation.

Mr Trump keeps handing US enemies, including Russia, North Korea, China and now Iran, extraordinary and undeserved victories. It’s no wonder his defence chief wants nothing more to do with it.

How much more the country as a whole can take is becoming an increasingly open question too.

With reckless incompetence at this scale combining with mounting scandals and criminal investigations, the answer may not necessarily be two more years.

https://agsiw.org/mattis-resignation-is-bad-news-for-gulf-arab-countries/

Dealing with an unpredictable, exceptionally political, and nonstrategic administration in Washington poses serious problems for all U.S. allies, including those in the Gulf.

On December 20, U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis announced he would be stepping down, after he reportedly failed to dissuade President Donald J. Trump from announcing the rapid withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Syria. Mattis’ resignation has significant, and almost entirely negative, implications for the Gulf Arab countries and their relations with the United States.

Most obviously, with the departure of Mattis, the Gulf countries lose a familiar and much-appreciated U.S. interlocutor who they have known and worked with for many years. From 2010-13, Mattis served as the head of U.S. Central Command from which he ran major portions of the conflict in Iraq. In that role, he came to perceive regional dynamics from a similar perspective to many Gulf Arab states, developing a negative view of the role of Iran. As Trump’s defense secretary, Mattis was a key figure in developing a more robust policy of confronting Iran and restoring U.S. focus on two issues central to Gulf Arab concerns: Iran’s missile development program and its destabilizing regional policies, particularly support for nonstate armed groups such as sectarian militias.

So, Mattis’ departure means the loss of a key interlocutor at the Department of Defense, the Cabinet-level agency with which the Gulf countries deal most. It also means losing a senior figure who views Middle Eastern strategic realities in terms very similar to their own. The fact that Mattis resigned over policy disagreements with the president does not bode well for future trends in Washington from a Gulf Arab perspective. It’s unlikely that Mattis’ replacement will understand, and indeed share, as much of the Gulf Arab regional strategic evaluation. So, his resignation will undoubtedly be a blow to their interests and could complicate their relations with Washington, and particularly the Pentagon.

This is also suggested by the proximate cause of Mattis’ resignation: Trump’s sudden decision to withdraw all U.S. forces from Syria as soon as possible. This decision, which Mattis reportedly attempted to reverse in a meeting with Trump, is extremely troubling for Gulf Arab interests. Among the biggest winners from it will be Iran, which now has a chance to consolidate a decisive position in the emerging postwar Syria. Tehran may even be able to finally construct its long-coveted “land bridge” to the Mediterranean, a secure military corridor running through Iraq and Syria down into Lebanon, especially since the biggest obstacle to this has been U.S. and U.S.-backed forces in key areas of eastern Syria such as Al Bukamal and Al-Tanf, where the United States has a military base. With these forces removed, there may be little stopping Iran and its proxies from creating such a strategic asset.

For Gulf countries, which have a large stake in Syria but few resources on the ground, it will mean rapidly shifting their approach. Like many others, including the Kurdish and Arab groups that have been allied with the United States in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, they will have little choice but to try to ally with Turkey and Russia, and possibly even the regime of President Bashar al-Assad itself, to try to block Iran and Hezbollah from emerging as the primary winners from the Syrian conflict and avoiding Tehran becoming a fully realized regional superpower. Gulf countries have been preparing for this contingency, but had hoped to continue to rely on Washington, a long-standing and well-established ally, rather than Ankara and Moscow, with which they are still struggling to build closer ties, and which may not share many of their most important goals.

The Syria decision in particular, and Trump’s lack of regard for long-standing alliances cited in Mattis’ resignation letter in general, have troubling implications for Gulf-U.S. relations. They suggest that U.S. foreign policy in the Trump era is guided by very narrowly drawn self-interest. Trump’s “America first” policy is looking increasingly like a mercantilist agenda with a large amount of neo-isolationism informing it. Trump’s policies and speeches, and key documents such as the National Security Strategy issued in December 2017, have articulated an incongruous mixture of traditional Republican internationalism inherited from the Cold War era, a mercantilist emphasis on boosting exports reminiscent of 17th and 18th century thinking, and an isolationist streak that seems to harken back to the period between World War I and World War II.

