The tell-all comes out amid a series of setbacks for the US President as well as his re-election bid.
US president Donald Trump has had some bad weeks before, but the past seven days delivered a series of especially damaging and often inter-connected blows to his re-election prospects.
A Supreme Court decision written by his own appointee, Neil Gorsuch, effectively bans discrimination against people based on their sexual orientation. This directly counters Mr Trump’s persistent targeting of transgender Americans regarding military service and health care.
It has shocked and horrified some of his conservative supporters. Prominent evangelical Christians rationalised their support for the notoriously libertine Mr Trump on grounds that his judicial appointments would advance their conservative social agenda. Mr Gorsuch was viewed as the prime example. That argument is now in tatters.
The court quickly delivered another stinging blow, blocking the President’s unpopular efforts to deport hundreds of thousands of migrants who, although now upstanding members of society, were as children brought to the country illegally.
Mr Trump can keep trying to deport them on some other basis. But given the timeline he will have to get re-elected first.
Those prospects are not exactly bolstered by a memoir by his former national security adviser John Bolton, which the administration tried but failed to suppress. Last week, it was shipped around the country, widely reviewed and even posted online.
Mr Bolton writes that Mr Trump pursues “obstruction of justice as a way of life”, and cares only about his re-election prospects. I have consistently argued in these pages that Mr Trump is always focused on politics and never policy. Mr Bolton confirms that is exactly right.
In addition to corroborating the worst allegations from the Ukraine scandal that led to Mr Trump’s impeachment, Mr Bolton adds numerous other outrageous accusations.
The worst, perhaps, is Mr Bolton claiming that Mr Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to help him secure re-election, including by buying more American agricultural exports. Mr Bolton says another senior official, Matthew Pottinger, informed him that the President had said similar things to the Chinese leader in the past.
If true, Mr Bolton’s allegations confirm Mr Trump’s striking ignorance of international affairs, wondering if Finland is part of Russia and surprised that Britain has nuclear weapons.
Mr Bolton is widely viewed as an extremist, and now almost universally as an unpatriotic, self-serving cynic as well. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other administration officials and supporters brand him a traitor. Democrats are disgusted that he withheld this information, which could have greatly pressured the Senate to remove the President, to sell a book.
But, unlike some others, he has no history of compulsively telling extravagant lies. The Trump administration’s accusations that his book is full of falsehoods are contradicted by their simultaneous claims that it reveals plenty of classified information, since there is no such thing as a classified lie.
Mr Bolton’s book probably would not make much of a difference on its own. Anyone surprised by these disclosures must have been asleep for the past three years. But the book is not floating in a vacuum.
For example, it describes another incident of apparent past misconduct linked directly to an additional major new controversy. Mr Bolton says that in 2018, Mr Trump promised Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he would dismiss a federal prosecutor in New York who had indicted a bank owned by the Ankara government and quash that bothersome investigation. On Friday at 9pm, the Justice Department announced that very prosecutor had indeed been suddenly fired under extraordinary and highly suspicious circumstances.
The prosecutor, Geoffrey Berman, was responsible for convicting the President’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, of corrupt acts on behalf of Mr Trump (identified in that case as “Individual 1”), including paying hush money to two former paramours. His office has also been investigating, among others, the President’s current lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. Precisely what necessitated this unexplained, abrupt and dead-of-night dismissal remains unknown. But it was obviously urgent and drastic, and that paints a powerful picture of panic and potential corruption.
To overcome his persistent and mounting woes, particularly stemming from the coronavirus public health and economic crises, Mr Trump was counting on a dramatic political turnaround starting with a huge rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday night. But his campaign bungled the job. They claimed a million people requested tickets and planned a full house of 19,000 and an overflow area of 40,000 more. Yet it was sparsely attended and seemed anything but the promised triumphant display of “American comeback”. If the event was meant to serve as a visual representation of economic and social rejuvenation and dynamism, it flopped spectacularly.
One highlight involved the President at length and with considerable fanfare demonstrating his ability to drink a glass of water without using two hands. He may regret saying that he ordered a slow-down in coronavirus testing to depress infection-rate statistics. As often after such damaging statements, Mr Trump’s aides implausibly insisted he was just “joking”.
But even among those who accept that, with more than 120,000 Americans dying of Covid-19 in recent weeks, it is unlikely to prompt many chuckles. It will be even less amusing if the rally gives rise to a correlated set of new infections, as many public health officials fear.
Meanwhile, former vice president Joe Biden, who is barely campaigning or visible, is registering double digit leads in many polls. Five months is a long time in politics and underestimating Mr Trump is demonstrably ill-advised. But in many ways, the presidential race is now essentially Mr Trump versus Mr Trump. And he seems totally unable to re-create the magic, such as it was, of four years ago.
It is going so badly that some of his aides are quietly wondering if a self-sabotaging part of him would welcome leaving the White House.
Whoever wins in November must primarily shepherd the US through a slow, painful recovery. There is little glory likely in that for a President exclusively fixated on personal adulation and aggrandisement. For Mr Trump, winning could prove even more painful than losing.
UAE officials are doing their best to warn Israelis against annexation, but the medium may trump the message.
In an extraordinary direct message to the Israeli public, the United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States, Yousef Al Otaiba, warned against possible large-scale annexations in the occupied West Bank contemplated for later this year. Otaiba made the appeal in an article in Hebrew for the leading Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth and also issued a separate video message in English. This outreach is noteworthy in multiple ways. It is plainly intended to impact the internal Israeli debate about annexation and serve as a stark and direct warning to the Israeli public, but Israelis may be misled by focusing on the form and even the existence of the message, rather than its content.
In effect, Otaiba is saying to Israelis: Many of your leaders appear to be suggesting that there won’t be any meaningful negative consequences regionally to annexation. I am telling you frankly that this is not true, and that there will, in fact, be a disruption in whatever thawing process might be taken further with my country.
Yet the tone of the message, and even its existence, communicates a more complicated underlying reality. Neither side in the Gulf-Israeli relationship is being fully candid with their publics about what has (and has not) happened since the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. All of the Gulf countries, without exception, made considerable strides toward dialogue with Israel. Each has its reason for doing so. The details of these interactions are less relevant than the fact that all six Gulf Arab states have opened up to Israel at various times in the past 30 years, some of them significantly.
The closest any of the Gulf countries have come to an open relationship with Israel was the establishment of an Israeli trade mission in Qatar in 1996. But it was closed in November 2000, just as the second intifada was picking up steam. What is noteworthy about this relationship is that it reached its height in 1996, arguably among the strongest periods for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and a time when hopes for a two-state solution based on the Oslo agreements were widespread. But these moves toward more formalized diplomatic ties came to an end as those hopes collapsed amid the flames of the second Palestinian uprising.
It is certainly true that, like most of its Gulf partners, Qatar remains open to stronger relations with Israel, although it is held back by its current level of dependence on Turkey and Iran, which have significant tensions with Israel. At present, it is Oman that has the strongest ties to Israel, with the late Sultan Qaboos bin Said in 2018 welcoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials on a rare visit to an Arab country. Yet even here, there was some caution. The visit was not announced until Netanyahu had returned to Israel, and the Omanis clarified that they were not willing to normalize diplomatic and other relations with Israel until a Palestinian state was established, ending the occupation that began in 1967.
Despite Qatar’s history of groundbreaking ties with Israel and Oman’s willingness to publicly engage with Israeli political leaders, attention in recent years has focused on relations between Israel and the three Gulf states most united on regional affairs: Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain. While Oman and Qatar maintain their own foreign policies, particularly toward Iran, and Kuwait works assiduously to avoid being drawn into regional, ideological, or sectarian disputes, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain have taken a strong stance against Iranian hegemony and strongly oppose its proxies in the Arab world. Since Israel shares the view that Iran is the principal menace in the region and has been willing to take action in recent years, particularly in Syria and Iraq against Iranian-backed militia groups, the sense in the Gulf that Israel is a potentially valuable strategic asset – and even possibly a potential national security partner – has grown.
