https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/there-are-no-meaningful-checks-on-donald-trump-s-outlandish-behaviour-1.902492

He might value being unpredictable but investors never do. Meanwhile seemingly immutable norms lie in tatters.

Even though he is already noted for being at best erratic and at worst eccentric, US President Donald Trump’s most recent comments and conduct have caused considerable alarm at home and abroad.

First there was his preposterous demand to buy Greenland from Denmark. When he was predictably rebuffed, he cancelled a state visit to Denmark and called its female prime minister “nasty”, a word he frequently applies to women.

Then there was his enthusiastic endorsement on Twitter of an obscure radio host’s comments that “the Jewish people in Israel love him like he’s the King of Israel. They love him like he’s the second coming of God.” Never mind that the concept is anathema to Judaism.

In the same spirit, when defending his trade war, Mr Trump declared he was the “chosen one” in tackling China, appealing to the heavens for confirmation with upturned eyes and outstretched hands. He later insisted he had only been joking but he isn’t noted for having a keen sense of humour. Certainly no one was left laughing.

Mr Trump similarly likes to repeatedly joke about holding power beyond the constitutional limit of eight years, as he did yet again last week. But these frequent quips are obviously intended to prepare the public for that possibility – and he is plainly at least half-serious about it.

But perhaps the most troubling of his comments over the last few days were the most anti-Semitic made by any prominent American leader, let alone a president, in many decades. The president is reportedly outraged that many Jewish Americans remain strongly opposed to him, despite his pandering to the Israeli annexationist right.

He declared that Jewish Americans who vote for Democrats (at least 70 per cent routinely do) are showing “great disloyalty” by not supporting him. The next day he unconvincingly claimed he meant they were being “very disloyal to Israel”.

Republicans and Democrats joined a chorus of immediate condemnation. As David Harris, the chief executive of the usually politically cautious American Jewish Committee, said: “His assessment of…‘loyalty’ based on their party preference is inappropriate, unwelcome and downright dangerous.” Although Mr Trump upbraided reporters that this is only “anti-Semitic in your head”, in fact the charge of disloyalty is the essence of modern western anti-Semitism.

Mr Trump’s behaviour has fuelled renewed demands for his impeachment, a move key Democratic leaders still regard as highly risky as the Republican-controlled Senate would most likely acquit him.

The even more fanciful idea that Mr Trump should be removed by his own administration under the provisions of the 25th Amendment has also reappeared. The amendment was intended to deal with the consequences of a president in office dying, resigning or being incapacitated by illness. But when the sitting president suggests he has messianic status, that notion predictably resurfaced, with the hashtag #25thAmendmentNow trending on Twitter.

Mr Trump’s outlandish outbursts could be prompted by a growing realisation that his plan to run primarily on the strength of the economy is deeply threatened. Manufacturing is down badly and growth has returned to the Obama-era levels he ridiculed as terrible.

It is now evident that, yet again, a massive tax cut has not led to either a wave of capital investments or a major surge of growth. It has just meant a transfer of wealth to the already very-rich and has bloated the budget deficit alarmingly.

In response, Mr Trump broke new ground in American central-command economics with an inexplicable order that US companies disengage from China. He lacks the authority – but not the arrogance – for this heretofore unimaginable commandment.

Republican and business leaders were clearly aghast at this de facto socialism from a supposedly conservative administration but were at a loss as to how to respond.

Mr Trump has been working hard to set up the Federal Reserve Bank and its chairman as the fall guy if the economy continues to drift towards a recession.

On Friday, he launched what is easily the most vicious attack by any US president on one of his own appointees, tweeting: “My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, [Federal Reserve chairman] Jay Powell or [China’s] Chairman Xi [Jinping]?” – effectively accusing him of being both treasonous and an enemy of the state.

Yet with his intensifying trade war with China almost universally identified as the main cause of economic gloom, Mr Trump’s prospects for re-election are visibly and rapidly dimming.

He might value unpredictability but investors never do. And his own erratic comments seemed to fuel a major stock market decline on Friday.

Nonetheless, calls for impeachment, let alone invoking the 25th Amendment, are hollow.

The American constitutional structure assumed that presidents would embody certain minimal standards of public-spirited duty, competence and propriety. If an inappropriate individual gains the position, Congress is empowered to implement the needed correctives.

But the Constitution was drafted before party loyalties developed. It was assumed lawmakers would jealously protect the institutional prerogatives of Congress, not allegiance to a presidential party leader.

Consequently, there is now no meaningful check on a president who retains significant support in the Senate, no matter how inappropriate and disturbing their behaviour might be.

Still, this week dramatically illustrated how easily once seemingly immutable norms and principles can be shredded by a president no longer restrained by anyone – even himself.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/in-refusing-to-go-to-israel-rashida-tlaib-has-squandered-her-moral-victory-1.899692

The visit to her grandmother could have been an historic trip, which could have been recorded, immortalised and publicised to show Palestinian life under occupation

At first glance, the brouhaha over efforts by the first two American Muslim congresswomen, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, to visit the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel, looks like a comedy of errors.