Moreover, Mattis was the last remaining Cabinet secretary among the “grown-ups” in the Trump administration who were seen, both domestically and internationally, as adding vital experience, knowledge, gravitas, and broader perspective to an administration that lacks these qualities at the top. Other such figures, including HR McMaster, Rex Tillerson, Gary Cohn, and even John Kelly, have, one by one, either left or been forced out of the administration. Trump is increasingly unbound by powerful, independent advisors who are willing to say “no” to, or challenge, the president. Indeed, with Kelly and Mattis leaving, it’s hard to identify anyone in the Trump administration who could play such a role.

That leaves the president in complete control of his foreign policy agenda and capable of making radical decisions, such as the sudden and complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria, and the 50 percent reduction in U.S. forces in Afghanistan, over the objections of virtually everyone else, including almost all of his own experts, and Republican allies in Congress. This raises a final concern from a Gulf Arab perspective, which many other U.S. allies will share: the total primacy of politics over both policy and strategy. It is virtually impossible to explain or justify the Syria withdrawal in terms of coherent policy or rational strategy. Indeed, it flies directly in the face of Trump’s own stated priorities of defeating terrorism and confronting Iran, since ISIL and Tehran will be among the largest and most immediate beneficiaries of the withdrawal.

But clearly the president believes that removing U.S. troops from Syria will be extremely popular with his base in the right wing of the Republican Party. That such a momentous decision seems to have been taken for entirely domestic political reasons without any regard for policy implications or strategic consequences puts U.S. allies, including Gulf Arab countries, in an extremely difficult position. They must be concerned that not only will their interests not be taken into consideration, but traditional understandings of the U.S. national interest won’t be either.

To try to predict Trump’s next move will essentially mean trying to understand what he thinks will play well with his domestic constituency, a process complicated by the degree of disregard, or even hostility, to the outside world, including long-standing allies, that is one of the characteristics of this presidency. Given the mercantilist aspect of the agenda, financial inducements may be the only reliable guide left, but that’s not much for U.S. allies to work with in the bigger picture. Gulf Arab countries thus approach 2019 dealing with a new, Trumpian Washington that is far more unpredictable, harder to read, and apparently more unreliable, than they had heretofore imagined.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/donald-trump-s-withdrawal-of-troops-from-syria-is-a-huge-win-for-damascus-moscow-and-tehran-1.804679

The US president has dropped the ball on two key foreign policy goals – combating terrorism and confronting Iran

US President Donald Trump yesterday stunned Washington by ordering the complete withdrawal of all US forces in Syria, beginning immediately.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. Mr Trump frequently promised a withdrawal and tried to order it several times, only to be blocked by a near-unanimous outcry.

Most other parties can see that this move makes no sense, especially since it is predicated on the delusion that ISIS is no longer a meaningful threat.

That is obviously wrong. It is a reprise of George W Bush announcing in 2003 that it was game over in Iraq, with a “mission accomplished” banner as a backdrop – a speech that was followed by a sharp rise in insurgency and attacks.

Estimates suggest about 20,000 ISIS militants remain active in Syria and Iraq and no one really believes the group has been decisively “defeated”.

Although this rapid withdrawal has a certain nativist and neo-isolationist appeal for Mr Trump, it completely sabotages two of his key international priorities.

Along with challenging China and others on trade, Mr Trump has identified combating terrorism and confronting Iran as his main foreign policy goals.

Walking away from Syria, especially for no good reason and at an extremely precarious time, when the post-ISIS environment is being shaped daily on the ground, drops the ball decisively on both.

Areas where the ISIS caliphate used to predominate and that US-backed forces now control will likely fall into the hands of the Assad regime, Iran or Hezbollah if US troops abandoned the field.

That’s a huge win for Damascus, Moscow and Tehran. It would be entirely possible for Iran to conclude that the financial cost of the new sanctions is more than compensated by this titanic strategic victory.

It might even make a Tehran-controlled land bridge from the Iranian border through Iraq and Syria into Lebanon, and all the way to the Mediterranean sea, at last a reality. Tehran could be forgiven for concluding its earlier sacrifices were worth every penny.

