Tehran’s Support for Sectarian Militias Grows Despite the Coronavirus and Economic Crisis

The Iranian government’s network of foreign militia groups represents its primary regional power projection and national security tool.

Despite being wracked by one of the world’s most severe outbreaks of the novel coronavirus on top of a preexisting economic crisis, Iran does not appear to have pulled back from its bellicose regional policies. Its network of armed surrogates, particularly the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq – and key allies such as the Houthis in Yemen – have maintained and even intensified their aggressive postures in local conflicts. But these groups are not operating in isolation. Rather, they belong to a network of militia groups that, for Tehran, represents its primary regional power projection and national security tool. For Iran’s Gulf Arab neighbors, and much of the rest of the international community, this network of militias that promotes state failure in Arab countries and undermines and usurps the authority of central governments lies at the heart of Iran’s destabilizing and dangerous regional policies.

Iranian government support for foreign militia groups has come under domestic intense criticism via both political and economic protests in recent years. While Tehran’s ability to fund and arm these groups has come at the expense of domestic social spending, particularly on healthcare and education, the regime appears as committed as ever to this strategy. The Trump administration calculated that the “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign imposed after Washington withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear agreement would force Tehran to curtail these activities. Yet, even after the devastating coronavirus outbreak, the policy persists. This suggests that nothing short of a broad regional agreement or a much deeper regime crisis, if not collapse, will convince Iran to forgo its widespread promotion of armed non-state groups in the Arab world, an important goal for Gulf Arab countries, the United States, Israel, and others.

PMF Escalation in Iraq

The most dramatic example of Tehran’s ongoing commitment to its regional militia network strategy is the recent escalation of tensions between the United States and pro-Iranian PMF groups in Iraq. After a series of tit-for-tat strikes and reprisals almost led to a broader war in 2019 and the beginning of 2020, tensions subsided following the assassination of Qassim Suleimani, commander of the Quds Force, the branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps that organizes and oversees the militia network. At the time, it was widely presumed that Tehran and its allied militias in Iraq were not satisfied with the outcome following largely ineffectual reprisals against U.S. targets on January 8. Another round was, therefore, expected.

That may have started with a second rocket attack against U.S. positions in Iraq on March 12. The strike killed two U.S. servicemen and a British medic. The attack was attributed to Kataib Hezbollah, one of the largest and most powerful of the pro-Iranian PMF Iraqi groups. Its leader, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was viewed as the senior-most official of the PMF groups, was killed in the same January 3 strike that killed Suleimani. Iran’s retaliation on January 8 did not, according to U.S. military sources, result in any U.S. fatalities. The March 12 rocket attack did, however, prompting further U.S. retaliation against Kataib Hezbollah’s weapons facilities.

Kataib Hezbollah’s motivation for further attacks seeking revenge for its slain leader is obvious, but Iran’s greenlight would almost certainly have been required. Tehran’s calculations in providing the go-ahead are rooted in the centrality of the militia network, especially Iraq, to Iran’s national security calculations. With its nuclear program still suspended despite the moribund status of the JCPOA, Iran has two major bargaining chips with the United States and other adversaries, including Gulf Arab countries: its ballistic missile program and its network of sectarian militias. Iran’s reliance on these militia groups for leverage with the United States became clear one year into the maximum pressure sanctions campaign. For the first year, Iran sought to wait the United States out and try to isolate Washington by collaborating with Europe to salvage the nuclear agreement. But when the sanctions began to take an unsustainable toll on Iran’s economy, Iran turned to the “maximum resistance” strategy, which mainly relied on pro-Iranian sectarian militia groups carrying out low-intensity harassment with a degree of plausible deniability.

Since the killing of Suleimani and, especially, Muhandis, Iran has faced a crisis regarding the unity of, and its control over, the PMF groups in Iraq. Suleimani’s successor as IRGC Quds Force commander, Ismail Qaani, is far less experienced than his predecessor, not fluent in Arabic, and has proven much less effective in managing these diffuse and unruly groups. Iran probably retains a broad veto on Kataib Hezbollah’s most consequential actions, so the idea that the March 12 attack took place without Tehran’s approval is implausible. But Iran’s full control of the groups appears to have significantly deteriorated.

Moreover, there is evidence of competition for power and tensions within the PMF factions. On February 21, PMF leaders named Abu Fadak al-Mohammedawi, another senior Kataib Hezbollah leader, to serve as al-Muhandis’ successor as head of the PMF’s military network. However, according to Ali Alfoneh a noted Iran specialist and senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, “there were at least two other serious candidates for the role from other groups.” Alfoneh concluded: “There is a lot of tension and instability within the PMF.” Hence, he says, Iran’s interests in greenlighting further revenge attacks against U.S. targets. “By continuing operations against the United States, Tehran proves… that killing Suleimani does not deter Iran.” Moreover, he adds, “the groups committing such attacks gain the upper hand in the rivalry within the PMF.” Iran, he suggests, “is probably hoping that these attacks also help to consolidate the new PMF leadership after the killing of Muhandis.” Before the attacks, he says, the PMF groups were in a state of serious disarray.

