The militia’s latest saber-rattling on the border may suit Iran, but escalation would be disastrous for Lebanon.
The last thing Israel and Lebanon need is another conflict: both countries are beset by political strife and resurgent coronavirus outbreaks; the Lebanese, additionally, are dealing with the gravest economic crisis in their history. But sabers are again rattling on the border separating them, thanks to Hezbollah and its patron, Iran.
On Monday, Israel said it thwarted an attempted incursion by Hezbollah fighters in the Shebaa Farms area. The Iran-backed militia claimed it had done no such thing, and instead accused an “anxious and tense” of making up a story. But some elements of Hezbollah gave the game away by celebrating and boasting about the action.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that any Hezbollah attack “will be answered with great force.” His Lebanese counterpart, Hassan Diab, said he feared that “things are slipping into the worst amid high tension on the border.”
The escalation is part of a protracted, low-intensity exchange of provocations between, on one side, Iran and its proxy militias, and the U.S. and Israel on the other. It also highlights Hezbollah’s growing status as a regional force rather than simply a Lebanese-Shiite militia.
Last week, a Hezbollah fighter was killed in Syria in one of the now-routine Israeli airstrikes against pro-Iranian forces. The attempted infiltration was presumably intended as retaliation. Hezbollah says insists a forceful reprisal is “definitely coming.” Iran reiterated its “permanent and constant support” for Hezbollah and warned Israel against the “madness” of further attacks on its assets, especially in Lebanon.
The grey-zone conflict began just over a year ago, in May 2019 when Iran decided to push back against the Trump’s administration’s “maximum pressure” sanctions with what it called “maximum resistance.”
This translated to a series of attacks against U.S.-related targets, most of them in Iraq. The most dangerous moment came early on Jan 3, when an American drone attack in Baghdad killed the senior Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, leader of Tehran’s most important Iraqi proxy paramilitary force. After a lull, attacks on American positions have resumed, even though U.S. forces have withdrawn from several bases.
In Syria, where Hezbollah is a major presence on behalf of Iran and the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad, Israel has launched a campaign of bombing raids to prevent weapons transfers and military entrenchment. The fighter killed last week was hardly the first Hezbollah casualty of this campaign, but the militia is making more of his death than those that went before.
This increased urgency is connected to the fortunes of Iran and its proxies elsewhere. Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi has moved to reign in pro-Iranian militias, which are blamed for rocket attacks on American targets and the assassination of Husham al-Hashimi, an Iraqi expert on these groups. Perhaps even more ominous from Tehran’s perspective has been a set of highly suspicious explosions and fires at key military and industrial facilities in Iran, most notably the Natanz nuclear site, which are widely blamed on Israel and U.S. For Iran and its regional proxies, the need to hit back and restore some measure of deterrence has rarely been more pressing.
Lebanese are used to spasmodic exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israeli Defense Forces along the border—there was one just last fall—but this one comes at an especially inconvenient time. The Diab government is plainly out of its depth amid an intensifying economic crisis, and the border clash came on the same day that Moody’s Investor Service lowered Lebanon’s credit score to the same level as Venezuela. Negotiations for an International Monetary Fund bailout are not going well: Economy Minister Raoul Nehme says Lebanon may have to settle for as little as half the $10 billion it wants. More border clashes might spook even a lender of last resort.
Politically, Lebanon’s confessional factions are as divided as ever. And a recent spike in coronavirus cases have raised new alarms about the pandemic.
Israel, too, is suffering from a pandemic resurgence and Netanyahu is also dealing with major street protests against his government. War with Hezbollah, which is armed with tens of thousands of missiles as well as fighters hardened in Syrian battlefields, would likely be long, painful and expensive for Israel.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah would also prefer to avoid a major war for now. An economic collapse of Lebanon would be damaging for Hezbollah, which is closely tied into the country’s economy. And he has plenty of other battles to wage. As a key part of Iran’s “maximum resistance” campaign, Hezbollah is training or fighting alongside other militias in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
The question for Nasrallah now is how far he can serve Iran’s interest without terminally damaging Lebanon’s—and his own.
Four years ago, to save themselves they jumped onto Mr Trump’s lifeboat. But what will they do if it falls apart soon?
Donald Trump appears to be sinking fast in the run-up to the November election, now less than 100 days away, and many fear he’s dragging the whole Republican Party down with him. Yet Republican officials, with rare exceptions, are sticking with the President, and aren’t uttering a word of criticism or trying to distance from him. Why?
Most elected Republicans were never big fans of Mr Trump. Four years ago, the US President engineered a hostile takeover of their party with passionate support from base voters but against opposition from party leaders.
Eventually, the establishment capitulated. But now, given the mishandled coronavirus pandemic and concomitant economic effects, Republican leaders face a conundrum.
Do they effectively shake off Mr Trump’s leadership or distance themselves from him in the hope of being re-elected? Can they try to salvage their own reputations, and that of their party, in what seems set to go down as a historically remarkably failed presidency?
Or do they continue to hope that Mr Trump will find a way to turn his and their own fortunes around by fighting a close (or even winning) race against Joe Biden and, perhaps more importantly, retaining Republican control of the Senate?
Should they continue, therefore, to insist they respect Mr Trump because, if he turns on them, so will many of their own voters?
Nationally, it appears that the majority of the country is moving away from the President and the party he leads, largely because of his policies and personality. He speaks and acts as if there were a large “silent majority” that furtively agrees with the reactionary racial, cultural and religious positions he advocates. But most evidence suggests that, while he certainly does speak for a passionate following, a large and growing national majority rejects these views.
In deeply conservative states, elected Republicans may not have much to fear. Simply supporting the party and its leader is obviously their best bet to get re-elected.
However, numerous once-solidly Republican states are becoming strikingly competitive. Texas, Georgia, North and South Carolina and several others might now see the election of Democrats.
This is partly because of broader demographic changes, but is also partly caused by Mr Trump’s style and policy failures.
In such circumstances, any sensible Republican candidate would reach out to the centre. But how to do that without crossing the president?
The costs can be fatal. Former attorney general Jeff Sessions was just defeated in a Republican Senate primary in Alabama because Mr Trump never forgave him for recusing himself from Russia-related investigations. He is only the most recent such victim.
Many Republican candidates need to secure their base while reaching beyond it, but are confronted with Mr Trump’s combative stridency. Anything that smacks of betrayal is fatal but so is being too close to his most controversial statements and policies.
A powerful right-wing media ecosystem provides the enforcement, especially vituperative evening opinion shows on Fox News. It is fiercely loyal to Mr Trump and eager to punish any deviant heretic who can be made an example of.
A further complication is that because Mr Trump doesn’t care about most policies, he has adopted a familiar Republican agenda on many important issues.