The same perception has developed in Israel. Israeli threat perceptions grew much closer to those of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain when the main part of the Syrian war ended with the fall of Aleppo to government forces in 2016. At that point, the bulk of the fighting in the most important parts the country was essentially over, leaving the powerful Iranian-supported Lebanese militia group Hezbollah free to consider other possible activities. Yet, the Syrian war transformed Hezbollah’s role into a broad regional vanguard for Iran’s militia network and rendered the group far more powerful, experienced, and capable militarily. They were also now connected with like-minded organizations in Iraq among the Popular Mobilization Forces, the Houthis in Yemen, and other, smaller pro-Iranian groups scattered around the Arab world. These were precisely the aspects of Iranian meddling that alarmed the three Gulf states. This increasing convergence of threat perception has strongly encouraged Israel and these Gulf states to consider the potential benefits of closer ties.
In addition, the UAE is deeply concerned about the rise of Turkey as a potential regional hegemon leading a fledgling Sunni Islamist regional bloc in association with Qatar, the Government of National Accord in Libya, Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood parties, and other like-minded forces. Israel takes a similarly dim view of the Turkish foreign policy agenda. This powerful antagonism toward the Muslim Brotherhood has produced a convergence of Israeli and Emirati attitudes toward Hamas, in broad sympathy with Egypt’s perspectives as well. Israel is also seen as a potential trade partner and source of critical technology, particularly involving military and security matters, and above all, cybersecurity.
For all these reasons, both sides have been encouraged in recent years to speculate about the virtues of closer relations. However, Israeli leaders exaggerate when they speak of “our Sunni Arab allies.” There is no alliance between Israel and any of the Gulf countries. There are not even diplomatic relations. However, Saudi Arabia’s position that there has been no change since the adoption of its Arab Peace Initiative presented to the Arab League in 2002, and subsequently adopted by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, is also misleading. There is ample evidence of significant intelligence and low-level military communication, and quiet trade, particularly in strategic and security-related goods and services.
There has also been a change of attitude. This was most recently reflected in this year’s crop of Ramadan TV dramas from the Gulf, as well as in increased sporting, trade, and cultural ties. In addition, there is a marked change of tone regarding attitudes toward Israeli Jewish nationalism emerging in this new century, quite distinct from Arab attitudes of past eras. This is partly generational and partly a consequence of the Israeli peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan and agreements with the PLO, as well as the fact that Israel is a significant player in the Middle East.
The bottom line is that the Gulf countries do not and never have believed that Israel poses an existential threat to their core national interests. The Islamic Republic of Iran, by contrast, is seen, certainly by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain, as such a threat, a view that is shared by Israel. So, in the current era, Israel appears to be an established regional actor whose foreign policy may be very damaging when it comes to Palestinians but potentially useful regarding Iran and even Turkey. Even more distant seems to be the old idea that Israel is an artificial creation of the West or a temporary imposition doomed to go the way of the Crusader states of the Middle Ages.
All of this creates the extraordinary tone of the Otaiba message to the Israeli public. The fact of the message’s existence itself communicates seriousness and a willingness to speak directly, the complete antithesis of the deafening silence of earlier decades. It is, by definition, an act of recognition, and while not formally diplomatic, it communicates a degree of respect. It says you’re worth talking to, and we think (and hope) that you’ll listen to reason. The tone is not plaintive or begging. Nor is it threatening or coercive. It is, instead, an appeal to reason. This message was amplified by the UAE’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, when he spoke to the American Jewish Committee. He reiterated his country was still committed to a two-state solution and opposed annexation but is willing to continue communicating with Israel and encourages negotiations. He added that nonpolitical ties can still be pursued even as political disputes continue.
The UAE is walking a tight rope. There is little doubt it is sincerely trying to communicate two messages to Israel simultaneously. First, we very much would like to improve relations with you. Second, your annexation plans will make that impossible, and progress on ending the occupation is essential to moving forward. There is nothing contradictory in these messages. But there is a pitfall. Many Jewish Israeli leaders, mostly conservatives, appear to have wrongly concluded from the experience of the past 30 – and especially 15 – years that the price they will have to pay for better relations with Gulf Arab countries simply lessens over time. If they stonewall, they can keep getting what amounts to a better deal, and time is simply in their favor. This is not true since the impetus for closer relations with Israel is also dependent on factors that are largely independent of Israeli conduct, notably the rise of Iranian and Turkish power that threatens both Israel and the Gulf Arab states.
The danger for the UAE and other Gulf states with this kind of engagement with Israel is that the fact and tone of the message might be all that registers, rather than its content. Some Israeli media, like the Times of Israel, are misinterpreting Gargash’s comments as “a significant turnaround” from Otaiba’s remarks. Unsourced reports from conservative papers such as Israel Hayom claimed that “behind the scenes the [annexation] move is not being challenged as forcibly as the Palestinians might hope” and that Arab states “will not jeopardize their relationship with the Trump administration for” the Palestinians. The idea that Arab governments do not care much about annexation is so widespread in Israel that a leading columnist from Haaretz felt compelled to warn that “reports of Arab backing of Israel’s West Bank annexation plans are completely baseless.”
Palestinian leaders also have serious doubts about Emirati intentions. Most notably, they refused to accept two recent shipments of medical supplies because flying them directly from the UAE to Israel was simply an excuse for “normalization” of relations between the countries.
But the seriousness of the UAE opposition to annexation was underscored by Gargash’s recent comment at the Middle East Institute that, “ultimately, I personally believe that if we are going where we are going today, and we lose the possibility of really implementing a two-state solution, we will really be talking about equal rights and one state.”
Israeli leaders and citizens may well wrongly conclude that the fact the UAE has communicated directly to them in a respectful and sincere way is the real message. It is not wrong to identify the impulse for closer relations with Israel in these gestures. That message is there. But the actual message Otaiba and Gargash are delivering to the Israelis – that your annexation plans are incompatible with any idea of continuing to cautiously develop our dialogue and potential cooperation – may be getting lost. For the message to be properly understood, Israelis, and especially their leaders, need to receive it without hubris and with a prudent humility they sometimes struggle to maintain in dealing with the Arab world.
America’s military brass are reminding the “law and order President” that the army cannot be leveraged for political purposes.
Behind the scenes of the spectacular demonstrations against police brutality that swept the US following the killing of George Floyd, an extremely consequential drama has been unfolding between American civil and military authorities. The Armed Forces have been compelled, for the first time in decades, to draw stark red lines limiting how much they will allow themselves to be leveraged by a president for political purposes.
US military culture is one of the world’s strongest in emphasising the subordination of the Armed Forces to civilian leadership. Most presidents, too, have been careful about not overstepping boundaries and unduly exploiting the military’s obedience.
The US presidency, sometimes uncomfortably, combines the roles of head of government, which confers political and administrative authority, and head of state, which involves representing the country symbolically and presiding over major national civic functions. So, every US president automatically derives tremendous political benefit from public performances as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces.
Although he has enthusiastically staged the military for political iconography and branding, until the recent protests Donald Trump never fully stepped over the line of egregiously abusing this authority. And the military appreciated the attention he lavished on them and the budget increases he ensured.
However, the attack on law-abiding civilians at Lafayette Park outside the White House on June 1 changed all that. Without meaningful warnings and before a curfew came into effect, National Guard troops, among others, charged peaceful protesters with gas and rubber bullets to clear a path for the president and his entourage to pose for a grim photo opportunity outside a historic church.
This abuse of the Armed Forces, personally ordered by Attorney General William Barr, to suppress the constitutionally-protected free-speech rights of American citizens was bad enough. Perhaps worse, the nation’s highest-ranking officer, Gen Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, dressed in combat fatigues no less, allowed himself to be drawn into the tableau being staged by the President, Mr Barr and others.
This disturbing scene brought to a head a set of interlocking conundrums that have been developing for the military during the Trump era. This President and his inner circle are clearly willing to exploit the military for undue political purposes. The disaster for the US Armed Forces at what is now ironically known as “the Battle of Lafayette Park” therefore could not be allowed to stand as a precedent.
Ten days later, Gen Milley finally offered an extraordinary public apology to the nation, admitting error and promising to never again allow himself to be manipulated for partisan political purposes. The statement was not just highly unusual but the length of time that passed indicates the enormous amount of internal institutional pressure it represented.