Iran’s Immediate Goal: Expel U.S. Forces from Iraq

Iraq remains without a confirmed prime minister and its parliament continues to face pressure to expel U.S. forces from the country. The PMF groups are nominally part of the Iraqi government’s security establishment. Therefore, U.S. strikes against their positions and leaders, even in retaliation for PMF attacks aimed at U.S. targets, typically meet with widespread anger. Even Iraqi politicians broadly sympathetic to the West and skeptical about Iran’s intentions feel the need to complain about such counterstrikes. Following the U.S. attacks in January, Iraq’s parliament voted overwhelmingly to expel all foreign forces from the country, in a move widely seen as primarily aimed at the United States. However, the measure was not self-enforcing and merely empowered the prime minister to seek this result. But Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi had already resigned in December as a result of widespread popular protests, and Iraq has not had a confirmed and empowered prime minister since.

Many Iraqi leaders would prefer to see U.S. forces remain engaged in Iraq as a hedge against both the resurgence of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and the expansion of Iranian hegemony. Yet Iran, with its back to the wall economically and further ravaged by the coronavirus, is trying to secure its gains and advantage in Iraq. Alfoneh explains that Iran can afford to continue to push its agenda in Iraq, particularly because the Iraqi government largely pays PMF group expenses on the grounds they are nominally under the control of the government. Meanwhile, Tehran is also losing ground in Syria, where Russia, particularly in the battle against the Turkish incursions in the north, is increasingly asserting its dominance. Iran could not, under current circumstances, afford a repetition of the 2015-17 surge with Russia and Hezbollah in Syria that suddenly shifted the momentum of the war away from the rebels and towards the regime.

Moreover, the coronavirus and economic crisis are apparently chipping away at domestic security and law and order inside Iran. Both at home and abroad, the Iranian regime needs a win, quickly. And it needs to consolidate the new leadership of the PMF. That combination of factors explains the resurgence of attacks against U.S. targets in Iraq. More may follow. In mid-March, a supposedly new pro-Iranian Iraqi sectarian militia group called the League of Revolutionaries claimed responsibility for the recent strikes and vowed further attacks and “martyrdom operations” against U.S. forces and U.S.-related interests in Iraq. In response, the United States has vowed retaliation, is installing new Patriot missile batteries in Iraq, and has consolidated its forces into a smaller number of forward-operating bases.

Iran’s Broader Goal: Removing U.S. Sanctions

The Iranian regime’s medium-term goal, however, remains clawing its way out of the suffocating hole of U.S. maximum pressure sanctions. The Tehran regime believes it needs a military instrument to achieve this, and that it will not be possible without leverage of its own. Far from persuading Iran to abandon such a campaign, additional pressure from the coronavirus appears to have only intensified Tehran’s urgency to liberate itself from sanctions. The oil price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia is deepening Iran’s economic woes. And the coronavirus caps it all off. In short, the Iranian regime faces a perfect storm of internal and external pressures, which constrains its options and undermines its strategic position.

These crises, therefore, have had the opposite effect some Trump administration officials have expected. Rather than persuading Iran of the folly and counterproductivity of its regional destabilization strategy, they may have persuaded Iran of its absolute necessity. This is especially true given that Hezbollah in Lebanon is mostly self-financing, the Houthis in Yemen are probably even more independent, and the Baghdad government largely underwrites the Iraqi PMF groups. If the Gulf Arab countries, the United States and others, such as Israel, hope to end Iran’s policy of supporting sectarian armed groups in neighboring Arab countries, even the heavy pressure Tehran is under with sanctions and the coronavirus is not enough. In fact, it may well be encouraging the Iranian regime to see its support of PMF groups as essential to its defense. Therefore, either much greater pressure or, more plausibly, a new understanding with Iran is needed to achieve that vital aim.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-30/the-coronavirus-could-force-a-new-reality-on-gaza?srnd=opinion

An outbreak in the strip would require Israel, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority to come to terms.

Perhaps it was too much to hope that the closure of Gaza would help protect it from the spread of the coronavirus. Last week, officials announced that two Gaza residents who had recently returned from Pakistan had tested, and that they had infected seven others.

It’s hard to think of anywhere else in the world where this virus could take a greater toll, per capita, than the strip. Over 1.85 million Palestinians are crammed into a mere 141 square miles, a population density similar to many megacities. Most are refugees or their descendants. Living conditions have been poor since 1948, but deteriorated significantly after the Hamas takeover of the territory in 2007, the war with Israel in 2008, and the subsequent blockade by Israel and Egypt.