Republicans have achieved some significant goals by submitting to Mr Trump, including securing tax cuts, environmental and other forms of deregulation, extremely conservative judges, increased military spending, limits on rights for transgender Americans and support for Christian fundamentalism.
It’s a Faustian bargain but they do like what they got out of it.
Yet, insofar as they believe in anything, most of these Republicans remain traditional conservatives and have been set ideologically adrift in the party’s new Trumpian era.
Most came of age within a more libertarian movement, influenced by former president Ronald Reagan, that was based on smaller government and lower taxes. Now they suddenly find themselves operating in a populist, and often white nationalist, environment in which they are not fully comfortable.
But few have the stomach or intellect for a major ideological conflict. And they lack any credible alternative that is not rooted in the now-distant late 1970s.
Four years ago, to save themselves, they jumped onto Mr Trump’s lifeboat. But what will they do if it falls apart soon?
There are at least three plausible scenarios, depending on the election results.
If it is close, and especially if Republicans keep a Senate majority, Trumpians like Senators Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley, or Fox News host Tucker Carlson, may battle for control of this new populist party with white nationalist undertones.
If Republicans suffer a devastating defeat, traditional conservatives like Senator Mitt Romney or Maryland Governor Larry Hogan (both sons of centrist former Republican leaders) could potentially mount a comeback.
If the party loses badly, but not absolutely devastatingly – and possibly even then – perhaps the best placed is Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor and Mr Trump’s first UN ambassador. Ms Haley has carefully positioned herself equidistantly between the traditional Reaganite wing of the party and the new Trumpian one.
She joined Mr Trump’s administration at its outset, and was careful to maintain a distance while never fully falling out with him. Since she left the administration, she has calibrated strong support for him with trying not to seem too much like an unwavering acolyte.
Many scenarios are possible, but Ms Haley could seek to present herself as a Republican unifier who can bring the old Reaganite party together with the new Trumpian one in a new form of conservative “fusionism”. Her status as a woman of colour, but from the deep South, and a committed Christian fundamentalist won’t hurt in a post-Trump era.
There is a fourth, distant but not unimaginable scenario. It may be that under Mr Trump the Republican Party is charging so aggressively and quickly in the opposite direction to most of the country that it could soon prove non-viable and uncompetitive at a national level and could go the way of the whig party that collapsed in the 1840s.
This is unlikely, but no longer inconceivable.
Republican leaders are left wondering if their party is just facing defeat, or conceivably extinction and replacement by a new centre-right grouping, and what they can possibly do about it.
As prospects for a Palestinian state dwindle, Americans are splitting along left-right and young-old axes.
Two weeks ago, Peter Beinart, a prominent liberal Jewish-American commentator made waves by announcing, in a 7000-word essay, that after decades of dedicated support for a two-state solution he is abandoning support for Jewish nationalism and embracing a one-state vision for Palestine-Israel.
He is hardly the first Jewish American to renounce a Jewish ethno-nationalism, but he is the most prominent in years. Predictably, he was viciously attacked with slurs like “traitor” and “Nazi” by die-hard co-religionists.
His article is one more symptom of the collapse of the once-near-unanimous mainstream American support for Israel and a two-state solution with the Palestinians.
That consensus is collapsing on both sides.
It is not just liberals such as Mr Beinart who are embracing the idea of a single state between the river and the sea. Much of the effort of the Trump administration, with its widespread Christian evangelical and a few wealthy right-wing Jewish supporters, on Israel policy has been designed to move the US away from that same fading two-state consensus.
Under Donald Trump, space has been carved out on the Republican right to abandon any meaningful two-state vision and embrace the establishment of a greater Israel through unilateral annexation.
The proposal released by the Trump administration in January purports to be a two-state vision. But the Palestinian state it suggests would lack most key attributes of sovereignty and be entirely surrounded by the greater Israeli state that would annex up to 30 per cent of the West Bank.
Everyone understands that this is not actually a two-state scenario, not least because Palestinians will never agree to such an arrangement. It is, of course, cynical rhetorical cover for Israel’s annexation and the death of a two-state future.
The main purpose of Mr Trump’s proposal was not immediate Israeli annexation, and therefore no such annexation has yet been attempted. Instead, the primary aim was to shift US discourse to create space for mainstream American political voices, beginning on the Republican right, to embrace the vision of a greater Israel at the expense of a two-state agreement.
Meanwhile, most Democrats, especially in Congress, remain rhetorically committed to the two-state vision that the US effectively agreed to in 1993. Only one member of Congress, the Palestinian-American Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, has, like Mr Beinart, embraced a one-state agenda.
Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden keeps insisting he is going to fight to protect the potential for two states and has vowed to “reverse” anything Mr Trump may do in the coming months that threatens it.
Although almost all leading Democrats remain committed to a two-state model, and even many leading Republicans obviously have serious qualms about annexation, the old consensus regarding Israel, peace and the special relationship between the two countries is seriously cracking.
A clear partisan divide and a nascent generational rift are both creating fissures on Israel that have not existed in the US for decades.
Much of the responsibility for this lies with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has consistently steered Israel’s government into a close alliance with Republicans and against Democrats. He all but campaigned for Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election and has frequently interfered in US domestic politics, invariably on the side of the Republicans. It may have served his personal political aims but not Israel’s national interests.
More importantly, the epicentre of the most ardent US support for Israel, or at least greater Israel and annexation, has shifted from its traditional Jewish-American base to a new, and far more radical, evangelical Christian one. This is largely the basis for Mr Trump’s support for annexation.
The language announcing Mr Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem and moving of the US embassy there from Tel Aviv was plainly that of evangelical Christians rather than Jewish Zionists. Moreover, the event was officially celebrated by fundamentalist Christian radical pastors, some of whom have anti-Semitic histories, and all of whom are ardent supporters of the occupation because they believe it will hasten the divinely ordained end of times.
These evangelicals are delighted by Mr Trump’s annexationist policies. The Jewish-American mainstream was plainly not. Virtually all prominent Jewish-American Democrats in Congress oppose the plan and annexation, and the largest Jewish-American groups were notably unenthusiastic if not outrightly opposed.
Several of the most important of these groups have let it be known they are prepared to defend Israel in the event of annexation but only with great trepidation and unease, and all but the most extreme plainly hope it does not happen.
Mr Beinart is certainly speaking for a growing group of mainly younger Americans, including Jewish Americans, who are no longer able to reconcile their liberal and equality-valuing principles with Israel’s policies. Particularly given that, if it annexes large chunks of the West Bank, Israel will be effectively enforcing a new separate, radically unequal and apartheid-like permanent reality on Palestinians and Israelis alike, this sentiment and constituency is only likely to grow.
That it lacks a coherent narrative, practicable vision, and, by far most importantly, does not have the support of any significant political grouping of Jewish Israelis or Palestinians on the ground, will probably not prevent this idea from continuing to gather support, especially among the young.