This fiasco also strongly contributed to a stark repudiation by Defence Secretary Mark Esper of Mr Trump’s suggestions that the Insurrection Act of 1807 should be invoked to permit the military to suppress protests around the country. Mr Trump reportedly wanted to oust Mr Esper when he insisted that would be unacceptable, but was dissuaded by close allies who argued it would be a disastrous mistake.
So, both the uniformed generals and the Department of Defence have openly rebuffed significant aspects of the President’s policy and political agendas. And the military is now being effectively protected institutionally by Mr Esper (formerly derided as “Yesper” for his unfailing deference to Mr Trump).
But his days may be numbered. If a far-right ideologue and Trump loyalist such as Arkansas Sen Tom Cotton, who urged the widespread deployment of the military against protesters in a notorious opinion column in The New York Times, were appointed defence secretary in his place, it could be much more difficult for the military to maintain its institutional integrity and independence from politics.
The template established by Mr Barr at the Justice Department, which has been thoroughly politicised, and arguably corrupted, under his leadership, is chilling.
Clearly military leaders will be examining every major new instruction from Mr Trump with much greater wariness. These concerns will only be intensified by the forthcoming publication of a memoir by former national security adviser John Bolton, which will reportedly detail how Mr Trump only ever considers his re-election prospects in making foreign policy decisions, even at the expense of the national interest and stated policies – precisely as I have been arguing for years in these pages.
The military is exhausted at being constantly whipsawed by precisely such capricious political and personal decision-making, producing, for instance, endless confusion regarding deployments to Iraq and Syria. A huge reduction was just announced to the US military presence in Germany, despite recent costly upgrades. This is apparently retaliation for German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s refusal to participate in a G7 meeting Mr Trump sought to organise, again for obvious political ends.
It has fallen to former senior officers – including former defence secretary James Mattis, former White House chief of staff John Kelly, Gen John Allen, Gen Martin Dempsey, Adm Mike Mullen, Gen Richard Myers, Adm James Stavridis, Adm William McRaven, Gen Raymond Thomas and Gen Mike Hayden – to forcefully express outrage on behalf of military institutions and serving officers that are duty-bound to maintain silence and loyalty.
Taken together, the central and unmistakable subtext of their statements was that under no circumstances would the Armed Forces co-operate if the President attempts to postpone or cancel the November election or ignore its outcome if he loses, as now seems likely.
It is surely no coincidence that this Friday Mr Trump suddenly conceded he could lose the election and promised to accept that. It is a major change from four years ago when he vowed to only accept the result if he won. As President, he has frequently discussed remaining in office beyond the eight-year constitutional limitation and seldom publicly entertained the prospect of accepting defeat.
The message that, if he loses, the military will not help him reject the result, was apparently loud and clear enough to have been received and duly acknowledged even by Mr Trump.
Protests may reflect changing attitudes towards racism and policing in the US and around the world.
Over the past week, the US has been rocked by a wave of protests unlike any since the late 1960s. Outraged by the videotaped killing of an unarmed African-American man, George Floyd, by police officers in Minneapolis, huge sections of society are loudly demanding an end to endemic police brutality, particularly against young black men.
While there is ample cause for concern with such volatility, some underappreciated aspects of this unrest suggest it could prove a dramatic and positive turning point.
First is the intense international engagement with these developments. A huge amount of global attention has focused on the protests, such that George Floyd is improbably now a name known around the world. The protests outside the US have echoed and amplified these concerns.
In some cases, parallels have been drawn to endemic abuses against other minority groups such as the Australian aboriginals. But in many cases, the international protests have been straightforwardly about injustice in the US. That not only indicates the persistence of international solidarity in an era supposedly defined by self-serving parochialism, it is also a massive testament to the ongoing power of American culture.
It is hard to imagine unrest motivated entirely by domestic social concerns in any other country provoking a large wave of sympathetic street protests around the world. Only American culture has the global reach to inspire that.
That is a good thing because, despite all the flaws of the US – particularly in recent years – American ideals can and should play a major role in promoting international respect for equality, justice and rule of law. That same worldwide attention in turn can and should help Americans try to live up to their own supposed principles.
Cold War competition with the Soviet Union was a significant factor in driving the US to dismantle the architecture of racial segregation in the 1960s. It is entirely positive for both Americans and their international friends that US culture continues to have the unique gravitational pull that the recent protests have demonstrated.
Second, the protests have illustrated and accelerated exceedingly important and long-overdue cultural and attitudinal changes in the US. Polling data reveals an enormous shift among white Americans regarding the prevalence of racism.
Until recently, most white Americans demonstrably did not believe that racial discrimination continues to be a huge problem in general, even regarding policing.
However, new polls show that now large majorities of white Americans finally do recognise that racism and discrimination are “a big problem” in US society and that police are more likely to treat African-Americans “unfairly”.
That is a dramatic, even revolutionary, transformation in attitudes. Majorities of white Americans are therefore telling pollsters that the anger of demonstrators is “fully justified”, and huge majorities see it as “somewhat justified”.
And, of course, the crowds of protesters are hardly all, or in many cases even mostly, African-American. US citizens of all descriptions, particularly among the young, have taken to the streets.
There they face serious dangers, particularly from the police themselves. In some noteworthy cases, police officials have shown themselves to be, as everyone would hope, respectful and responsible civic leaders. And in most cases, police have behaved professionally.
However, 2020 could mark a turning point in the administration, and eventually the culture of US policing, because too much of the police reaction has confirmed the essential accusations of the demonstrators: that indiscriminate, and even casual, police violence is all-too common.
The ubiquity of smartphone videos may be forcing the end of an era in police brutality and impunity.
During recent protests, numerous instances of police behaving in a brutal and even criminal manner towards peaceful protesters have been documented on cell phones. As with the Floyd killing, these videos have often made what would have traditionally happened – police uniting in a dishonest whitewash of brutality within their ranks – virtually impossible.
There is still a huge divide on normative expectations between most Americans and many police officers, as demonstrated by a shocking incident in Buffalo, New York where a large group of police were videoed shoving an elderly protester to the ground and leaving him lying there unaided, unconscious and bleeding. When two officers were suspended without pay for this outrage, 57 of their supportive colleagues resigned from that emergency response unit in protest, apparently seeing nothing wrong with such conduct.
But, given the increased public sensitivity and opposition to police abuses based on accumulating video evidence, the policing of the police seems likely to change in much of the country. The militarisation of police is likely to be significantly curbed and new levels of accountability enforced.
Police will have to start policing themselves or others will do it for them. This wave of unrest demonstrates an overwhelming public demand for it, especially in cities.
Finally, the political impact seems largely positive.
One of the most shocking cases of abuse was an attack on peaceful protesters gathered at Lafayette Park outside the White House. They were suddenly charged by police wielding tear gas and batons to make way for President Donald Trump.
Angered by reports he had been cowering in a White House bunker, Mr Trump sought to project strength by being photographed standing outside a historic church grimacing and holding a Bible upside down. The senior military leaders who accompanied him were improperly politicised for Mr Trump’s re-election campaign.
Meanwhile, heavily armed but distinctly unmilitary-looking personnel with no identifying insignia or other markings are proliferating in Washington, raising the spectre of an American version of Iran’s Basij or Russia’s “little green men” – mysterious, unaccountable and possibly quasi-official paramilitary forces.
These abuses prompted an unprecedented wave of impassioned criticism, including from his former defence secretary James Mattis, and Republican defections are gaining momentum.
Mr Trump has never looked weaker. Although the election is in November, polls show him losing to Joe Biden by double digits.
The principled demand for justice by countless ordinary citizens may prove a historic turning point. US society and its international role both require urgent repair. It would be sublimely fitting if the solution begins with the American people themselves.
The Covid-19 pandemic, economic meltdown, protests against the killing of George Floyd and Donald Trump’s attacks on democracy are all taking a toll on the country and its people.
Americans can’t breathe these days. The sense of suffocation is compounded by pervasive dread that the worst may be yet to come. Culturally and emotionally, many have not fully registered the scale of national calamity in a dreadful year that is not yet half over.
Attention is now focused on city streets around the country as angry protesters condemn yet another apparent police murder of an unarmed black man, George Floyd. He was suspected of the minor offense of trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A white officer, Derek Chauvin, pinned him face down on the ground and kept his knee pressed into the back of his neck.