In 2018, the UN said the Gaza healthcare system was on the brink of collapse due to a combination of underdevelopment, damage by Israeli attacks and the myriad negative consequences of the closure of the territory for more than a decade.

Palestinians in Gaza are already highly susceptible to illnesses because of widespread unemployment and poverty, food insecurity, lack of adequate potable water, the inability to treat sewage and frequent power outages. Gaza is one of the worst places imaginable to get a serious disease, with a mere 70 ICU beds available. If the coronavirus spreads there, the healthcare system lacks the necessary tools, including tests, personal protective equipment and ventilators.

Gaza residents can ask for Israel’s permission to go to the West Bank for treatment, but that’s usually denied; besides, the West Bank may be overburdened as well. It’s hard to imagine many Palestinians from Gaza being allowed access treatment in Israeli hospitals.

Egypt, too, is unlikely to be able or willing to help much. The government in Cairo already regards the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza as a serious potential threat to its security. Egypt would like a solution to address Gazans’ basic human needs without unduly strengthening Hamas, which much of the world considers a terrorist organization.

Israel, too, has been cognizant of the threat that intolerable living conditions in Gaza could pose to its security. International and Arab donors have been willing to finance aid and reconstruction.

But the Palestinian Authority has shied away from any agreement to return it to nominal power in Gaza and oversee a wide-ranging humanitarian program unless Hamas disarms. PA President Mahmoud Abbas says he’s not willing to tolerate a replica of Hezbollah in Lebanon where the government has all the responsibility but Hezbollah, because of its Iran-backed militia, welds all the power.

The interim and highly imperfect solution has been for Israel to allow Hamas’ patron, Qatar, to dispatch cash to Gaza on a quarterly basis,. to pay public employees and keep most people fed. But that’s not going to do much to combat a coronavirus epidemic.

Hamas is clearly alarmed. It recently called off planned mass protests for March 30, and has quarantined 1,700 Gazans. It is also pleading for international aid and support. The UN Special Coordinator Nickolay Mladenov has expressed specific concern about Gaza and the coronavirus, but no specific measures or funding have been announced.

A major outbreak could force all parties to reconsider the status quo of semi-permanent closure in Gaza. Israel and Egypt might see their worst fears about instability and chaos on their borders realized. Hamas would be overwhelmed, and could even be overthrown. And the PA may face overwhelming pressure from its own public to act.

Abbas will be the key, since a Palestinian alternative to Hamas is essential to oversee any assistance. All other parties will have to find a way of pressuring him to say yes to a risky agreement with Hamas, while making sure that he has the financial, diplomatic and political backing he needs to make it work and prevent Hamas from emerging the big winners.

Relations between the PA and Israel have hardly ever been worse, particularly given Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposals—apparently endorsed by President Donald Trump—for more Israeli annexation in the West Bank. Yet the coronavirus has been enough of a common threat to prompt unprecedented cooperation, to try to contain the spread of the virus on both sides of this bitter divide.

In their own self-interest and to prevent a humanitarian calamity, all parties—including Hamas, the PA, Israel, Egypt and international donors—may yet be forced by the pandemic to finally develop a new arrangement for Palestinians in Gaza.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/in-the-west-coronavirus-is-forcing-populism-to-go-on-sick-leave-1.998644

Leaders who rose to power denigrating expertise and international co-operation are now having to rely on both elements in a time of crisis

The coronavirus pandemic has all the elements needed to undo the rise of insurgent, nativist populism in the West. The crisis could prove an incontrovertible refutation of the anti-state and anti-expertise arguments on which such populism is based.

US President Donald Trump embodies the western form of demagoguery that casts itself as championing the “forgotten”, supposedly “real” (usually non-urban, white), people against “elites”, experts and professionals. It is very different from Vladimir Putin’s nationalist populism in Russia, which celebrates the state and even involves nostalgia for the former Soviet Union, or the Chinese variety that venerates the wisdom and authority of the government.

By contrast, Mr Trump aggressively disdains administration and expertise. He invariably asserts that he knows more than seasoned professionals about any given topic and that his instincts and intuition are superior to their knowledge and experience. But this narrative might not survive his mishandling of the coronavirus.

Mr Trump is a champion of weakening government regulations on businesses. He has in the past dismissed the significance and worth of professional experts, including scientists, military leaders, economists, diplomats, intelligence and law enforcement officials, as well as others – often his own appointees.

His first White House chief strategist, Steve Bannon, vowed that the main aim of the Trump administration would be what he called “the deconstruction of the administrative state”. And, indeed, with the systematic removal of experienced professionals and promotion of a menagerie of cronies and sycophants, this has been accomplished to an alarming degree.