So, as prospects for a Palestinian state and a peace agreement dwindle, Americans are splitting along left-right and young-old axes.
As things stand, the situation is sustainable for Israel. Most Democrats are still supportive and Israelis do not have much to fear from a Biden administration. Some Republicans, though, and especially the Christian fundamentalists among them, are at times more strident Jewish nationalists than most Israelis.
But anyone who values the US-Israel relationship and is not worried about this trajectory lacks an imagination.
Increasingly, Democrats, especially younger and more liberal ones, are being systematically alienated from Israeli policy and even Zionism. And with “friends” like Mr Trump’s evangelical allies, Israel does not need any enemies.
All this means the once-inviolable “special relationship” between the two countries will not remain a settled issue in American politics much longer. That is a seismic shift, and it is not good news for Israel.
Until the leaders in Beirut agree on what ails their economy, they can’t begin to fix it.
While Lebanon’s ruling elites continue to wrangle with the International Monetary Fund over a $10 billion bailout, the country’s economic crisis is spiraling out of control. Economy Minister Raoul Nehme, who admits Lebanon has become “a failed state,” remains confident that a deal will come soon. But even after six weeks of talks, there’s evidently been little apparent progress. Key Lebanese negotiators have resigned in protest over how politicians are handling the crisis.
Meanwhile, much of the Lebanese middle class is sinking into poverty, and the poor are plummeting into utter destitution; the combination of a sinking currency and soaring inflation is leaving millions hungry. The government has been forced to raise the price of bread, for the first time in eight years. And the lights are literally going out: large parts of the country now endure blackouts of up to 22 hours a day, because the state cannot pay for imported fuel to run generators.
Hezbollah, which dominates the government of Prime Minister Hassan Diab, is clinging to the hope that the money can be found elsewhere—China, for example. Diab has approached other Arab states, including Kuwait and Qatar. But it is unlikely anyone will invest in Lebanon without an IMF scaffolding in place.
That won’t happen until the Lebanese leadership agrees to necessary—and necessarily painful—reforms to its grossly mismanaged economy. But the political elite can’t even agree on the disease, much less the cure. Banks and the government are bickering over the size of the country’s debts, and who should pay the bills. The bankers and the politicians are blaming each other, but both are complicit.
This augurs badly for what will come after a bailout has been agreed: in addition to scrutiny and accountability—the banks and politicians have long grown used to operating without either—the IMF will demand painful structural reforms. These are hard to pull off even in countries where there is a national consensus on how to deal with an economic crisis. In Lebanon, they will rock a political stability that has long been based on an uneasy equilibrium of unstable elements.
The IMF is still largely guided by the “Washington Consensus” model developed for Latin America in the 1980s and 90s, which emphasizes reducing a swollen and corrupt public sector—in Lebanon as in most Arab countries, the government is the main employer and provides most services—and strengthening the private sector and market forces. The IMF will demand a reduction in government borrowing and spending, cuts in public employment, possibly even further devaluation of the Lebanese pound (which has lost 80% of its value since October) and privatization of public assets.
Even though the Lebanese can legitimately fear the social and economic pain all this would entail, it would be less damaging than the ongoing freefalling collapse. Rather than squabble over whom to blame, their leaders should be preparing them for the tough times ahead. The experience of other debt crises in their neighborhood, including in countries like Turkey and Greece, suggests any Lebanese recovery will be a long time coming.
The Greek example is especially germane. After the global recession in 2009, the Greek government began borrowing heavily to finance its public sector and services. It also underreported its debts and deficits. A collapse of confidence lead to a major crisis and widespread unrest. There are clear parallels to Lebanon, where banks for decades financed the state through what was effectively a Ponzi scheme for depositors. As in the Greek case, it became clear that the in recent months that the Lebanese debt structure was effectively hollow and creditors simply cannot be paid.
IMF assistance eventually helped Athens reduce its massive debt, but at a cost of scores of billions of losses for private investors. It took major cuts in social services and public spending, painful austerity, and three massive bailouts before the Greek economy resumed growth—close to 2% in 2019. But even so, the IMF warns that Greece is still not out of the woods.
Lebanon’s debt-to-GDP ratio is about as bad as Greece’s ever was. While the big argument in Beirut is over who should pay the debt, history suggests the general public will be saddled with most of the bill.
Preparing the Lebanese for this inevitability would be hard enough without the squabbling among their leaders. Eventually, all the Lebanese political factions, including Hezbollah, will need to cut a deal with the IMF. They seem to think they have several more months to play with. But the intensifying national catastrophe suggests otherwise.
Some Gulf states may take satisfaction in Iran’s setbacks, but they are vulnerable to potential retaliation.
A series of explosions, fires, and other calamities at military, commercial, and, arguably, dual-use facilities throughout Iran in recent weeks have left little doubt that outside forces are engaged in a sustained and coordinated series of low-intensity attacks designed to weaken, and possibly provoke, Iran. The most likely culprits are Israel and the United States, and many analysts have speculated about a possible coordinated initiative against Iran, although that has not been confirmed. While Gulf Arab countries may find a degree of satisfaction at an adversary’s setbacks, this reaction must be combined with anxiety about the real potential they could get caught in the crossfire should Iran feel the need to retaliate.
Recent incidents include: an explosion at a military and weapons development base south of Tehran on June 26; an explosion at a medical clinic in Tehran in which 19 people were killed on June 30; an explosion and fire at the Natanz nuclear site on July 2; a large fire in Shiraz on July 3; a fire and explosion at a power plant in Ahwaz on July 4; a chlorine gas leak at a petrochemical plant in Mahshahr and a fire and explosion at an industrial zone south of Mashad on July 13; a fire at an aluminum factory in Lamard on July 14; and fires aboard at least seven ships at the port of Bushehr on July 15. It is unclear which of these were accidents and which were the result of a coordinated campaign of sabotage. However, the intense cluster of explosions and fires at strategic, military, and dual-use facilities in such a short period of time can hardly have been the result of chance.
The Natanz explosion and fire appears to have been a major blow to Iran’s potential to quickly produce a nuclear weapon if it ever decided to try to do so, possibly adding up to two years to such a timeline. A hitherto unknown group, the Homeland Cheetahs, who purport to be dissident members of Iran’s security forces, claimed responsibility for the attack on the nuclear site, but it seems far more likely that the United States and/or Israel are responsible, with the cyber component likened to the joint 2009 Stuxnet attack on Iranian centrifuges. The United States was accused by Brigadier General Ismail Qaani, the new chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps expeditionary Quds Force, who said that “Americans shouldn’t look for someone to blame and accuse others. This is a fire they set themselves.” Yet the attack also seems to bear the hallmarks of Israel’s previous actions against nuclear facilities and recent strikes against pro-Iranian militia groups in Iraq and Syria.