In the process, of course, ISIS is likely to make a comeback, presenting itself as the only effective defender of local Sunni Arab populations being set upon by fanatical sectarian enemies. It’s probably the only scenario that could lead to a quick and comprehensive resurrection of the extremist group.

Worse, this is exactly what happened in Iraq when Barack Obama continued to withdraw US forces precipitously until 2011, causing a previously moribund Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia to morph into ISIS and launch its rampage.

The withdrawal would not only be a huge victory for Tehran, its proxies, and ISIS. It will also deliver a death blow to US credibility, given the abandonment of Kurdish and Arab groups in the Syrian Democratic Forces, which formed Washington’s ground troops fighting ISIS and will now be thrown to the mercy of Turkey and the Syrian regime.

ISIS is not fully defeated and yet those who fought and sacrificed their lives in battling the extremists are about to be callously abandoned. If that happens, why anyone would ever again regard Washington as a faithful and reliable ally?

There is no logical or strategic justification for this reckless move. Hence almost all of Mr Trump’s key officials, including national security adviser John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, special envoy to Syria Jim Jeffrey and head of the anti-ISIS coalition Brett McGurk have all publicly insisted the US was in no way preparing to leave Syria.

Mr Trump knows he has virtually no support for this among his own cabinet or Republicans in Congress but is moving quickly to make it a fait accompli before he can be stopped. It is reminiscent of how, when his former economic adviser Gary Cohn asked him why he clings to ridiculous views on trade, he answered: “I just do”.

But he must be persuaded to reverse this disastrous error. It is fortunate, in this case at least, that Mr Trump is so mercurial and changes his mind frequently in often dramatic ways.

This is the same man who went from threatening North Korea with “fire and fury” to rhapsodising about having “fallen in love” with its despotic leader Kim Jong-un a few months later.

On the same day he had announced a withdrawal from Syria, there was a very useful example of his ability to make a volte face on an issue he had strongly campaigned on.

For weeks, Mr Trump insisted he needed $5 billion for a border wall between the US and Mexico, insisted he would not take a penny less and vowed to shut down the government if he didn’t get it.

But yesterday, the Senate announced a new agreement for government funding until February, which includes no money for the wall and postpones the next round of negotiations until the new year, when Democrats will control the House of Representatives.

Mr Trump continues to bluster, rage and promise that his wall will be built, with or without Congress’s help. But the border wall remains entirely his fantasy while the government has remained open, despite his declarations.

In short, Mr Trump is perfectly capable of conceding that he has no intention of following through on any given pronouncement and that, on second thoughts, some flawed policy – whether shutting down the government or charging out of Syria – won’t be happening.

Those around Mr Trump still have a chance to persuade him to avoid this catastrophic blunder. Washington’s Arab allies should do whatever they can to help. It’s imperative they succeed – for Arab and American interests alike.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-12-18/tension-over-qatar-stalls-trump-s-mideast-agenda

The first step toward any progress for the U.S. would be to resolve the conflict between its allies.

President Donald Trump has at least one clear and coherent foreign policy goal: to try to force Iran back to the negotiating table for more favorable terms in a nuclear accord. His administration is trying to lead a “maximum pressure” campaign, including wide-ranging new sanctions. The problem is, the countries most important in supporting this initiative — Washington’s key Arab allies — are too busy squabbling among themselves.

A series of recent developments, and my own trip to the region this month, strongly suggest that this isn’t likely to change anytime soon. Unless, that is, Trump decides to get serious about ending the argument.

For decades, the mainstay of support for the U.S. and hosting of American military bases in the Persian Gulf region has been from Gulf Cooperation Council countries: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait.

But in June 2017, long-simmering tensions within the group boiled over as Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and Bahrain — joined by Egypt — announced a “boycott” of Qatar, which they accuse of promoting extremism and terrorism and coddling Iran. Qatar describes it as a “blockade” and says it’s being bullied by reactionary and autocratic neighbors.

Trump initially signaled support for the boycott but, over time, like the parties, Washington has apparently come to view the standoff as a “new normal,” despite the obvious disruption this is causing to the U.S. policy focus on Iran and complications for the massive American military assets strewn across these very countries.