However, it has led directly to the bungling of the coronavirus crisis, particularly the cascading fiascoes over testing, equipment, hospital capacity and medicines. There has been no meaningful overall national policy on the crisis, with local and state officials largely left to fend for themselves as the president frequently dismisses concerns as overblown hype and even a “hoax”.

His attacks on the “administrative state” produced this failure and the resulting scope of the healthcare and economic crises.

A year into his term, Mr Trump eliminated the global health security directorate at the National Security Council, which had been established after the 2014 Ebola outbreak.

It left behind a detailed playbook for dealing with just such a public health security crisis. Yet, not only has the Trump administration not followed these recommendations, in many cases it has done precisely the opposite, especially with lack of planning, inaction and spreading of misinformation. Though repeatedly warned about the coming crisis in January, the administration essentially did nothing for many weeks.

Now, ironically, Mr Trump is relying for his future on the very experts he is usually so ready to deride as nefarious operatives of a fictional “deep state” conspiracy against him.

By November, Americans may have concluded that this “deconstruction of the administrative state” has consequences and that the country desperately needs professional expertise and administrative experience after all.

A similar process is unfolding in the UK, where efforts by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to combat the virus with insouciant nonchalance and a refusal to mandate social distancing collapsed as the real threat to public health and security became clear. This was underscored when Mr Johnson himself tested positive for the coronavirus.

Mr Johnson and his Brexit allies have championed a comparable anti-expertise and anti-administration ethos to that of the staunchly anti-science Republican Party under the leadership of Mr Trump.

But a crisis that can only be combated by scientific rigour and professional competence will surely undercut the appeal of this attitude, exemplified by Michael Gove’s notorious declaration that “the British people have had enough of experts”.

In some countries with far younger and weaker institutions than the US and the UK the structures of accountable government are being undermined by cynical demagogues.

In Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu has effectively suspended the country’s parliamentary system and, crucially, closed the courts in which he was supposed to be facing major criminal corruption charges. Ordering a nationwide shutdown, he effectively told Israelis that they have to remain in their homes so that he can continue to stay in his.

In Hungary, Viktor Orban is set to use the crisis to rule by decree.

But in the US, any similar suspension of basic constitutional processes is unlikely to succeed, even under dire circumstances. The public will soon get the opportunity to revisit its recent infatuation with brazenly inexpert and defiantly amateurish governance in the name of a tribal nationalism.

Across the West, the champions of parochialism and xenophobia, often tinged with thinly veiled or even open racism, have seized on the pandemic to stoke fear of foreigners and champion closed borders and travel and migration restrictions.

European demagogues such as former Italian deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini have tried to link, without evidence, the spread of the virus to migration and refugees. And, when he wants to rile his white nationalist base, Mr Trump refers to the “Chinese virus”, although when he is getting along with Chinese leaders he reverts to the standard “coronavirus” terminology.

This massive crisis is likely to prove a defining test in western countries for the populist challenge to centrist and tolerant governance at home and to multilateralism and economic globalisation internationally.

In this initial phase, almost all national leaders are benefiting from an instinctive “rally around the flag” crisis response from the public, although Mr Trump’s bump in popularity is strikingly small compared with both his US predecessors and current international peers. In the long run, though, it is hard to imagine a more powerful case against the two main pillars of western populism: the denigration of expertise and hostility towards international co-operation, since successfully combating the virus requires an emphasis on both.

The great political scientist Walter Russell Mead notes that “both the medical and economic dimensions of the pandemic call for expert leadership and international co-operation”, and that this could signal a resurgence of “centrist politics and policymaking” in the West and the revival of global multilateralism.

The US election in November, effectively a referendum on Mr Trump, will be the clearest indication of whether populist demagoguery in the West will be the coronavirus’ most consequential victim.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/how-will-president-joe-biden-deal-with-the-middle-east-1.995637

The former vice president will present himself as a return to normalcy in US foreign policy but the world he will confront and the America he will lead are greatly changed.

Last week, former US vice president Joe Biden consolidated his de facto triumph in the Democratic Party primaries with another series of crushing victories over Bernie Sanders. He will, almost certainly, face US President Donald Trump in the general election in November.

Mr Trump went to considerable lengths to avoid this, including trying to coerce Ukraine into announcing a groundless investigation into Mr Biden, for which he was impeached. But if Mr Trump feared Mr Biden months ago, his anxieties must have multiplied exponentially. The coronavirus is wreaking havoc on the US economy, gutting the president’s main re-election pitch. And his striking mishandling of the crisis could haunt him.

The key to contemporary American national elections is turnout. There are considerably more Democrats than Republicans. But Republicans are much better at motivating and mobilising their supporters.

When Democrats are inspired to vote, as they were by Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, they win. When he was not on the ballot in the two mid-term elections during his presidency in 2010 and 2014, they lost. Hillary Clinton was a remarkably unappealing candidate and the resulting low voter turnout was the key to Mr Trump’s victory in 2016.