For almost nine minutes, three other police officers did not intervene as bystanders, filming the killing, begged them to stop the brutal assault. Floyd pleaded for mercy, cried for his mother and repeatedly uttered the haunting phrase “I can’t breathe”. When paramedics arrived, he was dead.
“I can’t breathe” is a phrase that already resonates powerfully in American culture, defining regular police killings of unarmed black Americans under mundane law enforcement circumstances. In July 2014, Eric Garner, a young black man suspected of selling untaxed cigarettes, famously repeated “I can’t breathe” 11 times as police slowly choked the life out of him, again in full view of the public and a video camera.
None of the officers involved in Garner’s death were ever charged with a crime, but following this weekend’s protests Mr Chauvin was arrested and charged with third-degree murder.
The outrage is driven by how casually some police and self-appointed vigilantes, as in several other notorious recent cases, appear to feel entitled to snuff out the life of young black Americans with no justification, and how often they get away with it.
Justice, and the public’s belief in justice, has been put under stress.
President Donald Trump, however, appears to be reveling in the chaos. It has changed the subject from the mismanaged pandemic to disorder he can cast in racial terms, posing as the champion of the white, non-urban Americans against what some of his supporters perceive as a black and brown “urban menace”.
His first reaction to the protests was to vow that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”, a phrase made notorious by a racist Florida police chief in the late 1960s. Invoking this grim legacy, the President was threatening to punish property crimes with summary executions.
This appalling tweet finally caused Twitter, which has tried desperately to avoid applying its normal terms of service to its most prominent user, to label it as violating the company’s rules against “glorifying violence”.
Twitter, however, has yet to do anything about Mr Trump’s numerous recent tweets bizarrely accusing one of his critics, TV commentator Joe Scarborough, of having an affair with, and then murdering, one of his staffers when he was a Republican congressman 20 years ago.
Both claims appear to be completely baseless. They met just three times and she died in a tragic accident when he was more than 800 miles away. Her widower has begged Twitter to take down this cruel defamation.
Mr Trump’s reaction to protests outside the White House also seemed to welcome the prospect of violence and implied disappointment that none of the protesters were “really badly hurt, at least”.
This comes in a week when the US passed the grim milestone of at least 100,000 Americans dying from Covid-19 over the past 100 days. This lung infection, which literally asphyxiates its victims, has also choked the life out of the American economy, which now resembles the years of the Great Depression.
This figure of 100,000 dead in 100 days is so colossal that it has not been fully comprehended by many Americans, particularly since most of the deaths have been concentrated in urban settings and among ethnic minority victims. Nonetheless, whether, as seems entirely plausible, a major second wave of illness is preparing to hit in the coming months, the scale of the human devastation will finally sink in sooner or later.
Much of the public has also yet to fully register the economic damage and coming pain. Massive government spending, which is rapidly running out and not being replenished, has kept many Americans from truly feeling the impact. But that is likely to change soon enough as the level of coronavirus devastation, both economic and human, is set to become far more evident in the daily lives and consciousness of Americans.
Prominent observers – including the country’s leading expert on international democratization, Prof Larry Diamond of Stanford University – are increasingly warning that American democracy is in mortal peril. Continuing to chip away at its structures, Mr Trump has systematically purged five inspectors general, watchdogs whose role is internal oversight within the executive branch, to replace them with subordinates who do not ask awkward questions.
With the November election just five months away, and Mr Trump in serious trouble, scores of serious articles and several working groups in Washington have been trying to anticipate various tactics the President could use to circumvent defeat and how US democracy can survive such an assault.
Scenarios ranging from states of emergency to claims of widespread voter fraud to the unleashing of massive violence are all being seriously contemplated because so many of Mr Trump’s critics strongly doubt that he would be willing to just walk away. Opinion is divided about how much support he could get, especially from other Republican leaders, but is strikingly unified that he might well refuse to quietly go.
Struggling to come to grips with a historic and ongoing public health calamity, the total meltdown of the economy, cities in flames and the very structures of their venerable democracy shaking under their feet, is it any wonder so many Americans increasingly feel – like Garner and Floyd, and the 100,000 coronavirus victims – that they just cannot breathe?
Gulf states may find plenty to work with to strengthen ties with Washington in a Biden presidency.
As former vice president, Joseph R. Biden Jr. has emerged as the uncontested Democratic Party nominee for president to face incumbent Donald J. Trump in November, Gulf countries are increasingly analyzing what a Biden policy toward the Middle East might involve. This task is necessarily speculative. The situation facing both the United States and the Middle East, including the Gulf region, will look very different in November, not to mention January 2021, when the next presidential term formally begins.
Numerous factors shape U.S. policy, which most agree is in a period of transition. Nonetheless, as Trump has arguably discovered, there are some persistent consensus views and perceptions of the national interest that push back against a rapid and radical change of course. And the personal views of the president are likely to be a major factor, particularly one with a deep well of experience, which certainly would be true of Biden, should he be elected.
When examining evidence of where candidates’ inclinations, experience, past positions, and recent policy statements – as well as the broader atmosphere within their party and the country as a whole – may lead them, it is essential to keep in mind some obvious caveats. Past positions were adopted at a different time and with a different set of calculations in mind. Direct personal responsibility for the conduct and consequences of foreign policy, and above all, the use of force, is a unique burden that cannot be easily simulated or imagined.
Even positions Biden espoused as vice president were produced under different circumstances and without the direct personal responsibility of the presidency. The primary goal of most politicians is, naturally, to get elected. It is only after the candidate has won the White House and been inaugurated that the full brunt of the president’s responsibilities become clear.
Therefore, it is reasonable to look at the candidates’ current and past positions and their senior advisors for some guidance as to what they might do. In doing so, however, it is essential to emphasize the apparent limitations of such analysis. It can help in hypothesizing about what might be coming, but nothing more than that. Nonetheless, Biden has a long track record and numerous recent statements worth consulting for an indication of what his foreign policy might look like.
It’s tempting to assume he would try to simply turn the clock back four years and resume where he and, in particular, former President Barack Obama left off, and Trump took over. But even if Biden wanted to do that, assuming he wins, it’s not possible. Too much has changed in the interim. He is not Obama, and making that clear via policy differences will be both necessary and important to Biden, should he be elected. For that and numerous other reasons, the wholesale reinstatement of Obama-era policies would be both impossible and undesirable.
While it may seem like an eternity in domestic politics, January is not far off in the context of international relations. So, here’s a quick evaluation of what Middle East and Gulf policies under a potential Biden administration might look like on several issues that are likely to remain central nine months from now.
Iran and the JCPOA
The standard line during the Democratic primaries from almost all candidates was pledging to return to the Iran nuclear deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which Trump abandoned in 2018. In August 2019, Biden told the Council on Foreign Relations that, “If Iran moves back into compliance with its nuclear obligations, I would reenter the JCPOA” and use that as a starting point to address “Tehran’s other malign behavior in the region.” That’s probably what most Democratic voters, viewing the JCPOA as Obama’s signature foreign policy achievement, and deeply resenting Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement, wanted to hear. But while the JCPOA functions on paper, in reality it is a dead letter. Between the U.S. “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign and Iran’s own abandonment of its commitments under the deal, any effort to revive it would, in effect, require a wholesale renegotiation of it. So even if Biden and his team were to announce a “return to the JCPOA,” what they would really seek is a new understanding based on that model.
One of Biden’s chief foreign policy advisers, Jake Sullivan, who was also one of the key architects of the nuclear deal, seems keenly aware of the need for an approach that goes beyond maximum pressure and an effort to turn back the clock. While he admits he did not think sanctions would be effective without international consensus and cooperation, he acknowledges that Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign has had a major impact: “Actually, those sanctions have been very effective in the narrow sense of causing deep economic pain on Iran.” At the same time, he observes these effective sanctions were not a “magic bullet” and have not resolved U.S. differences with Iran.