But behind this absurdist farce lies a sinister domestic political struggle, in which its author, US President Donald Trump has demonstrated his formidable political skills.

Ms Tlaib and Ms Omar were invited by Palestinian and Israeli NGOs to visit several occupied cities, including Ramallah, Bethlehem and East Jerusalem. They are critics of the occupation and supporters of the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel.

The Israeli government reluctantly agreed that “out of respect” for Congress and Israel’s relations with the US, they would be allowed into the occupied territories. But Mr Trump’s keen predatory instincts scented political blood.

In an extraordinary move, the US president urged a foreign country to bar lawmakers for his own nation from entering its territory, thus manufacturing a crisis to the detriment of all parties, except himself.

Mr Trump and his allies have been trying to turn support for Israel, traditionally a bipartisan consensus, into a partisan wedge by driving US policy towards the annexationist Israeli right.

He is trying to appeal to his evangelical Christian base and win over largely Democratic Jewish Americans, while casting Republicans as genuinely pro-Israel and Democrats as hostile or even anti-Semitic.

To that effect he tweeted that Israel would “show great weakness” by allowing the congresswomen into the occupied territories, adding that they “hate Israel and all Jewish people and there is nothing that can be said or done to change their minds”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, facing a massive struggle to cling to power and to stay out of prison over corruption investigations, felt bound to obey his benefactor, reversed course and banned the lawmakers.

The depth of the crisis for Israeli-American relations this produced is hard to overstate. The entire Democratic Party, which is supported by most Jewish Americans, erupted in outrage.

Even Jewish American organisations like the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) and the American Jewish Committee, which almost never criticise Israel, issued complaints.

Pro-Israel American commentators were virtually unanimous in concluding, correctly, that Mr Netanyahu had allowed his loyalty to Mr Trump to severely damage Israel’s standing and greatly bolster the campaign to transform support for Israel into a Republican wedge issue.

Banning Ms Tlaib was particularly ironic, given that Mr Trump had suggested she, Ms Omar and two other Democratic representatives should “go back” to their countries of origin. Although born in Michigan, Ms Tlaib is a Palestinian and the Israeli government conceded that she might be granted a permit to visit her 90-year-old grandmother in the West Bank on “humanitarian” grounds, provided she agreed not to advocate boycotts against Israel during the trip.

Thus far, the affair was a total fiasco for Israel and the first major political triumph by newly elected Democratic critics of Israel.

Ms Tlaib could have done nothing and secured a huge win. But, understandably, she took Israel up on its offer and requested permission to visit her grandmother, agreeing to the onerous terms.

Perhaps hoping to establish a precedent to force other visitors to the occupied territories to also forswear criticism, Israel agreed. Despite the restrictions, Ms Tlaib had won again and was poised to make a poignant visit to elderly relatives enduring decades of hostile occupation.

But the congresswoman then managed to snatch at least a partial defeat from the jaws of a massive victory.

After coming under enormous pressure from fellow Democratic leftists and Palestinian activists, implausibly citing the potential model Israel might establish by her agreement to such terms, she suddenly changed her mind, saying she would not accept Israel’s censorious conditions.

This not only squandered a potentially historic trip, which could have been recorded, immortalised and publicised, documenting Palestinian life under occupation; it also allowed Israel to pose as the spurned reasonable party and paint Ms Tlaib as a frustrated would-be grandstander.

Yet few Americans see Israel as the victim given that, at the behest of a highly partisan president, it banned two Democratic congresswomen because of their political views. The damage was enormous and will play out over years.

Mr Trump, as ever, could not resist a final low blow, tweeting that the “only winner” in this affair was Ms Tlaib’s grandmother, who would not have to endure seeing her.

Sadly, none of his supporters are likely to notice or care that he just insulted an elderly lady struggling under occupation and gloated over his successful effort to prevent her seeing her granddaughter because she is one of his critics.

But Mr Trump is wrong. In reality, he is the only winner in this utter fiasco.

Israel is severely damaged among Democrats. Mr Netanyahu looks like a coward and a thug. Ms Tlaib seems confused at best and opportunistic at worst. Jewish Americans are further alienated from Israel. And Palestinians gained nothing and missed a major opportunity for Americans to learn about their plight.

Meanwhile, lounging at his golf club in New Jersey this weekend, Mr Trump is undoubtedly smugly surveying the wreckage.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/the-myth-of-the-great-replacement-how-white-nationalism-has-gone-mainstream-1.897074

This conspiracy theory is based on the premise that white people are under siege from an influx of non-white immigrants

Terrorist violence goes through cycles, like all fads, as ideologies of hate develop, metastasise, evolve and finally ebb in their perverse allure.

In the 1980s, radical, violent Islamism spread around the Middle East and then to the rest of the world, bolstered by the Iranian revolution, the war in Afghanistan and subsequent key triggers such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the dominant rationale was distinctly left-wing, informing western Maoist groups like the Baader–Meinhof Gang, a West German militant outfit, or anti-colonial forces like Palestinian factions or the South African Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress.

In the 1940s, before the formation of Israel, Jewish nationalists in Palestine like Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir were the original Middle East terrorists.