The Democratic voter enthusiasm displayed in the 2018 mid-terms and recent primaries is likely to repeat itself in November. Most Democrats and many independents despise and fear Mr Trump, and they yearn to send him packing.

While November is a long way off, Mr Biden looks well-positioned to win. So, it is not too early to begin to ask what a Biden foreign policy, especially towards the Middle East, might look like.

The biggest change would be a return to actual policy. While he has attitudes, Mr Trump does not engage in or show an understanding of the category of policy as usually conceptualised. Almost everything he does is based on contingent and personal political calculations. Mr Biden is also a self-serving politician, but he will almost certainly re-introduce actual, traditional policy calculations into US decision-making.

He will promise, and probably genuinely try to deliver, a good deal of repair work to reverse many of Mr Trump’s innovations. Mr Biden and most of his advisers are internationalists from the Obama White House who share a commitment to a rules-based order – a vision explicitly and derisively rejected by Mr Trump.

Traditional alliances such as Nato and all manner of multilateral agreements and organisations, including on climate and trade, will again be at the forefront of American thinking.

However, Mr Trump and Mr Obama both stressed the need for “burden-sharing” that asks US allies to do more for themselves. Mr Biden is likely to continue that, and possibly take it further than ever. The American public has little appetite for international – and particularly military – engagement, especially in the Middle East.

The instinctive political calculation could be to try to base a Biden foreign policy around that core impulse, although the option of trying to galvanise Americans around renewed US global leadership is certainly an option with influential Democratic proponents. Conventional wisdom suggests that Mr Biden especially might try to further reduce the US role in the Middle East. But this is by no means certain.

Unlike some Democrats, Mr Biden does not propose simply trying to resurrect the Iran nuclear deal. That is not possible and, despite anger at Mr Trump’s trashing of Mr Obama’s signature foreign policy accomplishment, a Biden administration would have to factor in the leverage Mr Trump’s “maximum pressure” sanctions against Iran have produced.

Tehran is undoubtedly yearning for a Trump defeat. But, if he wins, Mr Biden is unlikely to be gullible enough to allow Iran to benefit immediately or unconditionally. He could seek a new understanding with Iran, but probably not based on appeasement or naive and excessive conciliation.

Much of the Democratic mainstream has become sceptical about some key US Middle East alliances, particularly with Saudi Arabia. Riyadh has some ground to make up with Democrats in the US Congress, foreign policy professionals and, almost certainly, a Biden White House.

Saudi Arabia has made some progress in reaching out to Democrats in recent months, so they will not be starting from zero. But it is crucial not to underestimate the misgivings regarding the alliance that have taken hold among many Democrats who now see it as closely linked to a tainted Trump agenda. Mr Biden will not be the only one needing to do repair work.

He will also inherit the bad blood between the Obama administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Assuming Mr Netanyahu is still leading the Israeli government, and not sitting in the dock, this will complicate any effort to mend the extreme damage Mr Trump has done to US policy regarding peace and a two-state solution.

Some things cannot be undone. The US embassy will not return to Tel Aviv, although the US position on occupied East Jerusalem can and must be clarified. A Biden administration would approach Israel issues cautiously. However, the deep discomfort with the Trump-Kushner annexation proposal in the Democratic Party and, crucially, the Jewish-American mainstream suggests that there could be significant support for moving quickly to repudiate it and repair ties to the Palestinians.

Mr Biden has extensive foreign policy experience, but he often overestimates his personal expertise. Like Mr Trump, he resists being scripted and tends to feel he knows more about international relations than anyone else in the room.

Much, therefore, will depend on his own instincts and inclinations. The track record appears to point towards a fundamentally cautious approach, but, until they are in office, it is hard to know how anyone will approach momentous choices like the use of force.

Mr Biden will present himself as a return to normalcy and heir to Mr Obama’s international agenda, perhaps in total sincerity. But the world he will confront and the America he will lead are greatly changed – including by the coronavirus – in ways yet to be understood.

Whatever Mr Biden presently intends to do, if he wins, will immediately crash into unanticipated realities. Those realities, more than anything else, will shape his policies.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/in-coronavirus-donald-trump-has-met-his-match-1.992671

When the painful blows coming to Americans’ daily lives, health and wallets hit, it is his presidency that could become Covid-19’s most politically significant victim

The biggest question hanging over the Donald Trump presidency was how this political novice with evident disdain for expertise and boundless faith in his own instincts might cope with an unanticipated crisis. Due to the coronavirus, we now know: very badly.

The US president has met his match, and Covid-19 has cast serious doubt on his reelection prospects.

Mr Trump is a self-promoter, showman and salesman. His career has been based around what his 1987 memoir, Trump: The Art of the Deal, euphemistically dubbed “truthful hyperbole”. He is used to saying whatever he thinks will sound good.