This is a strong indication that the Biden camp is moving beyond campaign rhetoric about “reentering the JCPOA” and is evaluating the present situation. It would include analyzing the leverage that sanctions have given U.S. policymakers in dealing with Iran, as well as the shortcomings of a policy that may have lacked the necessary diplomatic and political components to translate such leverage into strategic gains. Sullivan said the next step would be “to establish something along the lines of the [JCPOA], but immediately begin the process of negotiating a follow-on agreement.” In other words, a Biden policy would seek to reengage on the nuclear deal, mainly to look past it to a stronger agreement with expanded timelines that would address what Sullivan calls the “other elements that we learned subsequently could be strengthened.”
There is no indication yet how a Biden administration would seek to counter Iran’s malign regional behavior, particularly its support of armed sectarian militias in neighboring countries such as Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria – although that issue has become more pressing and deadly since the last election. It’s also unclear whether, or under what terms, Biden would be willing to consent to recognizing Iran’s right to enrich uranium, which many observers credit as the breakthrough U.S. concession that made the nuclear agreement possible.
Iraq
Biden has been frequently criticized for supposedly suggesting the partition of Iraq into Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish states, but that is an exaggeration and even a distortion of what he actually called for. In a 2006 New York Times commentary and a 2007 Washington Post op-ed, both coauthored with the journalist and commentator Leslie H. Gelb, Biden recommended the “soft partition” of Iraq – effectively along Bosnian lines – loosely held together by a weak central government in Baghdad. This concept was vilified and ridiculed at the time, but while the word partition remains anathema, the essential concept has subsequently gained adherents in Iraq and the region. Arguably, this is the federalist direction in which the country has been heading anyway, particularly in Kurdish and Shia areas that are effectively self-ruling while being nominally part of a broader, but decentralized, Iraqi state.
The larger question to be discussed during the campaign and determined by the next administration will be the scope and presence of the U.S. military in Iraq. Both Biden and Trump will undoubtedly continue to vow to bring the “forever wars” to an end, and both will probably try to repudiate their on-the-record support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 (for Biden a vote in the Senate, for Trump comments on the Howard Stern radio show). But although Trump has frequently advocated for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Middle East and other parts of the world, he has generally not pursued that policy. In contrast, Biden has said he does not support the wholesale withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Middle East, and presumably would be even less inclined to draw down the U.S. military presence in Iraq to zero or anything close to that.
Biden’s international worldview is much closer to the traditional post-Cold War internationalism that Trump generally rejects. So, while he frequently argued against the use of force during the Obama administration (opposing the intervention in Libya, arguing against any major involvement in Syria, and even urging caution regarding the raid that killed Osama bin Laden), and might be very hesitant to be drawn into any military conflict, Biden might be more open than Trump to recognizing the broader strategic benefits in retaining the U.S. military presence in Iraq.
Indeed, Biden has stated plainly he would leave U.S. forces in the Middle East, in particular to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, which suggests a continued presence in Iraq. Indeed, Biden’s emphasis on continuing to combat ISIL has even led him to cite the “imperative to remain engaged” in Syria, possibly more than either Obama or Trump would have contemplated. Recent remarks by Antony Blinken, one of Biden’s top foreign policy advisers, strongly suggested the continued presence of U.S. forces on the ground would be essential to retaining leverage and hinted at regret that the Obama administration did not do more to help shape the outcome in Syria. Military and Other Commitments to Gulf Countries
One of the clearest rhetorical differences between Biden and Trump has been their stated attitudes toward weapon sales to U.S. Gulf Arab partners. Trump appears to view Gulf Arab countries primarily as customers for U.S. military goods and services and, therefore, a source of profit for U.S. corporations and employment for workers. But, for a variety of reasons, the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia and, to a lesser extent, the UAE, has emerged as a significant partisan fault line between Democrats and Republicans. Support for Saudi Arabia has even become a contentious issue between some internationalist Senate Republicans, such as Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio, who are normally supportive of Trump and the White House. The war in Yemen, in particular – exacerbated by the kiling of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, growing concerns about the treatment of dissidents in Saudi Arabia, and other sources of tension – turned Washington’s relationship with Riyadh into one of the most controversial aspects of U.S. foreign policy in the Trump era.
Biden, along with many Democrats, has become increasingly outspoken about the war in Yemen and limiting arms sales to Saudi Arabia while it continues. Biden told the Council on Foreign Relations, “I would end U.S. support for the disastrous Saudi-led war in Yemen and order a reassessment of our relationship with Saudi Arabia.” During a Democratic primary debate, Biden even referred to Saudi leaders as “pariahs” and said there was “very little social redeeming value in the present government in Saudi Arabia.” Still, to the Council on Foreign Relations he outlined the need for a continued, if altered, relationship with Riyadh, emphasizing that “I would want to hear how Saudi Arabia intends to change its approach to work with a more responsible U.S. administration.” This formulation, and much of the Democratic rhetoric about Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and similar issues during the Trump presidency, ultimately circles back to opposition to the current occupant of the White House. As with these comments, the implication is that a different president and U.S. foreign policy is the key to producing a “corrected” relationship with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab partners.
Nonetheless, some Gulf Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia and, to a lesser extent, the UAE, have become political footballs in the United States between partisan Republicans and Democrats and, more recently, between internationalist and “America first” Republicans. They have considerable work to do to rebuild ties to Democrats and internationalist Republicans, and this task would become more urgent in the context of a Biden presidency. But the threats of international terrorism, Iranian hegemony, and other shared concerns provide a solid basis for a revived, if recalibrated, partnership under Biden.
Israel and the Palestinians
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a central plank of U.S. foreign policy for domestic political reasons and is of deep concern to Gulf Arab countries, most of which are potentially open to developing closer ties to Israel. Of the Gulf states, only Kuwait has not demonstrated in recent years a clear interest in exploring the potential for a better relationship with Israel. While the reasons for this interest vary, significant improvements in bilateral relations with Israel are contingent on progress between Israel and the Palestinians on a two-state solution or, at the very least, easing the burden of occupation on the Palestinian people. Therefore, the Trump administration’s promotion of Israeli annexation of occupied territories and its systematic denigration of Palestinian aspirations and claims have been problematic for most of the Gulf Arab countries.
The looming prospect of additional large-scale Israeli annexations in the West Bank, as suggested by the Trump proposal issued in January, makes additional progress far more difficult. Gulf countries that have an interest in better relations with Israel, for whatever reason, must be extremely concerned about U.S. policies that promote Israeli conduct that would make such improved ties far more difficult, if not impossible, to secure. The Trump proposal suggested that Israel could annex most of the settlements, official or unofficial, in vast swaths of the West Bank, as well as the strategically crucial Jordan Valley.
Having effectively invited Israel to indulge in such annexation, the Trump administration has apparently sought to restrain Israel from acting immediately. However, the rise of Biden in the polls and the political difficulties Trump is facing as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and concomitant economic crisis appears to have prompted some in the Israeli government to view the coming months, particularly before November’s election, as an opportunity to act quickly to grab as much of the West Bank as possible before a Biden administration steps in to restrain them. The Trump administration has not publicly encouraged such a move, however, and there are hints of potential private reservations.
Biden, however, has made it clear he is opposed to annexation and remains committed to a two-state solution. Moreover, he has said that, if elected president, he will not be bound by whatever Trump recognizes in the coming months and may well reverse any such moves. Despite its strong basis of domestic support in both parties, Israel, too, is increasingly becoming a contentious issue between Republicans and Democrats and within both parties. Strong supporters of Palestinian rights are dismayed by Biden’s historic commitment to Israeli security and the “special relationship” between the two countries. But the specter of a Biden presidency is at least as much of a deterrent for a major Israeli land-grab in the Palestinian territories as it is a reason for the Israeli government to act quickly. Prognosis
Most of the Gulf Arab countries had grave doubts about the Obama administration and welcomed the victory of Donald Trump almost four years ago. On that basis and because of some of the concerns outlined above, many of them may continue to fret about the potential of a Biden presidency. The primary lesson may be that it was a mistake to become excessively identified with the Republican Party and the Trump administration when the partnership they value is with the United States, in general. History has firmly established a cyclical pattern for the transfer of power in the United States. While some outside players, most notably Israel, can rely on solid bases of domestic political support, most, including all of the Gulf Arab countries, lack that assurance.