The Natanz attack in particular, and the pattern of fires and explosions more generally, insofar as they are related to each other, suggest a very sophisticated and long-planned action by at least one major outside power. According to recent reports, President Donald J. Trump authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to launch a series of covert cyberattacks against Iran with a presidential finding in 2018. And The Washington Post reported that an Israeli cyberattack caused the May 9 chaos at Iran’s Shahid Rajaee port, which may have been one of the earliest actions in the current campaign. Several Israeli analysts and former officials have claimed that this was itself retaliation for an Iranian cyberattack on Israeli water and sewage installations in late April.
These sabotage attacks come squarely in the context of pushback against the “maximum resistance” campaign of low-intensity provocations launched by Iran in May 2019 following a year of rising tensions prompted by the U.S. withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal and Washington’s imposition of “maximum pressure” sanctions in May 2018. The series of “tit-for-tat” attacks culminated with the U.S. drone strike that killed former IRGC Quds Force chief Major General Qassim Suleimani and the leader of pro-Iranian militia groups in Iraq, among others, on January 3. Iran responded with a ballistic missile attack on an Iraqi air base housing U.S. forces on January 8, and sporadic incidents have continued.
Iran will be under heavy pressure internally and from some of its more militant regional nonstate clients, to retaliate in some kind of proportionate or deterrence-inducing manner. However, almost all factions in Iran will want to be cautious not to provoke a spiral of major retaliation that leads to an outright war with the United States, particularly given Trump’s intensifying political woes at home and, therefore, possible willingness to take dramatic risks on the international stage to try to salvage his prospects for reelection in November.
If Iran does launch a retaliatory blow, it is unlikely to directly target U.S. or even Israeli interests. The most likely theaters for a response would almost certainly remain Iraq, Gulf Arab countries, or the waters of the Gulf itself. Almost all of Iran’s “maximum pressure” attacks occurred in Iraq via pro-Iranian militia groups, particularly Kataib Hezbollah, or on Gulf Arab interests, including shipping, ports, and, most notably, missile and drone strikes on Saudi oil facilities on September 14, 2019.
As always on matters regarding Iran, Gulf Arab countries will take a range of viewpoints. Thus far, reaction has been muted. Oman will likely be particularly disturbed at the rising tensions, given its warm relations with Tehran and self-appointed role as mediator between Tehran and both the West and, potentially, its Gulf Arab partners. Kuwait, too, fears regional tensions, especially when involving a patina of Sunni-Shia sectarian discord, concerned that disputes might rile the prosperous and well-adjusted Shia community in Kuwait itself. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates will be torn between a degree of satisfaction at the setbacks for their regional antagonist, given that they view Iran as a hostile hegemonic force, and deep concern that they may be targeted in a retaliatory attack.
Qatar may be the most uncomfortable of all, given its strong and long-standing ties to the United States and increasing cooperation with Tehran. The boycott of Qatar by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, and Egypt has forced Doha to become more dependent than ever on good relations with Iran, since Qatar now relies on Tehran for overflight rights for Qatar Airways after Gulf Arab neighbors closed access to their airspace. Yet Qatar could also be targeted by Iranian retaliation because of the major U.S. airbase at Al Udeid, from which the drone strike that killed Suleimani was reportedly launched.
What this conundrum mainly reflects is how limited the Gulf Arab countries’ ability to safeguard their own security still is; they remain effectively subject to decisions made in Washington, Tehran, and elsewhere over which they have limited, if any, influence. It emphasizes their vulnerability and exposure to mitigate this: The Gulf states are broadening their strategic relations, strengthening ties with Russia, China, France, and India, in an effort to gain additional options beyond their historical, largely exclusive, reliance on Washington for support. They do have agency and there is much each Gulf Arab country can do to impact their strategic condition. But, as things stand now, all of them will be hoping that cooler heads prevail in Washington and Tehran. They can and should encourage that. But ultimately they cannot ensure it.
Gulf states have much to hope for, and worry about, if President Trump wins reelection.
With less than four months to go before the November election, President Donald J. Trump is behind in most polls, trailing former Vice President Joseph R. Biden. However, Trump is a formidable populist politician and, in a relatively brief political career, has established a strong track record as a remarkable survivor. In 2020, he enjoys the considerable advantages of presidential incumbency, rock-solid support among Republican base voters and party leaders, and a substantial financial war chest. Therefore, there remains a significant chance that the president will be reelected and enjoy another four years in the White House.
What will that mean for Gulf Arab countries, almost all of which have had strong relations with the Trump White House? For some Gulf leaders, especially Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Trump has been an especially valuable ally in troubled times. But for many others, while they may appreciate his “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions on Iran, skepticism about the United States’ regional role has only deepened under Trump. Even those, and there are many, who prefer him over his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, have not been reassured over the past three years about U.S. intentions. Obama was viewed as unreliable because of his nuclear agreement and flirtation with Iran, his abandonment of longtime U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak when he was ousted as Egypt’s president, and his refusal to enforce his own chemical weapons “redline” in Syria. Trump has added unpredictability on top of unreliability.
None of that means there is a strong constituency in the Gulf states for Biden over Trump. To the contrary, concerns that Biden might revive key elements of Obama’s policy alone temper any such impulse. However, given serious questions regarding some of Trump’s first-term policies, and huge uncertainties about what his second term intentions might be, the preference for the current president in most cases also seems limited at best. Gulf leaders know they’ll have to work with whomever the U.S. system yields. However, it is important to begin trying to conceptualize what a second Trump term might mean for the Gulf states.
Yet Trump’s well-established quality of mercurial unpredictability makes forecasting his next moves extremely difficult. He relishes doing the unconventional and unexpected, arguably without due consideration that it may be unwise. Nonetheless, U.S. interests and assets in the region remain unchanged, and there are therefore limits to what even an unconventional approach might achieve in light of constraints that will face the next administration no matter who wins in November.
Iran The most obvious example of the unpredictability factor could be linked to a potential Trump second-term Iran policy. It is, perhaps, precisely because hostility toward Iran has been among his most consistent first-term policies that the potential for a sudden and dramatic shift arises. Trump has repeatedly insisted that the goal of the repudiation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear agreement with Iran and the “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign has been to force Iran to the table for new negotiations to achieve a bigger and better deal – a comprehensive grand bargain with Tehran.
Most of the Gulf Arab countries were alarmed by negotiations between Tehran and the Obama administration. And, at least at first, most of them thought the JCPOA was inadequate, particularly failing to deal with Iran’s ballistic missiles and its support for a network of armed sectarian militia groups in neighboring Arab states. However, all the Gulf countries eventually endorsed both the negotiations and the agreement after reassurances from Washington. They were nonetheless concerned about the potential for a broader rapprochement between the United States and Iran involving a new relationship that would, in effect, push them and their interests aside.