However, the virus cannot be misled, bullied or cowed into submission.

Mr Trump’s first and most persistent instinct is to deny that any problem is serious. From the beginning, he has downplayed the pandemic, declared it contained and defeated, compared it to “the common flu”, and consistently suggested in many ways that concerns are vastly overblown. Yet the virus spread.

His second reflexive response is to blame others. For a President of the United States, that just does not work. He keeps untruthfully claiming that the previous administration, led by Barack Obama, put regulations in place that hampered his government’s ability to implement widespread testing. He is clinging tenaciously to this utter falsehood.

It will not work, because while the American system bestows enormous power on its presidents, it equally does not give them – especially after the first year – the ability to blame anybody else for tragic and consequential missteps.

Mr Trump insists he will not take any responsibility for the testing fiasco. But he knows he will be blamed.

Most Americans have yet to feel the real economic, social and health impact of the coronavirus. And Mr Trump and his allies, particularly on Fox News, have been spouting the conspiracy theory that this pandemic is being over-hyped by his enemies to try to overthrow him.

As long as the threat feels distant and theoretical, many Republicans may swallow that bilge. But once they face mounting closures and restrictions, economic downturn, and the sickness and possibly deaths of friends and relatives, the notion this is all overblown will not last.

Mr Trump’s presidency is therefore facing an existential threat it may not survive.

In times of crisis, Americans turn to their president for inspiration, reassurance, guidance and the steady hand of leadership. On March 11, Mr Trump finally addressed the nation on primetime television regarding the pandemic. It was arguably the most ineffective and even damaging speech any American president has ever given at a time of grave danger.

Americans yearned to be reassured and unified. Yet the speech was alarming and divisive.

Deprived of his admiring crowds and blustering grievances, he struggled and fumbled to read simple sentences. It was obvious that he would rather have been anywhere else in the world at that moment. He clearly likes campaigning, but not governing, especially when things are going badly.

His speech included mistakes and misrepresentations. He announced travel restrictions on Europe, but not Britain and Ireland – though they were added later. He also got key facts wrong about his own new policy, including whether it applies to cargo (he said it does, but it does not).

One early consequence of the ban was massive logjams at many US airports on Sunday night as thousands of Americans predictably rushed home. Mystifyingly, no provision for this seems to have been made and it is hard to imagine a better scenario for spreading the virus far and wide.

Errors in the speech continue to be discovered. Two days after it was given, Google quietly confirmed that it has no intention of setting up a nationwide coronavirus-testing website and could not explain why the president announced that. The company later said it would comply.

People naturally turn to their government for guidance based on reliable information. And in general, US government professionals – who Mr Trump routinely derides as operatives of a “deep state” – have tried to provide that. Astoundingly, the main exception has been the president himself.

Mr Trump has continuously misled the public. He claimed that the virus was contained and almost defeated, was not proliferating, and would simply disappear by the summer, if not in April, as if by “miracle.” He insists testing is available for all Americans who want it and blames Mr Obama for any problems. None of that is even close to the truth.

The lack of testing is mostly a result of the Trump administration’s incomprehensible refusal to accept World Health Organization testing kits, fumbling when trying to create their own kits, and interfering with efforts by local officials and medical scientists to improvise because of the crisis.

Worst of all, Mr Trump eliminated the pandemic directorate at the National Security Council that the Obama administration established after the Ebola epidemic of 2014. He said such outbreaks are not imaginable in advance. But they were indeed imagined and planned for, albeit by others.

Predictably, Mr Trump views the pandemic more as a political and public perception challenge than a budding public health calamity.

Compounding his woes, he will almost certainly be facing former vice president Joe Biden, not the self-declared “democratic socialist” Bernie Sanders, in November.

On Thursday, Mr Biden delivered his own coronavirus address. He reminded Americans what a normative presidential address in such a crisis sounds like. He had empathy for the suffering, wrapped the nation in his rhetorical arms, issued good advice and laid out a series of practical steps to combat the disease.

By contrast, Mr Trump offered inapt nativist railing against a “foreign virus,” travel restrictions, hollow boasting, false claims and empty bluster. It seemed unsettlingly forced and belabored.

His sentiments were probably better summed up in remarks last weekend when he reportedly told donors “They’re trying to scare everybody, from meetings, cancel the meetings, close the schools — you know, destroy the country. And that’s ok, as long as we can win the election.”

A parade of plausible clichés, including “the emperor has no clothes” or “the wizard is a little man behind a curtain,” vie frantically for attention. When the painful blows to Americans’ daily lives, health and wallets really hit, Mr Trump’s presidency may become the coronavirus’ most politically significant victim.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-12/debt-crisis-lenders-have-a-chance-to-make-lebanon-reform?srnd=opinion

The debt crisis is an opportunity to force the political elite to give up some of its privileges.