Besides, the general trend toward an attenuation of global U.S. leadership and military engagement, and broad conflict fatigue – especially in the Middle East – which is shared by the political classes, the armed forces, and the public at large, will be a key factor, no matter who wins in November. Even though several Gulf countries are happier with the “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions against Iran under Trump than they were with the JCPOA under Obama, the new policy has not resulted in the easing of tensions or any improvement in Iran’s behavior. A generalized sense of disappointment with the United States that has been building for over 15 years persisted under Trump and was augmented by a disturbing sense of unpredictability. And, while some Democrats advocate greater U.S. disengagement, there are signs from Biden and his advisers that his administration would treat the Middle East as a region of continued importance for the United States and could seek a new U.S. diplomatic push to lower tensions and enhance stability across the board. So, there’s potentially much to work with in a Biden administration despite some of the potential sources of tension. There is no reason that Gulf countries wouldn’t find themselves as well, or better, aligned with a Biden presidency than a Trump second term.
Faced with the threat of illegal annexation, the Palestinian Authority is signaling that it is running out of options.
Since Donald Trump became US President, the walls have been rapidly closing in on Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, and his commitment to negotiating a two-state agreement with Israel.
In January, Mr Trump issued a “peace proposal” that virtually invites Israel to annex about 30 per cent of the occupied West Bank, including the strategically crucial Jordan Valley. Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, successfully campaigned to remain in office on a promise to do exactly that in the coming months.
The Trump administration has asked Tel Aviv to wait until a joint Israeli-US mapping committee determines which chunks of Palestinian territory Washington will allow Israel to devour. Palestinians have not been included in any of these conversations whatsoever. Naturally, they are desperate to assert their agency, make themselves relevant, and press the international community to act fast to save the possibility of a two-state peace agreement.
On Tuesday, Mr Abbas voiced this anguish, declaring: “The Palestine Liberation Organization [of which he is the chairman] and the State of Palestine are no longer committed to all signed agreements and understandings with the Israeli government and the American government, including security commitments.”
It’s not clear what this announcement will mean in practical terms for the Palestinian Authority government in Ramallah and its considerable administrative and governance role in the lives of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. But by adding that Israel would now have to “uphold responsibilities before the international community as the occupying power” he was clearly hinting at the PLO’s long-standing “nuclear option” of dismantling the quasi-independent Palestinian administration that has been developed within the occupation’s broader context since 1993.
Dismantling it would certainly create innumerable headaches for Israel. If the PA completely closes its institutions, Israel would theoretically have to step in and directly rule Palestinian towns as well as provide for the basic needs of the population.
That’s not something many Israelis want to do, but it’s not impossible either.
The greatest brunt, especially at first, would be felt by ordinary Palestinians, who would lose a wide range of administrative and social services and, in many cases, jobs; the PA and its subordinate agencies are the biggest employers in the West Bank and Gaza.
Completely renouncing the Oslo Accords and refusing to deal with Israel would also mean giving up most of the PA’s operating budget, which is funded by Palestinian taxes that under the accords are collected by Israel and transferred to the Authority.
But apart from repeated declarations that the Palestinians have ended all security and intelligence co-operation with Israel and the US, there is no sign that the PA has changed its functional modus operandi. No one seems to have resigned from, let alone closed, any office, though Palestinian security forces have reportedly been withdrawing from certain areas.
The bottom line is that Palestinians have not developed any practicable alternative national strategy to seeking a political agreement with the Israelis. If negotiating with Israel now seems a complete dead-end, armed struggle has an even worse track record. And no one in their right mind really believes Israel is going to be brought to heel by the UN or to its knees by grassroots international boycotts.
So, this threat is probably an empty one, at least until a new leadership with an alternative vision emerges – although the dire situation certainly demonstrates the urgent need for both.
It is difficult to understand what Mr Abbas hoped to gain by this speech under the current circumstances. Some Palestinians whisper that the plan was for him to emphasize that this is what the PA and PLO had always intended to do in the event of a major Israeli annexation. That makes more sense, given that should Israel grab all that land such a response would probably be inevitable and arguably justifiable.
But it hasn’t happened yet. And it may not. Publicly, the Trump administration is not urging Israelis to avoid annexation for the rest of the year, but it isn’t encouraging them either. It’s hard to imagine that Mr Trump would be disappointed if the Israelis decide to wait and see what happens.
With the looming threat of a Joe Biden presidency, Tel Aviv may feel some urgency to act now. But Mr Biden has pointedly repeated his commitment to a two-state solution, and insists he won’t be bound by any new commitments Mr Trump makes that would render it impossible, and is even prepared to reverse them. Is that a fight Israel really wants to have with Washington in 2021 and beyond?
Since it’s unclear what the Israelis will do, why would Palestinians want to appear to be abrogating the very agreements, particularly the Oslo Accords’ Declaration of Principles, that explicitly disallow annexation?
No doubt Mr Abbas is trying to remain relevant and to communicate the level of Palestinian desperation and despair to an apparently apathetic international community. But the price for such defiant-but-empty bluster – reminiscent of the “you’re leaving because I want you to go” genre of torch song – is potentially quite high. Much wiser to let Israel administer the rhetorical as well as practical coup de grace to the Oslo process.
The Palestinian leadership has said this kind of thing before, although not quite so categorically, and then decided, in the cold light of day, that cancelling co-operation, let alone dismantling fledgling Palestinian national institutions, doesn’t make much sense. It is, we keep discovering, easy and even habitual for both parties’ rash actions to hurt Palestinians and Israelis simultaneously.
Fortunately, Israel and the US are essentially ignoring the speech. Unfortunately, there may come a time when such drastic declarations and steps become unavoidable. But last week wasn’t it. The immediate goal for all responsible actors must be avoiding such a calamitous, but closer than ever, point of no return.
The outcome pending cases will effectively determine the ability of Congress and state prosecutors to check a president.
American democracy has been in big trouble for a long time, and it is rapidly deteriorating. Donald Trump, with his authoritarian tendencies, is certainly part of the problem. But he is even more a symptom of deeper weaknesses. Structural distortions ensured that although his opponent, Hillary Clinton, got almost three million more votes in the 2016 elections, he became the President. He could well be re-elected in November but has almost no path to winning the most votes this time either.
And there are more serious problems than the presidency going to the losing candidate. Accountability, rule of law and constitutional checks and balances are atrophying alarmingly. Several pending court rulings will strongly indicate how deep the rot now runs.
Let us start with the electoral college. Americans do not directly vote for the president but for a committee of electors who meet three weeks after the popular vote and formally elect the president. States try to control these electors’ votes, usually to enforce support for whichever candidate won a majority in that state.
Losing candidates like Mr Trump in 2016 can nonetheless become president because most states adopt a winner-take-all approach whereby whoever gets the most votes in a state wins all the electoral college votes of that state (which are apportioned according to population) regardless of how narrow that victory was. This formula meant that Mrs Clinton’s national three million-vote victory at the polls translated into a clear defeat in the electoral college.
And it gets worse. This year, the Supreme Court will rule on states’ legal authority over “faithless electors” who vote for whoever they like regardless of the popular vote.
The trouble is that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority all claim to be either “originalists” or “textualists”, supposedly guided by a law’s “original” meaning. Faithless electors are a perfect test of such supposed principles since no reading of constitutional history or texts leave any doubt that the founders of the US Constitution intended electors to vote according to their own judgments.
The Supreme Court majority may, and should, rule against “faithless electors”, but when they do they will yet again reveal that their “originalist” rhetoric is a disingenuous proxy for a Republican Party-driven political agenda. An actual originalist ruling would force the country to reform these antiquated systems, which is the last thing Republicans would want.
That partisan stance will be even more clearly tested in several crucial cases that will do much to define the astounding immunity and impunity of the presidency that Mr Trump is brazenly claiming.
Several test the total immunity that Mr Trump is demanding for all of his subordinates from constitutional subpoenas. Former White House counsel Don McGahn has been subpoenaed by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives but refuses to testify. The White House claims all executive branch staff, past and present, are entitled to ignore such subpoenas and effectively quash congressional fact-finding.
They concede that the House can impeach a president. But this would render that function meaningless by making most oversight practically impossible. Congress will not be able to discover whether impeachment is warranted or not.
The Supreme Court has returned this case to a lower court, but they will ultimately decide it one way or another, even by inaction.