Last week, the council held one of its increasingly truncated and pro forma leaders’ summits, but rather than pointing to a way forward, the dysfunctional meeting simply underlined and even exacerbated the internal Gulf Arab crisis. They are supposed to have annual summits with the U.S. president too, but that can hardly happen until their own differences are resolved.

Even more than last year’s meeting in Kuwait, which was suddenly cut short as tempers flared, this summit was a vivid enactment, in several episodes, of the depth of alienation among these core U.S. allies.

It was originally supposed to be held in Oman, but at the last minute, Saudi Arabia intervened and insisted it must be held in Riyadh.

Then Qatar began to complain that its ruler, Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, might not have been invited by the Saudis. When Riyadh made it clear that he was welcome, he refused to show up. The Saudis then framed that as an insult against them.

Meanwhile, the war of words continued to rage, with Qatar still complaining about being abused and with the boycotting countries dismissing Qatar as both irresponsible and irrelevant.

Worse, the standoff isn’t contained to internal council rows. Qatar recently withdrew its membership in the OPEC petroleum cartel, essentially to distance itself from Saudi Arabia.

And Qatar continues to deepen its ties to Turkey, which is a major beneficiary of the impasse.

But Turkey has also moved closer to Kuwait, which just signed a military cooperation agreement with Ankara.

One of the more dangerous effects of the lingering boycott is that not only Qatar but also Kuwait and Oman are becoming very nervous about what they see as an aggressive Saudi and Emirati effort to make all regional states conform to their agendas.

This is exacerbating one of the main reasons for the boycott: the sense that Turkey, in conjunction with Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood parties, constitutes a third, Sunni Islamist, bloc in the Middle East competing with both the pro-Iranian and pro-Saudi and U.S. camps.

While they won’t say so publicly, the boycotting quartet is increasingly concerned that, in a nightmare scenario, the Turkish-Qatari alliance could slowly begin to absorb other countries such as Kuwait and Jordan and constitute a real potential alternative set of allies against Iran for the U.S.

There are many reasons this scenario is far-fetched. It’s hard, after all, to imagine Washington basing its Middle East policies on a partnership with what amounts to an Islamist coalition.

But anxieties are running high, and such a scenario is not impossible. And there is no question that the boycott and its long-term impact is at best complicating and at worst disrupting the Trump administration’s efforts to keep everyone’s attention squarely focused on checking Tehran.

These and other recent developments show that the standoff is not only continuing, but in many crucial ways deepening. My own recent conversations with officials and experts in the U.A.E. indicated a clear determination to keep up, even intensify, the pressure on Qatar.

While Trump initially seemed to back the boycott, in fact Washington has adopted an effectively neutral stance on the confrontation.

It has been urging the Gulf Arabs to put their differences behind them and focus on countering Iran and terrorist groups. But it hasn’t made any major aspect of U.S. relations with any of these parties contingent on any particular outcome. So American interventions have basically been helpful hints rather than urgent demands.

Both sides have known from the beginning that the U.S. role could be decisive, but Washington hasn’t really tried to sort things out among its key Middle Eastern allies. The Trump administration would be wise to send two clear messages: First, Qatar’s policies, and especially its promotion of radicals, need to change. And second, on that basis the boycott needs to end. These messages need to be connected to real consequences. That’s the path to ending this impasse and achieving other key goals in the Middle East.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/as-trump-s-aura-of-invincibility-dims-he-will-seek-to-intensify-racial-and-cultural-divides-1.802919

Donald Trump’s political and legal predicaments are starting to look unsustainable. His presidential campaign, business, foundation, administration, and inaugural committee are now all, separately, under criminal investigation.

There are also criminal convictions or guilty pleas against his campaign manager, personal attorney, national security adviser, foreign policy adviser, and numerous other associates.

Most attention has understandably focused on Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the presidential campaign. And, indeed, it has already produced many important convictions and indictments.

But it was never right to view Mr Trump’s myriad problems through a mono-dimensional lens.