The initial response of several key Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to Trump’s presidential victory in 2016, given his denunciations of the nuclear agreement, was to urge Washington to use the JCPOA as leverage with Tehran to secure additional policy changes limiting Iran’s ballistic missiles and support for nonstate armed groups in the Arab world. Nevertheless, these countries generally welcomed Washington’s withdrawal from the agreement in May 2018 and the reimposition of sanctions. Yet the perception that countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE were urging the United States into a war with Iran was misplaced. Concerns that they could find themselves on the front line of any such conflict were strongly reinforced when, after May 2019, Iran shifted from an effort to diplomatically isolate the United States to a campaign of “maximum resistance,” in which Gulf Arab interests and assets were repeatedly targeted.
If a second Trump term were to proceed along the lines of the first, it would almost inevitably involve intensified pressure on Iran, including: more sanctions; more pressure on its allies and assets, such as Hezbollah and Lebanon and some of the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq; and a sustained campaign to further isolate Iran internationally. If Trump is reelected in November, then, Tehran will face a difficult decision: It can hunker down for a 4-year virtual siege; intensify “maximum resistance” at the risk of outright war; or prepare to seek terms for negotiations with the administration. This third option might be politically difficult in Iran, but Iranian officials could try to replicate the North Korean strategy of gaining space by engagement without giving up anything crucial, playing to Trump’s vanity and love of intrigue, drama, and spectacle.
Gulf leaders have long understood that no matter how pleased they have been with the tougher U.S. stance toward Iran under Trump, they could easily wake up to see him hobnobbing with Iranian officials in some “dramatic breakthrough.” That risk becomes more acute in a second term when foreign policy victories become both increasingly sought after, given the desire for a lasting legacy, and harder to achieve for most presidents. Another risk is that Gulf leaders could awaken to find that the United States and Iran have, perhaps even inadvertently, stumbled into a conflict in which Gulf states will be swept up and over which they have no control.
Either way, it’s hard to imagine another three or four years of “maximum pressure” versus “maximum resistance” as sustainable. Even in the run up to the election, tensions seem to be escalating. A series of explosions at key Iranian military and nuclear facilities have been widely attributed to Israeli and/or U.S. sabotage. In coming weeks, therefore, the Iranian government may feel significant pressure to retaliate against U.S. interests in the region, most likely in Iraq or a Gulf Arab country, or in the waters of the Gulf itself. It is possible, then, that Gulf countries won’t have to wait for the next administration to be reminded of how exposed the current impasse between Washington and Tehran renders them. Under such circumstances, and building on their experiences with former administrations, the unpredictability of the Trump administration must make many Gulf leaders extremely nervous about the likely trajectory of Washington’s Iran policy.
Iraq Iraq poses a related conundrum for Gulf countries in a second Trump term. Trump has long been a vociferous critic of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, though he publicly supported it at the time. Moreover, Trump’s “America first” foreign policy orientation has been to denounce “endless wars” and to seek to remove U.S. forces based overseas. This has included an impulse to remove all U.S. troops from Syria, which the president has often expressed the intention of doing but never actually done, and Iraq, where the counter-Iranian push has served to rationalize a continued U.S. military presence in his eyes. Other administration officials have expressed the determination to prevent Iran from establishing a controlled military corridor across the northern Middle East from Iran, through Iraq, into Syria, and down into Lebanon and the Mediterranean coast.
Trump has been willing to confront Iran in Iraq. The killing of Major General Qassim Suleimani, head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, the primary Iranian expeditionary unit in the Middle East, and de facto commander of Tehran’s armed militia network in Arab countries, was a stunning blow and a major escalation to which Iran, presumably fearing an outright war, did not respond in kind. Also killed in the attack were several other senior officials, including Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the founder and leader of the pro-Iranian Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah. But Muhandis was also the leader of the PMF, and so technically, he was an Iraqi government security forces official. The U.S. attack was politically damaging to the Iraqi government and U.S.-Iraqi relations.
In the wake of the killings, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad was besieged by Kataib Hezbollah cadres and sympathizers, and, in a series of tit-for-tat strikes, the United States and Iran came as close to war as they have been in decades. Moreover, the Iraqi Parliament demanded the expulsion of all foreign forces from the country, a resolution aimed directly at the U.S. presence, but the Parliament left it up to the executive branch to carry out the demand. Since then, the new Iraqi prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, has attempted to bring the PMF groups, and Kataib Hezbollah in particular, under greater state control, but he does not appear to have yet succeeded.
If Tehran decides to retaliate for the recent series of explosions at its facilities, it is most likely to do so by attacking U.S. interests in Iraq, or by attacking Gulf Arab interests or targets. The continued U.S. presence in Iraq, Washington’s willingness to support Kadhimi’s efforts to control the PMF groups, and the promotion of U.S. interests in the region, which generally coincide with Gulf Arab countries’ agendas, depend on Washington not walking away from Iraq as many U.S. voters and politicians would like to do. Trump is probably in that group in the abstract, but both warnings from his security officials and his interest in continuing to confront Tehran have thus far convinced him not to radically downgrade U.S. hard and soft power roles in Iraq.
Gulf countries have a strong interest in rebuilding the Iraqi state and reviving independent Iraqi nationalism as a counterbalance to Iranian influence. Yet welcoming Iraq back into the Arab fold and promoting an independent Iraqi national decision-making process that is, at least, equidistant from Tehran and Arab capitals, requires a complex set of carrots and sticks. Iran cannot be driven out of, or made irrelevant in, Iraq. Yet the United States and Gulf countries bring complementary qualities to the table that, if combined in a sustained and coordinated manner, could more than counterbalance Iran’s largely religious and ideological appeals. Still, each side has reason to doubt the commitment of the other. Many Americans, Trump included, appear weary of Iraq. Most Gulf Arab countries, except for Kuwait, appear hesitant and uncertain about their ability to effectively make progress. Both need each other to be successful. A second Trump term, depending on the approach to Iran, could prove effective in combining with Gulf Arab efforts to help woo Iraq away from excessive Iranian influence. Or it could herald the final military withdrawal of the United States from what many Americans regard as one of their country’s greatest foreign policy blunders.
Military and Other Commitments to Gulf Arab Countries Trump is nothing if not a salesman. He views Gulf Arab countries as, above all, customers for U.S. military goods and services. He has never shown any interest in restricting military and other commitments to Gulf countries, particularly in terms of sales. He has on multiple occasions blocked congressional efforts to restrict weapons sales and, in a second term, would no doubt aim to continue that practice. It is extremely difficult to gain a bicameral supermajority that can overcome a presidential veto. Therefore, despite an unprecedented effort by both the House of Representatives and the Senate to limit U.S. support for the war in Yemen, including an effort to invoke for the first time the War Powers Resolution, vetoes have persistently rebuffed these initiatives. Insofar as Gulf countries view the United States primarily as an arms supplier, Trump is close to an ideal president. Insofar as he views them primarily as customers, they are close to ideal allies. Therefore, on these grounds, little change and little tension can be expected.