And the Supreme Court is directly examining a second new privilege Mr Trump is claiming as President that is even more expansive and terrifying. New York state prosecutors are seeking, as part of a grand jury proceeding, to secure financial records involving Mr Trump, his associates and relatives, and his New York-based businesses from the accountants Mazars USA.
It is a fairly straightforward request, but Mr Trump asserts that, because the Justice Department argues that a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime while he is in office (although this has never been decided by a court), he therefore also cannot be investigated by any law enforcement officials either.
Such “absolute immunity” would apparently extend to a president’s past and present associates and businesses. They would all be beyond the reach of the most basic kind of legal investigation, including – as White House lawyers insisted in court – if a president were seen murdering someone in public.
In both of these cases, the Republican-appointed Supreme Court majority will instinctively want to protect Mr Trump. But they will have to also be concerned about the near-total impunity they would be handing any future president, free from all congressional and law enforcement investigation, inclusive of associates and former businesses.
Chief Justice John Roberts claims to be an “institutionalist” interested in the court’s reputation, as well as an “originalist”. These two cases will be the greatest test of those pretensions in his career thus far.
The court may try to split the difference by ruling against the Congress on subpoenas but against the President regarding his financial records.
In doing so, they would be gutting Congress’ ability to check and balance a president through oversight, and delivering yet another hammer blow to basic structures of democracy.
But rulings from the administrations of Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton seem to clearly establish that presidents are indeed subject to some forms of investigation and litigation. If the court does not uphold the right of New York officials to access the financial information from Mazars, then the presidency will truly be above the law – and entirely and absolutely monarchical.
That is probably a step too far even for this court, at least for now.
The cynicism of such a ruling would be almost overwhelming, because should it be guided entirely by partisan politics and not constitutional law, these same justices would certainly be prepared to casually but completely reverse themselves if a Democratic president tried to assert any such ridiculously expansive privileges.
The Roberts court could rise above partisan politics by rejecting both of Mr Trump’s outrageous claims. Sadly, a more likely scenario is that the court’s conservative majority will hypocritically (but correctly) rule against “faithless electors”, and defend the White House from congressional oversight while reiterating that a sitting president is not totally above the law.
Such a cynical compromise between creeping authoritarianism and lingering accountability would leave American democracy even more badly, but perhaps not yet mortally, wounded. Alas that is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
Approval from the Trump administration won’t spare Israel from international opprobrium for its West Bank land-grab.
It’s looking more and more likely that the new Israel’s government agreed between Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and Benny Gantz’s Blue and White coalition will proceed with a plan to annex large parts of the West Bank. In Israel and the U.S., much discussion has focused on when exactly the land-grab might occur, and how the Trump administration would react to it.
President Trump, remember, has already blessed the idea of annexation. But, as I have suggested before, he may not want it to happen before presidential election in November. Netanyahu and Gantz will undoubtedly be expecting some guidance from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo when he arrives in Jerusalem today.
Little attention is being paid, however, to how annexation will be perceived by other actors. In much of the world, there is already growing unease over the future Israel will be imposing on the Palestinians. If the five million Palestinians living in the territories occupied in 1967 are deprived of more land without even the basic rights of citizenship, it may become impossible for Israel to escape the stigma of an apartheid state.
Nor will the international community fail to notice that the Israelis are unilaterally abrogating solemn treaty commitments. In the 1993 Declaration of Principles it agreed with the Palestinian Liberation Organization—under the sponsorship of the U.S. and Russia—Israel promised not to annex occupied territories. Breaking that word, even with American approval, will cause serious and lasting diplomatic damage.
How would the world react to annexation? Among the major powers, Russia and China will likely issue formal expressions of regret, but do little else: Moscow and Beijing will not risk their strong ties to Israel over this issue. Europe is another matter, however.
More than likely, European governments will regard the newly-annexed areas illegitimate, as they do many other Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Although there is little they can do to actually prevent the annexation, they can impose an economic cost on Israel. Members of the European Union are already considering punitive measures, ranging from restrictions on trade agreements and the denial of grants.
Many European countries have laws distinguishing between goods and services produced in illegitimate settlements—which are labeled to show their origin or excluded from advantageous trade terms—and those produced in Israel proper. Israelis setting up businesses in annexed land could struggle for access to European markets.
There will be a political price, as well. Over time, Europeans will increasingly view a greater Israeli state as fundamentally illegitimate because it has been rendered indistinguishable from settlements. This view will inform the policies European governments adopt toward Israel.
Most emerging countries will likewise take a dim view of annexation: they have a stake in an international system that prohibits land-grabs by war. India could conceivably regard it as vindication of its own policies in Kashmir, but will at least express pro-forma disapproval. South Africa, Brazil, Mexico and others will be more forceful in their criticism—especially in the United Nations and other multilateral bodies—and will resist the normalization of an expanded Israel.
The same goes for the Islamic nations, even distant ones like Indonesia and Nigeria. In the Middle East, annexation will deepen hostility toward Israel from a wide range of actors, from Iran and Turkey to Islamist groups. And if Hezbollah and Hamas step up attacks on Israeli targets, they will have a ready-made justification that many Muslims around the world will find persuasive.
Annexation would virtually rule out diplomatic recognition of Israel by other Arab countries, even those that have recently been cultivating closer strategic relations, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It would even threaten relations with Arab states that do recognize Israel: Egypt and Jordan.
In the longer term, the reactions of Arab and other Muslim states will be governed by what the Palestinians do. The annexation plan leaves them marooned an autonomous area in the West Bank, entirely surrounded by the expanded Israel. Netanyahu, who calls this a “state-minus,” is calculating that Palestinians will have no option but to take whatever they can get.
This is wishful thinking. Palestinians will not surrender their historic claims and national aspirations in exchange for a West Bank enclave with limited self-rule within a greater Israel. A violent new uprising may be inevitable, requiring a military response from the Israeli Defense Forces—in turn risking more international opprobrium.
Even without a conflagration, Israel will essentially be suppressing the basic human rights of millions of people—and there won’t even be a pretense of this being a temporary situation, pending an eventual peace agreement. No amount of support from the Trump administration can erase that stain.
Although there are many reasons to believe the U.S.-Saudi partnership can endure, the need for both parties to repair trust has rarely been more urgent.
An April 2 call between U.S. President Donald J. Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman left no doubt about the state of U.S.-Saudi relations. Trump reportedly told the crown prince that if Saudi Arabia didn’t immediately move to resolve the oil price war with Russia and drastically cut production – which would salvage what was left of the devastated U.S. shale oil industry – Washington would withdraw its military forces from the kingdom. Those troops had been bolstered in 2019 amid increasing tension with Iran including attacks on Saudi oil fields, so the gravity of this threat was unmistakable. The Saudis hurriedly moved to convene the OPEC+ oil producers group, and after several days of intensive wrangling, secured an agreement with Moscow – which was also suffering significant economic woes due to the price war – and others to stabilize the market. But how did it come to this?
As Trump’s intervention demonstrates, Saudi Arabia and the United States may be experiencing one of the worst rifts in a long history of cooperation, with pockets of support for Riyadh in Washington dwindling over a complex series of disputes. The Pentagon now says it is removing Patriot missile batteries from Saudi Arabia and may also withdraw some of the extra U.S. troops deployed in the military buildup over the past year, with the rationale that the Iranian threat is receding. It is hard not to read this in part as a message to Riyadh, especially given the timing of the announcement. Although there are many reasons to believe the partnership can endure, the need for both parties, particularly Saudi Arabia, to repair the bilateral relationship has rarely been more urgent.
The current strains are a historical anomaly, even though the strategic affiliation between the United States and Saudi Arabia, which dates to the 1940s, has endured numerous strains in the past. Among the worst of these were the 1973 oil embargo and the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 al–Qaeda attacks. But in those instances, a bedrock of official support for the relationship on both sides – informed by urgent geostrategic imperatives such as the Cold War or, later, the struggle to combat terrorism and Iranian hegemony – helped overcome the divisions. Over the past 18 months, however, it has become increasingly difficult to identify consistent pockets of goodwill in Washington toward Riyadh amid myriad signs of mounting unease.