As legal experts Mikhaila Fogel and Benjamin Wittes argue, these manifold investigations are like “a multi-front siege on a walled city that is, in fact, relatively well fortified”. But if the defences are slowly degraded by constant attacks, eventually a political battering ram can bring the walls down.

The president’s new and massive legal crisis isn’t centred on Russian collusion, or money laundering, or even obstruction of justice. Instead it stems from the sentencing of his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, for hush-money payments to two women who say they had extramarital affairs with Mr Trump.

Buying the silence of Playmates and porn stars for personal reasons isn’t illegal. But if the intent was to protect the campaign, and someone other than Mr Trump paid – as Mr Cohen did – it was an unlawful campaign contribution and a major felony.

Mr Trump wasn’t merely deceiving his wife and friends. He was withholding crucial information from the voting public and, in effect, defrauding the election. It’s an extremely serious charge legally, politically and morally.

And Mr Trump’s story keeps changing wildly.

First, he said none of this ever happened. Then he said that if it did, he knew nothing about it. Then he admitted he did know about the payments, but only after the fact. And the payment’s aren’t a crime, he now claims, but if they were, that was Mr Cohen’s fault because he was the attorney. Moreover, Mr Trump insists that such payments are normal and private, and totally unconnected to the campaign.

But the payments were obviously prompted chronologically by the campaign. Mr Cohen admits that. Far worse, American Media Inc and its chairman, David Pecker, a close friend of Mr Trump, in consideration for a non-prosecution agreement, have also sworn the payments were entirely about the campaign.

Moreover, they say that Mr Pecker and Mr Cohen were joined at the crucial meeting in which the payoff plot was hatched by “at least one other member of the campaign”, widely, and unsurprisingly, reported to be Mr Trump himself.

The Justice Department has a rule against prosecuting sitting presidents. Otherwise, by now Mr Trump would surely have been indicted and facing prison time for this serious felony, which may have been decisive in helping him win the election.

The ironies are overwhelming.

The statute of limitations on such crimes is five years, meaning that in the 2020 election, Mr Trump will be fighting to either stay in the White House or probably go to prison on these charges alone. The implications of what that might prompt are terrifying.

Meanwhile, other massive investigations, especially Mr Mueller’s, are ongoing. Additional bombshells are likely.

No surprise, then, that in the midst of this maelstrom, Mr Trump picked a massive fight with Democratic leaders over a possible government shutdown, with the president demanding $5 billion for his preposterous border wall.

Legal woes aside, it has been clear since the November midterm elections that Mr Trump and the Republicans are in real political trouble.

He is convinced that immigration issues – effectively racial anxieties and white identity politics – were the key to his election. And he is sure that they are central to his chances of being re-elected and thereby remaining at liberty.

He has fashioned himself as the white, Christian tribal leader of the American majority, and as the staunch defender of their collective power.

The more trouble he is in, the more he will try to stir up as much racial, ethnic and cultural discord as possible, while painting his adversaries as soft on immigration, crime, national security and, essentially, white Christian communal interests.

As the walls have started closing in around him, the signs are ominous. Mr Trump has said “the people would revolt” if he were impeached. Senator Orrin Hatch summed up the views of many of his fellow Republicans by bluntly saying “I don’t care” about Mr Trump’s apparent involvement in major campaign violations.

So, the United States enters the second half of the Trump administration with a president with one foot in the White House and the other in prison, a dominant party that shrugs at major lawbreaking to gain power, and threats of violent rebellion if constitutional remedies to illegal acts are sought.

Meanwhile, many of the most serious allegations are still being quietly investigated. Almost everyone realises that the worst is yet to come and the chaos is only just beginning.

But at least Americans now know what long-suffering citizens of the “banana republics” to their south, so long the butt of demeaning jokes and stereotypes, have endured. If nothing else, a particularly offensive version of traditional Yankee arrogance must now be surely, and mercifully, extinct.

Donald Trump’s appointment of Heather Nauert as UN ambassador shows his disdain for multilateral institutions

The appointment of Washington’s new UN ambassador Heather Nauert reveals much about the politics within the Donald Trump administration and the trajectory of US foreign policy-making.

Mr Trump has always approached the presidency like a reality television producer, which was his most successful previous role. According to the New York Times, before taking office he even told his staff to consider every day of his administration to constitute an episode in which he ultimately vanquishes some opponent.