Intra-Gulf Dispute One of the more unsettled questions from the Trump presidency’s Middle East policy has been the attitude toward the boycott of Qatar by three of its fellow Gulf Cooperation Council partners – Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain – along with Egypt. Initially, the president appeared to side strongly with the boycotting countries while the Pentagon quietly backed Doha in seeking an early resolution, and the State Department sought to mediate. Over time, Qatar managed to reinstate itself into the good graces of the White House, and the Defense Department perspective that emphasized the value of the U.S. air base and other military assets in Qatar greatly superseded any ideological or political qualms about Qatari policy and influence.
Yet at no stage did the Trump administration press firmly for a resolution to the dispute by making bilateral relations with any or all of the parties contingent on a specific outcome. Therefore, U.S. imperatives about the urgency of ending the impasse and on what terms have taken the form of friendly suggestions rather than demands. As a consequence, the boycott persists. It is hard to imagine what could happen, short of a buildup toward a full-fledged war with Iran or some other massive crisis, that could change this dynamic in a second Trump term. UAE officials from the outset have described this as a new normal within the GCC. And so it is proving, at least for now.
Yemen U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition that has intervened in Yemen has persisted, despite enormous domestic political pressure throughout the Trump presidency. There has never been, however, political pressure to curtail or end U.S. cooperation with the UAE in counterterrorism efforts in southern Yemen. Under both Obama and Trump, the United States has urged Saudi Arabia, in particular, to work toward a political solution. Yet the Houthi rebels have lacked much incentive, and arguably still do, to facilitate a dignified Saudi withdrawal. For at least a year Riyadh has been looking for such an exit but requires various assurances, particularly regarding the security of its southern border, Iranian influence in Yemen, and the potential for continued Houthi attacks on its own territory.
If Washington views Yemen primarily through an Iranian lens, considering the Houthis as Iranian assets and Hezbollah protégés, that suggests continuing strong support for the Saudi intervention from Washington in a second Trump term. The same is true if the framework is primarily a question of selling military goods and services to Riyadh. But if broader strategic goals and interests of the United States and both Saudi Arabia and the UAE are brought to bear, support may become more conditional and additional political and diplomatic help to resolve the conflict may be more forthcoming. Whether the solution in Yemen is facilitated by yoking it to, or decoupling it from, broader regional considerations, outside facilitation will be required to reach a sustainable arrangement between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis.
Israel and the Palestinians Often considered a side issue for Gulf countries, U.S. policy toward Israel and the Palestinians in a second Trump term could in fact be exceptionally disruptive to their interests. Thus far, the Trump presidency has been devoted to extricating the United States from its commitments under the 1993 Declaration of Principles and its concomitant commitment to a two-state solution. In addition, the administration seeks to create a U.S. policy and mainstream political constituency in favor of large-scale Israeli annexations in the occupied West Bank, even though most observers agree such actions would effectively foreclose the creation of a viable, independent Palestinian state.
It seems evident that Trump, who is urging Israel to proceed cautiously and whose administration has not decided yet what its position on immediate annexation should be, either gave no thought to the practical implementation of its own Peace to Prosperity proposal in January or, more likely, viewed it as a second-term project. The Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears unlikely to act in brazen defiance of warnings from the Trump administration not to immediately go forward. For all the talk of a July 1 turning point, when Israel’s new government authorized itself to begin considering potential large annexations of Palestinian land, nothing has happened or even been decided by mid-July.
While it is possible that the administration and the Israeli government will insist on at least a modest annexation of some of the larger settlement blocs, annexation of all settlements, let alone the strategically crucial Jordan Valley, is unlikely before the end of the year. Moreover, annexation is likely to take the form of the extension of Israeli civil law into these areas, which is more easily rescinded than a formal act of annexation. In other words, the furthest the administration is likely to want the Israelis to go for the rest of this year is an attenuated de facto annexation of a limited area.
However, a Trump victory in November would make large-scale Israeli annexation in the West Bank in the following years a virtual certainty. That will be a huge problem for several of the Gulf countries. All of them have sought to build closer relations with Israel since the 1990s and, especially, in recent years. Yet all have warned Israel that wide-ranging annexation in the occupied territories will make closer ties, especially at the diplomatic and political level, almost impossible. This was explicitly communicated by the UAE’s ambassador to the United States, Yousef Al Otaiba, who in July published an article in Israel’s leading newspaper in Hebrew and posted a video in English saying that his country seeks better relations with Israel but that this would be impossible in the event of annexation. Yet many on the Israeli right seem to have focused on the recognition and respect communicated by the appeal rather than the blunt warning it attempted to convey.
Annexation is the biggest threat to closer ties between Israel and Gulf countries. And while some progress on cultural, athletic, and scientific areas may still be possible, real political, diplomatic, and military relations cannot be pursued in the context of Israel annexing Palestinian territory. It will stop diplomatic and military progress between Gulf countries and Israel at a time when both sides are highly motivated to pursue constructive ties because of mutual deep suspicion of Iran and, to some extent, Turkey (Qatar being an obvious exception to this). It could easily prove a fleeting historical moment that is not easy to recover should the regional and strategic circumstances change. The Trump administration is unlikely to pay more attention to this pitfall to its policies in a second term than it has in its first.
Prognosis The broad concerns Gulf countries have about U.S. judgment, reliability, and predictability are likely to persist no matter who wins in November, although a greater degree of predictability might be restored by a Biden victory. On the other hand, there are aspects of Trump’s approach to foreign policy that correspond with Gulf countries’ imperatives, particularly concerning Iran, as long as war or, conversely, a sudden rapprochement, are avoided. But Gulf states also must worry about the scope of Israeli annexation during a second Trump term.
For Gulf countries, in the coming election Trump constitutes the devil they know: There are many problems with their relationship with him but many advantages as well. The biggest disadvantage is also, ironically, one of his most well-established qualities: his unpredictability. A Biden administration, by contrast, is effectively an unknown quantity, particularly because it is unlikely to implement a revival of the Obama administration’s approach to the region. Too much has changed, too many lessons have been learned, and, in any case, no two presidencies are alike. And, as a second Trump administration would likely demonstrate, no two terms of a two-term presidency are all that similar either.
Many limits are conventional rather than clear-cut, enforceable or institutional and therefore are subject to transgression.