Tensions in the Second Obama Term
Disquiet between Saudi Arabia and much of the Democratic Party surfaced during the second term of Barack Obama. The then president frequently advocated a U.S. strategic “pivot to [East] Asia” and implicitly away from the Middle East. He expressed the view that the Middle East and its strategic energy reserves were no longer as important to bolstering the U.S. global position as they had been in earlier decades. He also referred to Saudi Arabia and other U.S. Middle East partners as “free riders,” who were not doing their fair share in their own defense. And, finally, he criticized Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab countries on human rights and women’s rights, critiques he did not apply to their principal regional antagonist, Iran.
It was on Iran that the deepest divisions emerged. Saudi Arabia, along with its Gulf allies and Israel, left no doubt it was deeply concerned over the U.S.-led international nuclear negotiations with Iran. Riyadh was concerned the agreement, which emerged in the form of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, unduly advantaged Tehran and could be the first step in a broader rapprochement between the United States and Iran without any fundamental restructuring of Iran’s regional policies. Saudi Arabia and its allies eventually endorsed both the negotiations and the subsequent nuclear agreement but remained concerned by the potential outcomes.
As it was, none of that played out. Under Obama, Washington was never able to pivot away from the Middle East, toward Asia or anywhere else, and maintained its robust regional military and commercial presence. Iran proved unreceptive to additional outreach and was disinclined to alter its destabilizing regional conduct, particularly support for armed sectarian militias in neighboring Arab states. The Trump Era Intensifies the Partisan Divide
Yet the experience left a bitter taste in the mouths of both sides. Many Saudis and their allies were relieved there was no “pivot to Asia” or broader understanding with Iran but continued to doubt the intentions of those who provoked those fears in the first place. And many Democrats persisted in seeing Saudi Arabia in the often negative terms Obama had defined. All of this was greatly exacerbated when Trump became president. He quickly embraced Saudi Arabia as a key ally and consumer of U.S. military goods and services. With great fanfare, his first trip abroad as president began with an extended stay in Riyadh, and he touted numerous contracts he claimed had brought unprecedented profits to U.S. companies and employment to U.S. workers.
Throughout the Trump administration’s first term, the existing tensions between Democrats and Saudi Arabia rapidly deteriorated, partly because Washington and Riyadh went to such lengths to emphasize their strategic alignment. Democrats were looking for a foreign policy issue to focus their attacks against the administration and for a variety of reasons that focus fell on Saudi Arabia. In particular, objections to the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen became a rallying cry against administration policy on Capitol Hill as the humanitarian situation in the country deteriorated, and the war increasingly became a quagmire for Riyadh and its allies.
Ill will intensified when Trump withdrew the United States from the JCPOA and instituted a campaign of “maximum pressure” sanctions against Iran. Democrats were dismayed at this all-out assault on what most considered Obama’s signature foreign policy accomplishment. And many of them blamed the governments of Saudi Arabia and Israel for encouraging and enabling this radical policy shift. Israel, however, is largely protected by its deep reservoir of bipartisan political support in the United States. Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies can call on no such domestic political support to secure their interests and defend their positions. Yemen and the Killing of Khashoggi Alienate Key Republicans
By the summer of 2018, Saudi relations with Democrats, who were months away from regaining control of the House of Representatives, had deteriorated severely. However, Riyadh maintained strong ties with the White House and, for the most part, with internationalist Republicans, especially in the Senate, despite growing unease over Yemen. However, the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S. permanent resident and columnist for The Washington Post, at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018 proved a hammer blow to Saudi relations with congressional Republicans. The killing, which the Saudi government asserts was carried out by its agents acting without authorization, is believed by many to have been ordered by the crown prince, fueling congressional outrage.
Many prominent and influential Senate Republicans who had stuck with Riyadh despite growing unease over the military stalemate and humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen – including Lindsay Graham and Marco Rubio – lost their patience with Saudi Arabia’s constantly evolving and unconvincing explanations for Khashoggi’s killing. The slaying dovetailed with a growing bipartisan desire to assert Congress’ role in U.S. military actions overseas and led to the unprecedented assertion in April 2019 of the War Powers Resolution over U.S. involvement in the Yemen campaign by majorities in both houses of Congress. Trump vetoed this effort to legislatively prohibit continued U.S. participation in the Yemen war, via arms sales and logistical support for the Saudi-led coalition, but it was a rare instance in which the president had to push back against Republicans as well as Democrats.
For the past year, therefore, the Saudi government was left almost entirely dependent on Trump and the White House for continued support in Washington. Bipartisan pressure to end U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia in Yemen continued to grow. Democratic politicians’ resentment over the continued maximum pressure campaign against Iran and reciprocal military attacks intensified. Concerns mounted over a continued political crackdown in Saudi Arabia, particularly the jailing and abuse of women’s rights and other human rights activists, some connected to the United States. There were ongoing accusations that Saudi officials were helping their nationals flee criminal prosecutions in the United States. And a shooting spree in December 2019 by a Saudi military trainee at a U.S. naval base in Pensacola, Florida that killed three U.S. citizens and wounded eight others added to the sense of unease and mistrust. The Oil Price War Pushes Relations Close to a Breaking Point
Throughout it all, the Trump administration appeared to stick with Riyadh. But that all changed with the oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia in which U.S. shale-oil producers were among the most damaged parties. From a Saudi point of view, the confrontation with Moscow was provoked by Russia walking out of an OPEC+ meeting that was intended to create market stabilization and its refusal to continue with an existing production cut agreement.
The Saudis were pushing for burden sharing to control the price of oil, and they got it. In the process, they demonstrated their importance in managing global oil markets. However, that came at a huge cost to its relations with the United States. The Trump administration holds fossil fuels in high regard and has been committed to a program of U.S. global “energy dominance.” The rise of U.S. fracking and shale oil production was a major pillar of this claimed policy success. Now, instead, the centrality of Saudi Arabia to global oil markets has been clearly reaffirmed.
The confrontation came at a particularly disastrous time for the U.S. economy, given the massive contraction associated with the coronavirus pandemic and the maturing debts of the U.S. shale oil industry. It infuriated not only Trump, but 13 key senators from oil-producing states, including Ted Cruz, the Republican from Texas, who on March 18 penned a letter urging Riyadh to resolve the dispute with Moscow and increase the price of oil. “If you want to behave like our enemy, we’ll treat you like our enemy,” said Cruz, traditionally a congressional ally of Saudi Arabia. The president’s threat to withdraw all U.S. forces from Saudi Arabia appeared to pick up on Cruz’s theme, suggesting that Washington would no longer feel bound in any way to protect Saudi Arabia’s national security and even its territorial integrity. It was essentially a threat to end the relationship.
Relations are Salvaged But Much Work Remains
Saudi Arabia moved quickly to respond to these threats, and particularly to Trump. In doing so, Riyadh has probably salvaged its relationship with the White House and possibly some Republican senators. However, ongoing tensions over Yemen, Khashoggi, and other issues suggest there is much work to be done with traditional Republican allies on Capitol Hill. As for Democrats, there is little doubt that Saudi Arabia remains a convenient and preferred target, not only on the far left but also within the mainstream. With Democrats well positioned for the November elections, Riyadh may be increasingly aware of the urgent political repair work required.
However, the Saudis still have added value. No matter how infuriating the oil price war was to many U.S. citizens, Riyadh managed to demonstrate two key points that may have needed reinforcing: first, the continued centrality of its oil to U.S. economic and strategic interests, and second, the unique role it inevitably plays in stabilizing and managing global energy markets. In other words, for all the anger it generated, Riyadh demonstrated it’s an ally worth having and keeping.
Additionally, if Democrats win the presidential election in November, the discussion within the establishment about rejoining the JCPOA and returning to the strategic approach of the second Obama term will not survive. Practically speaking, the JCPOA no longer exists. And everything else relevant to this question has changed since 2016. So even a Democratic White House would have to look at the challenges facing Washington in the Gulf region in 2021 to calculate its position. A strong alliance with Saudi Arabia will almost certainly count as an existing and valuable asset once real policy planning begins. That means the Saudis will have an opportunity to reset relations. But to succeed, they will have to move quickly, while recognizing the extent and urgency of the challenge they face in repairing ties in Washington.