He was, after all, the simulacrum of a successful mogul on the television programme The Apprentice, one whose casino and hotels empire had repeatedly run into financial trouble and had been declared bankrupt several times. So this president is less interested in governing than in playing the role for the cameras and has even publicly referred to the White House as a “set”.

Consequently, Mr Trump has looked for new recruits – that is, supporting cast members – from, as he puts it, “central casting”. He wants people to “look the part”, as he imagines his viewers will as well.

There has always been a certain overlap between US television and the theatre of politics but under Mr Trump, those lines have become particularly blurred.

He has appointed a number of officials and senior aides from television, particularly from the Fox News channel, which has long supported him and, under his administration, all too often acts as a mouthpiece for the White House.

No programme has been more closely linked to Mr Trump than his favourite, the inane morning chat show Fox & Friends. Indeed, a number of studies have suggested that many of his more mysterious early morning tweets are directly prompted by the content of the show.

Now the link between this programme, its network and the administration has been greatly strengthened. Ms Nauert came to widespread attention as an anchor on that show, which led directly to her appointment, at the beginning of the administration, as the chief spokesperson for the State Department.

Blonde and attractive in the standard Fox News mould, Ms Nauert no doubt seemed straight out of Mr Trump’s vision of “central casting”, especially since she was unencumbered by any relevant diplomatic or administrative experience or expertise.

But central casting can be unreliable. Former Exxon chief Rex Tillerson was, around the same time, nominated as Secretary of State, partly because of the recommendation of Republican bigwig James Baker and partly because Mr Trump thought he “looked the part”.

But Mr Tillerson did not share much of Mr Trump’s vision of “America First” and the two rapidly fell out. It was to Ms Nauert’s huge advantage that she was ostentatiously marginalised by Mr Tillerson and appeared more eager than him to defend the president’s policies.

But her appointment isn’t just a reward for loyalty and yet another snub to Mr Tillerson. It also indicates the growing bureaucratic power of national security adviser John Bolton.

Mr Bolton had his own favourite for the post, current US ambassador to Germany and far-right activist Richard Grenell. But Ms Nauert will suit his purposes admirably.

The appointment of such a relative nonentity to the UN position conveys precisely the kind of disdain for multilateral institutions that Mr Bolton has championed.

Moreover, she will be in no position whatsoever to challenge Mr Bolton’s command of US foreign policy and her media-centred and skimpy resume suggests the most she will be expected to do is defend other people’s policies on television.

Mr Trump, too, will certainly welcome having a relative lightweight in the UN post. His initial appointment of former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley emerged as a serious mistake within months.

Along with Vice President Mike Pence, she was one of two potential successors as president within the administration. And unlike the vice president, she proved willing to stake out her own path and even challenge the president when she found it politically useful.

By the time Mr Trump had to replace Mr Tillerson, Ms Haley had ruled herself out as a candidate because she had used her UN post to become too powerful and independent.

But Ms Haley was one of the most senior of Mr Trump’s initial appointees. Ms Nauert, by contrast, is shockingly junior, to the point that she might not even be part of the cabinet (the UN post being cabinet secretary level at the discretion of the president).

Such a move will not only reassure Mr Trump that there will be no repetition of Ms Haley’s independence and potential challenge, which remains plausible even after – or perhaps especially because of – her resignation. Demoting the status of the UN envoy to sub-cabinet level would also undoubtedly please Mr Bolton and his allies by sending a message to multilateral institutions that they are not worthy of such top-level representation.

Even if she does end up sitting in the cabinet, however, Ms Nauert’s appointment will strongly solidify Mr Bolton’s pre-eminence in foreign policy-making, typically in coordination with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. And “America First” will continue its metamorphosis into America alone.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/climate-change-denial-is-just-the-latest-example-of-trump-s-post-truth-presidency-1.798696

Politically inconvenient reality is discarded by a president who claims gut instinct is more credible than hard fact

The Donald Trump administration is increasingly developing into a post-truth presidency and the costs are becoming clearer. On the Friday after Thanksgiving, one of the most low-key days on the US political calendar, the administration quietly released a bombshell scientific report.