One by one, the guardrails of American democracy are bending and cracking during Donald Trump’s Presidency. Whether the system can survive this historically unprecedented, and entirely self-inflicted, test remains unanswered. But there is a crucial object lesson already evident for all democratising societies, and any that seek to live by the rule of law.
In the latest, and in many ways most egregious, of his myriad transgressions of established political norms, Mr Trump on Friday commuted the sentence of one of his close associates, the notorious political fixer and self-proclaimed “dirty trickster” Roger Stone. Mr Stone was due to begin a lengthy prison term for lying under oath regarding his role as a conduit between Wikileaks and the 2016 Trump campaign.
He was not lying to protect himself. It is not unlawful for a private individual like Mr Stone to be in touch with an organisation like WikiLeaks and/or a presidential campaign. But it is highly illegal for a US presidential campaign to accept anything of value from foreign powers, including the huge dumps of hacked emails and documents from the opposition that WikiLeaks publicised, reportedly on behalf of Russian intelligence and in apparent coordination with Mr Stone.
Mr Trump testified under oath to the Robert Mueller investigation that he knew nothing of these communications, but other sworn testimony and most known facts, as well as common sense, suggest otherwise. But without Mr Stone’s corroboration, Mr Trump and his campaign were effectively protected from what would have been one of the biggest political scandals in US history.
Mr Stone has made no secret throughout that he believes Mr Trump owes him. And Mr Trump has all but acknowledged this, praising him, and his discredited, and also criminally convicted and Russia-linked former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, for not becoming “rats”, in Mafia lingo, by cooperating with authorities.
What is groundbreaking is not merely that Mr Trump is using these powers to reward friends, which other presidents, such as Bill Clinton, have allegedly done – although that is bad enough. It is to reward someone who, both sides basically admit, helped him cover up his own misdeeds to get elected.
It is as close as anyone can get to pardoning themselves.
And, indeed, the presidential pardon power, according to the US Constitution, does appear virtually absolute. The only open question is, could a president actually pardon himself? There are hypothetical legal arguments on both sides, because until now it has been considered a preposterous scenario.
No president, including Richard Nixon, has pardoned their own corrupt cronies like this or used pardon and commutation powers to facilitate or reward a self-serving cover up.
What has been revealed by the Trump era is how many of the guardrails of American democracy are conventional and cultural rather than clear-cut, enforceable and institutional. There are some important formal and structural limits, certainly, but much of what historically has appeared impossible or ridiculous turns out to be merely unconventional.
Mr Trump keeps demonstrating that US presidential power is more regulated by self-restraint than by constitutional or institutional limits, and that lesson clearly is not over.
Having overthrown a monarch, the framers of the Constitution were profoundly uneasy about creating a powerful chief executive in a centralised state. The first American political system, the ill-fated Articles of Confederation (1781 to 1789), was so decentralised that it could not function.
That is why the still-operative 1789 Constitution created a centralised federal government with the presidency as a powerful chief executive to make quick judgments about immediate necessities, particularly involving security and other urgent matters unsuited to large or even small committees.
Yet there was considerable anxiety about the potential for a rogue, monarchical executive, unmoored from self-restraint.
Proponents of the Constitution argued that filtering mechanisms such as the electoral college and the good judgment of the people and, especially, the elite, would prevent an unscrupulous demagogue from seizing this enormous power, and that the institutional constraints of Congress and the courts would intervene to prevent them from misusing it if that ever did happen.
Ironically, in the 2016 presidential election, the electoral college delivered the presidency to Mr Trump although Hillary Clinton beat him by almost three million votes in the popular tally. And Congress is now almost entirely guided by partisan interests, with the Republican Senate majority uninterested in the facts of the Ukraine scandal and declining to hear from a single witness before acquitting the President.
Many, and arguably all, presidents have played games with their vast powers. Nixon spied on and undermined his political enemies. Abraham Lincoln suspended civil liberties. Franklin Roosevelt rammed through his New Deal. Lyndon Johnson twisted arms and lied about Vietnam. George W Bush used cooked intelligence to invade Iraq. The list is endless.
But until now, the US has never had a president who does not acknowledge that self-imposed limitations are essential to the proper functioning of the office.
The Supreme Court – which remains a functional, independent institution largely because of the political savvy of Chief Justice John Roberts – last week slapped down Mr Trump’s claims of total immunity from criminal and congressional investigation, but put limits on what can be demanded of him.
If the courts move quickly, that could prove catastrophic for the President. But don’t hold your breath.
Instead, we are again reminded that the primary remaining, and always paramount, guardrail is the next election.
Mr Trump, deeply behind in the polls, now daily tweets the phrase “Rigged Election!!! 20% fraudulent ballots?” conjuring the spectre of millions of forged mail-in ballots, implicitly prepared by a foreign power, to defeat him.
We may see more untested guardrails rammed later this year, especially if events keep going badly for him.
If defeated, will Mr Trump leave office? If he tries to cling to power, will other institutions thwart him? Before he goes, will he try to actually pardon himself? Can he?
But the main lesson for the rest of the world is already clear. Conventional and cultural restraints are not worth much. Never say, “no one would do that”. Put it in writing, with consequences. Otherwise, it is a matter of time.
The US President hopes voters somehow will prioritize saving statues as their country buckles under a pandemic.
US President Donald Trump has made no secret of dreaming of remaining in power beyond the constitutionally mandated eight-year limit and ultimately joining the pantheon of greats carved into Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. At a strange and inappropriately publicly funded campaign event at the monument on Friday night, the eve of the Independence Day celebration, he went as far as he could to virtually impose his own visage alongside those of venerated US presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.
Mr Trump often insists he is among the greatest presidents and his aides promote doctored photographs depicting him added to “Mount Rushmore, improved”.
This is not just a narcissistic personality run amok. His effort to turn himself into a living national monument is the politically calculated centre of his flagging re-election campaign.
But it is, at the very least, Plan D.
Plan A had Mr Trump running on the strength of an economy he insists was “the greatest in the history of the world”, but was essentially what he inherited from his predecessor Barack Obama.
Enter the coronavirus.
Plan B was to pose as the great national unifier fighting the pandemic. But, not wanting the responsibility, he did not craft a national strategy, and instead forced most major decisions on to state authorities.
The US handling of the pandemic is surely among the worst anywhere, with the virus continuing to spread rapidly, over 130,000 Americans dead, and the living no longer allowed into much of Europe.
Plan C was marshaling post-pandemic economic rejuvenation. But with the virus still spreading, a strong economic recovery before November has become fanciful.
Then came nationwide protests against systemic racism following the death of George Floyd in police custody. Voila, Plan D: Mr Trump running as the great white culture warrior chieftain, defender of a national mythology that undergirds white ethnic power and privilege.
At Mount Rushmore, he barely mentioned the coronavirus, but painted a lurid surrealist picture depicting Black Lives Matter protests as “a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children”.