Even the worst periods of its 1975-90 civil war, Lebanon never failed to meet its basic obligations to creditors. Now, for the first time in its history, it has defaulted on a $1.2 billion Eurobond. Lebanon is in a perfect storm of crises – an inability to pay its debts, as exemplified by the default, and a chronic incapacity for political reform, which has fueled months of angry street protests.  

The only reasonable way out for Prime Minister Hassan Diab’s government is to negotiate a restructuring of the country’s debt. Consultations with the International Monetary Fund are ongoing, and discussions with bondholders are to begin soon.

But a rescue package would likely involve a painful and politically damaging austerity program, and require serious economic and political reform. The Lebanese political elite would stand to lose not only a lot of its money, but also much of its power.

This is an unprecedented opportunity to impose change on this ossified, incompetent and self-serving class. But dislodging the privileges accrued over the decades will require political strength and a high order of fortitude. These qualities are lacking in Diab, who is beholden to the group that will most ferociously resist change: Hezbollah.

The Iranian-backed organization is determined to maintain its political and economic power, including its militia and network of businesses. The other prominent groups resistant to reform are Hezbollah’s Maronite allies, which are keen to preserve their community’s long-standing political privileges, including guaranteed sectarian overrepresentation in parliament and a lock on the presidency and other key government positions.

Standing against these special interests is Lebanon’s protest moment. This began last October as a revolt against corruption and economic inequity unfairness and corruption. The protesters soon realized that the economic mess was inextricably tied to a political system resistant to meaningful change. They have kept up the pressure, braving intimidation and outright violence by Hezbollah and security forces.

It is just conceivable that top-down pressure from financial institutions and bottom-up pressure from the street will create the perfect conditions for genuine, thoroughgoing economic and political reform. The mechanisms for change already exist in unfulfilled laws and agreements. Now the international community, working in tandem with Lebanese civil society and the protest movement, should insist that these neglected commitments be met.

Reforms can only happen under a strong, representative and trusted government. Such a government can only emerge from a new election. Lenders cannot insist on that directly. But they might be able to stipulate that, until such elections occur, any aid to Lebanon must be managed by a multilateral fund, and targeted at helping ordinary citizens meet their daily needs, rather than salvaging national institutions, the pressure for a vote could become overwhelming.

The protest movement has consistently demanded new elections to create a more representative and truly national government. In 2018, Lebanon held elections for the first time based on proportional representation, but gerrymandering, tiny districts and other mechanisms ensured that the old sectarian order was not disturbed. A crucial first step would be a shift towards real proportional representation with large districts, which would make parliament more accountable to voters.

Another step to break the stranglehold of the old order would be implementing the long-ignored Article 22 of the Constitution. It mandates the creation of a bicameral legislature, with a non-sectarian lower house that deals with social and economic issues and a confessional upper house responsible for military and foreign policy. There’s also Article 95, which calls for a national transition plan to end sectarian governance.

Elections with real proportional representation for a parliament with a mandate to begin implementing articles 22 and 95 would radically alter political calculations in the country and greatly empower the public.

Immediate structural changes should include strengthening judicial independence and, especially, the autonomy of the regulatory agencies whose negligence, corruption and dysfunction directly produced the debt crisis. These agencies should be accountable to the judiciary, not the ministries and industries they supposedly oversee.

Any government undertaking the kind of radical economic measures required to save the Lebanese economy must be honest and transparent with the public, as well providing basic services. Otherwise, most Lebanese will conclude that the government and elite are simply bailing themselves out at their expense.

Hezbollah will be loath to consider reforms that could challenge to its independent militias and state-like authority in much of the country. It has ignored the stipulations against militias in the 1989 Taif Agreement, and has made a mockery of the 2012 Baabda Declaration, which requires all Lebanese groups to avoid entanglement in regional conflicts.

But as the economic crisis deepens, some of Hezbollah’s constituencies are urging it to allow economic reforms and good-faith negotiations with lenders. Remarkably, it has been criticized for opposing an IMF bailout in the pages of one of its most supportive newspapers, Al Akhbar. Add to this the pressure from lenders and protesters, and even Hezbollah may find it has no choice but to put the national interest ahead of its privileges.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/how-joe-biden-went-from-political-heavyweight-to-underdog-and-back-again-1.989737

Democrats rally to avoid repeating the 2016 Republican fiasco but must address the real issues Sanders and Warren raise

Last week saw one of the greatest political comebacks in American history, not only for Joe Biden, or even the Democratic Party, but for reason, seriousness and sanity.

Two weeks ago, Mr Biden, a former American vice president, was given up for dead. He suffered massive defeats in primaries in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. Now he is not only the likely Democratic nominee for president, but it seems increasingly realistic he could go on to beat incumbent President Donald Trump in November.