Thirteen federal agencies collaborated on the major, 1,656-page study, which outlines the grave consequences of uncontrolled climate change. It predicts a devastating toll on the US economy, infrastructure, living spaces and public health if present practices continue.

The findings are alarming and unassailable. But they are also totally incompatible with the campaign of deregulation that has characterised the Trump administration’s environmental approach.

As president, Mr Trump employs a small army of scientists and experts, who have just collectively told him what they think.

His response has been to try to bury the report by releasing it during a public holiday, then scorning its findings by shrugging and saying: “I don’t believe it.”

It’s easy to see why Mr Trump prefers not to. Opposition to environmental regulation has been a cornerstone of his political profile, including dismissing climate change as a Chinese hoax designed to fleece Americans.

This is typical. The dismissal of fact and opposition to the very notion of truth as a measurable, verifiable phenomenon is essential to his presidency and, above all, to his campaign of de-institutionalisation in the US.

Mr Trump began as a national political figure by promoting an enormous and racist lie. Championing the conspiracy theory known as “birtherism”, he suggested Barack Obama was not born in the US and was therefore an illegitimate president.

Now he is president, Mr Trump frequently dismisses what his own experts say, deriding them as part of a corrupt “deep state” apparatus, full of partisan hacks. It’s the same charge he has been levelling at judges, the FBI, police and parts of the military.

Mr Trump’s political base has demonstrated an impressive appetite for falsehoods, which he is now estimated to have uttered 6,420 times in a mere 649 days as president. It’s mind-boggling.

He lies about things little and big, significant and insignificant. He lies constantly and apparently compulsively. No major American leader has ever wallowed in so much – often pointless – deceit.

People know this by now but a substantial group of Americans do not care. They believe that, through his false statements, Mr Trump is expressing a deeper or higher truth that resonates on an emotional register and therefore goes beyond mere fact.

The facts might be wrong, when, for example, Mr Trump asserts a correlation between immigration and crime. Indeed, there is a negative one: immigrants of all kinds commit crimes less frequently than native-born Americans.

But given a widespread racial and cultural hostility towards immigrants, who are often perceived as threatening the social, economic and political primacy of white Americans, the essential argument of a deadly threat is perceived as somehow correct, nonetheless.

Such “higher truths” were also embedded in administration efforts to falsely link terrorism to immigration that deliberately removed all instances of domestic terrorism from the statistical equation.

When defending Mr Trump, former House speaker Newt Gingrich asserted that violent crime is rising in US cities but was confronted with the fact that it has been consistently decreasing.

His reply perfectly encapsulated the post-truth logic. He insisted because “the average American does not think crime is down” that the two claims were “equally true”. He added: “I’ll go with how people feel and I’ll let you go with the theoreticians.”

This quintessentially Trump-style manoeuvre privileges popular prejudices over quantifiable evidence.

This attitude informed the Trump administration’s notorious championing of “alternative facts” and insistence that “truth isn’t truth” and “what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”

Politically inconvenient reality is dismissed as “fake news” and Mr Trump, with a straight face, asserts that his “gut” is more accurate than experts’ brains.

This post-truth political ecosystem is, crucially, impervious to contradiction or correction, precisely because it doesn’t purport to value or prioritise fact. Instead, the instincts of leaders and the prejudices of their followers are paramount measures of “truth”.

Since Mr Trump’s political career began with the birtherism delusion, it is unsurprising that what is now developing is an entire political atmosphere structured around the false logic of an obsessive conspiracy theory: if it feels right, it must be true.

Mr Trump’s thorough de-institutionalisation doesn’t only target existing organisations. It also attacks entire categories of knowledge.

Just as the media, police, courts, Congress and all other independent sources of information and authority must be systematically discredited and disempowered, the opponents of de-institutionalising leaders must also be denied a recourse to the facts. Otherwise, there’s every danger they might prove their point.

But if what people believe and leaders feel has primacy over verifiable or quantifiable knowledge, then meaningful conversation and, soon, political opposition, essentially ceases.

Another major obstacle to the leader’s will is swept aside − and democracy will surely die as a result.