Though the protests were mostly peaceful and generally popular, he insisted: “Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities.” It was reminiscent of his bizarre inaugural address in which he vowed to end “American carnage”.
He subsequently and at length insisted that the mainstream media, which is increasingly willing to identify overt racism without euphemisms, is a key part of the “bad, evil people” that Americans, meaning only his own supporters, will “quickly” defeat.
So, for Mr Trump, the election is now primarily about monuments, which represent a “culture war” that is essentially about upholding racial privilege.
Despite his unfounded claims that Mount Rushmore itself is under threat, most of the monuments in question honor Confederate leaders – traitors who fought primarily to preserve the right to enslave other people and whose defeat can only be celebrated.
Moreover, the statues were generally erected much later, amid a brutal campaign to re-establish white supremacy in the South, following the collapse of post-Civil War racial social and economic reconstruction. They were often intended to symbolize systematic oppression, exploitation, segregation and brutality against African-Americans. And they still do.
Most Americans appear finally convinced that Confederate symbols should no longer be publicly revered. Even the historically hardline southern state of Mississippi will finally replace its flag that contained Confederate imagery.
Cultural perceptions on race among white Americans have shifted dramatically this year, and not in Mr Trump’s direction.
His big new initiative is an executive order to create a garden of statues of American heroes, among which he obviously expects to be eventually included.
This monument of monuments, proposed by a would-be living monument, is certainly unneeded, largely unwanted and will probably never be built. But the announcement clarifies that pseudo-patriotic monumentalism is Mr Trump’s defining overt re-election theme, at least for now.
He may want to fight some thinly disguised, updated version of segregationist cultural and historical battles, but most of the country has moved on. He seems convinced there is a white silent majority who will actually believe him that rioters and looters are trying to destroy their history and heritage. Some will, but many more are recognizing that deep-seated and violent racism persists and, thanks to seemingly endless and irrefutable phone video evidence, are horrified by police killings of unarmed black people.
Mr Trump must now try to convince Americans that his opponent Joe Biden, of all people, is the leader, or even a doddering puppet, of an anarchist campaign to destroy the country.
His adoring base may appreciate racial appeals and culture war rhetoric, though it has a strong stench of the desperate and trivial. But that base alone is not a winning coalition. Pandering to it for applause could produce a comprehensive Republican defeat in November.
Few Americans will vote based on the fate of Confederate monuments, especially during a raging pandemic and economic meltdown. The Trump administration is making matters worse by holding large events without masks, social distancing or other obvious precautions. The irresponsibility is unmistakable, especially with more of his own staff testing positive.
Most people will vote on jobs and health. Mr Trump is not likely to be persuasive on either, so it is back to basics: white ethnic grievance. His political rise began with false assertions that Mr Obama was born in Kenya and therefore was an illegitimate president.
Last week, the President retweeted a video that opens with one of his supporters shouting “white power!” at a Florida retirement centre. He eventually deleted it and the White House insists he somehow never heard the unmistakable cry. But he never condemned the sentiment.
Why would he? This unidentified man seems a perfect stand-in for Mr Trump himself: an elderly north-eastern transplant to Florida (where the President officially resides) shouting “white power!” into a camera. In the face of ongoing, devastating public health and economic crises, such sentiments, whether explicit or encoded, and all the monuments he can champion, will not win Mr Trump four more years in the White House.
The international chorus against Netanyahu’s land-grab should now press for Israeli-Palestinian talks.
July 1, the date on which Israel’s coalition government proclaimed it could begin annexing Palestinian territory in the occupied West Bank, passed without any land-grabbing. Though Israel doesn’t appear to have made any major preparations on the ground for such a move yet, diplomatically or politically, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is unlikely to give up on his plan to seize Israeli settlements and the strategic Jordan Valley.
The key figure is President Donald Trump, who is expected to make an announcement soon; his administration has not yet finalized its position on how much, if any, of the West Bank Israel can swallow before the U.S. election in November.
The hesitation by both Netanyahu and Trump suggests both are still calculating their odds. There is yet time to convince Israel to step back from the abyss.
Israel must consider the growing prospect of a Joe Biden presidency in January, and an American government determined to reverse the damage that Netanyahu and Trump have inflicted on hopes for a two-state solution. A weakened, discredited Trump plainly cannot and does not speak for the U.S. on this, as has been demonstrated by bipartisan calls on Israel to desist.
The Palestinian leadership, meanwhile, has moved beyond its categorical rejection of the Trump peace plan, proposed in January, that paved the ground for Netanyahu’s annexation policy. The Palestinian Authority has formally proposed the resumption of negotiations with Israel, based on where talks left off in 2014. This gives Israel a potential off-ramp from the road to annexation, and refutes the argument there is no one to talk to on the other side.
But it is essential that pressure be maintained on both parties. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas secured unanimous support from Arab and Muslim countries—including some Gulf Arab countries are pursuing closer ties to Israel and have strong relations with Washington—against Israel’s annexation plan. That chorus should now press him to build publicly on the formal response Palestinians say they made privately on June 9, and make the case for new talks.
Likewise, the voices that warned Israel against annexation should now urge Netanyahu to parley with the Palestinians instead of killing off the last hopes for peace. This group includes many key Arab states and most governments in Europe; over 1,000 European parliamentarians signed a letter against unilateral Israeli measures. There has also been calls for restraint from senior UN officials, and even countries that have heretofore been silent, such as Australia.
But, as ever with Israel, it is American voices that will count the most, and they are hitting some unusual notes. Netanyahu can hardly have failed to notice the strong push back from normally supportive quarters in U.S. politics. Nearly 200 members of Congress, including most House Democrats, have signed a letter expressing opposition to annexation. Many of the signatories are stalwart Jewish supporters of Israel. A smaller group of 12 advocates cutting aid to Israel, should it proceed.
In a letter of their own, Republican members of Congress, allied with evangelical Christian groups, have defended Israel’s right to act unilaterally. But this threatens to further politicize support for Israel in the U.S.—just as Republican fortunes appear shaky.
More striking is the opposition, or at best ambivalence, from the Jewish-American leadership. The main pro-Israel lobby group, AIPAC, has focused its criticism on the small group calling for aid cuts—but not on those who signed the letter opposing annexation. Most other major Jewish groups have made it clear they dislike the idea; while they may defend Israel in the event of annexation, it will be halfhearted and reluctant, with all the effectiveness that implies.
So when Biden says he is opposed to annexation and “will reverse” anything Trump agrees to that threatens a two-state solution, he’s not actually taking any political risks.
Taken together, these voices formed something approaching an international consensus against annexation, and may have helped to dissuade Netanyahu from proceeding with his plan in coming weeks. This is no time to turn down the volume.