Mr Biden spent much less than many of his competitors. He had also barely set foot in several of the states he won. What happened was the sudden coalescing of the Democratic Party’s moderate centre around a plausible and time-tested leader, no matter how elderly and uninspiring, as the best corrective to both Mr Trump and the self-described “democratic socialist” Bernie Sanders, an independent who has never formally joined the party which proposes to represent and lead.

The turning point was the South Carolina primary on February 29, which delivered a landslide win to Mr Biden, mainly due to the backing of Jim Clyburn, a distinguished congressman, and his largely African-American constituents in South Carolina.

Two other centrist Democratic candidates, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, withdrew from the race and endorsed Biden, as did many other leaders in the party.

Until then, the Democrats seemed on course to repeat the Republican debacle of a hostile takeover by Mr Trump in 2016. After the Iowa and Nevada results, the party seemed to be collapsing in the face of a concerted insurgency from a radical but unified minority of about 25 per cent that supported Mr Sanders. It now appears, however, that the party is more resilient than many thought.

Mr Biden emerged as the main competitor to Mr Sanders after South Carolina. Mainstream Democrats suddenly united, handing Mr Biden a stunning set of victories on March 3, “Super Tuesday.”

Still, Mr Sanders and his ally Senator Elizabeth Warren have pushed the Democratic conversation significantly to the left. To unite their party and effectively challenge Mr Trump, centrist Democrats must now develop serious policies to tackle the pressing issues those two senators ran on, such as income inequality, health and child care, immigration and student debt.

White nationalists and religious fanatics among Mr Trump’s base are clearly unreachable. However, millions of Trump voters are primarily motivated by economic and social – not racial or cultural – grievances. They are angry at feeling left behind in an era of unprecedented – and frightening – technological, social and economic transformation.

Mr Trump, Mr Sanders and other left and right populists around the world exploit this fear and anger, promising to reorient society in the favor of their respective bases.

It is a potent message, but Mr Sanders now seems to have no real path to the nomination. Primaries in his strongest areas, including California, are over. Mr Biden has momentum, the support of numerous trusted and popular figures and strong poll numbers.

Of course, Mr Sanders could make a comeback, particularly since Mr Biden did. Mr Trump’s win in 2016, moreover, is evidence that the improbable is still very possible. But in Mr Sanders’s case, it seems increasingly unlikely.

If, as seems more plausible, neither has a majority of pledged delegates going into the convention this summer, Democratic leaders and elected officials will choose between a long-time stalwart and someone who never even agreed to join their party at all. No prizes for guessing the outcome.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump looks increasingly vulnerable.

The spread of coronavirus has cast his administration as woefully unprepared, particularly when it comes to testing.

The President’s wild statements – such as declarations that criticism of his handling of the virus is a “hoax”, or falsely blaming slow testing on his predecessor, Barack Obama, and many other comments that significantly downplay the crisis or cast it in political, and even personal terms – may well haunt him. A lack of testing available throughout the US, in particular, is a potentially devastating scandal.

Once the personal, social and economic impact of the crisis is truly felt by ordinary Americans in their daily lives, Mr Trump, as president, will – fairly or not – inevitably be held responsible. As with the economy, no one else, including the vice president or a predecessor, can be effectively blamed when a calamity ensues.

Americans are already watching not only their government failing to meet the challenge, but also serious and once-respected officials and agencies publicly embarrass themselves to serve Mr Trump’s personal messaging and egg-shell ego.

Mr Trump has also blundered by saying he intends to cut popular government services including public pension payments and health care. In 2016, he was elected by loudly insisting he was the only Republican, and even the only candidate, who would protect such programmes.

Biden attack adverts for the November election on the economy, the virus and the future of these programmes may write and produce themselves.

Mr Sanders has a sizeable and devoted coalition, and the 2016 election shows that anything can still happen. But many Democrats have rejected him because they do not feel part of any “democratic socialist” coalition, and because they sense that Mr Trump’s 2016 winning coalition is larger.n

Their more serious bet, though, is that Mr Biden’s emerging coalition, very similar to that of Mr Obama, is significantly larger than that of Mr Trump.

Mr Biden’s astonishing and unprecedented political resurrection demonstrates the folly of presuming anything and the importance of remembering that the unexpected can happen.

Given the supersonic speed of Washington politics in the Trump era, November seems an aeon away.

But if the Democrats continue to refuse any repetition of the Republican Party’s shift to the radical right after Mr Obama’s election, and its subsequent inability to defeat a hostile takeover by Mr Trump, they will be throwing moderate American politics a crucial lifeline.

Democrats, from the grassroots to party leaders, appear determined to nominate Mr Biden. They would not only be rejecting their own self-defeating maximalism. They would offer millions of other Americans, including Republicans and former Trump voters, the chance to elect a reasonable, competent and serious government.

That would be powerfully appealing. Don’t bet against it.