That followed a wave of fascist violence throughout the western world in the 1930s. In the immediate aftermath of World War I, anarchism was the most common expression of the rage of alienation.

There is nothing new about white nationalism but in recent years it has developed so much momentum as an organising principle for terrorist massacres, especially in the US, that it is starting to displace radical Islamism as the main inspiration for terrorist attacks today, particularly in the West.

Last week’s massacre in El Paso, Texas, allegedly aimed at the Hispanic community, joins a raft of other similar recent atrocities conducted by violent young terrorists, who have cited a white nationalist agenda in a series of attacks aimed at minorities, including deadly assaults on a mosque in Quebec in 2017 and a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018.

Such terrorist brutality requires not only a mindset of extraordinary cruelty but also a powerful narrative of an existential threat that appears, in the eyes of the perpetrators, to justify such mass murder.

The Norwegian white nationalist terrorist Anders Breivik, who massacred 69 people in 2011, appears to have provided the most potent contemporary template, with his notorious manifesto explaining his racist, Nazi and fascist motivations.

Mr Breivik was motivated mainly by hatred of Muslims but his manifesto outlined all the key themes of the “great replacement” theory that has become the driving force behind the current epidemic of white nationalist terrorism.

This theory thrives in far-right forums and is based on the premise that white people and a western identity are under siege from an influx of non-white immigrants. It is no coincidence that the alleged perpetrator of the Christchurch mosque massacres last March titled his screed The Great Replacement.

It is especially striking that white supremacy has shifted from more traditional assertions of white power based on purported superiority to an existential panic about a non-existent crisis, whereby white people in western societies are supposedly being “replaced” by non-whites, such as North African Muslims and black Africans in Europe or Mesoamericans in the US.

It is often accompanied by the preposterous suggestion that this is a Jewish-inspired plot or a conscious trade-off by western leaders for some implausible benefit.

Human beings have a natural tendency to form in- and out-groups and to define their interests against each other, generally irrationally.

This paranoid narrative emerged at the beginning of the 20th century in the US through the racial theories of the eugenicist Madison Grant, who suggested that Nordic people were both superior to, and being overwhelmed by, others.

He not only influenced exclusionary US immigration policies but was an inspiration for Nazis, with Adolf Hitler describing Grant’s most notorious book, The Passing of the Great Race, as “my Bible”.

Contemporary replacement theory linked to immigration began to emerge in American white power circles and among European anti-immigrant demagogues like British politician Enoch Powell in the 1960s.

The thread was elaborated by post-9/11 Islamophobia propagated by the likes of authors Bat Yeor and Oriana Fallaci, who specifically targeted emergent Muslim communities in Europe.

The contemporary narrative was solidified in the 2012 book Le Grand Replacement by French writer Renaud Camus, who has been cited by several white power terrorists. He claimed white populations around the world were being “replaced” by non-whites via immigration.

In the Donald Trump era, these views have migrated from the fringe into the mainstream, particularly in the US.

The US president has repeatedly trafficked in many of these sentiments, referring to Mexican and Central American immigration as an “invasion” and an “infestation.” He hasn’t explicitly called for violence against migrants, but what does one do to “invaders” except violently repel them, and how does one combat an infestation except by eradicating the vermin?

And the president’s biggest media supporters, particularly Fox News channel’s evening commentators Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingram, have been force-feeding their audience thinly-veiled great replacement theory rhetoric on a nightly basis for several years.

This explains why the neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, whom Mr. Trump referred to as including “very fine people”, notoriously chanted: “You will not replace us” and “Jews will not replace us”.

Mr Trump and his supporters are enraged that anyone would connect his anti-immigrant rhetoric to incidents such as Charlottesville and El Paso but the direct echoes are undeniable.

Radical Islamism remains a serious threat globally, particularly in the Arab and Islamic worlds.

But in the West, there is every reason to fear that, driven by great replacement paranoia and egged on by the most prominent leaders and major TV news channels, we are entering a gruesome heyday of white nationalist terrorism.

The worst is almost certainly yet to come.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/kushner-s-real-purpose-has-little-to-do-with-a-peace-plan-and-everything-to-do-with-us-domestic-politics-1.894406

The Middle East envoy, on a tour of the region, champions a shift away from a two-state solution to wholesale support of Israeli annexation.

The charade continues and the circus is in town. Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East emissary, is visiting Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Morocco to try to drum up support for his as-yet-unreleased “peace plan”.

He is likely to be disappointed again by the reaction in the region, but his real aims have little to do with the Middle East and everything to do with American domestic politics.

In this case, failure isn’t only an option, it’s virtually a goal.

Mr Kushner has been touting his plan for more than a year but there is still no sign of it. That is because of the extreme damage it will do to the US reputation in the Arab world and to any remaining prospects of a peace agreement.

But even though the plan has not been formally released, even to governments close to the US, thanks to a series of leaks, statements and pointed hints, we now have a pretty good idea of what is being cooked up by Mr Kushner and his two partners, Middle East peace envoy Jason Greenblatt and US ambassador to Israel David Friedman.

It is clearly going to centre on a complete repudiation of the two-state solution that has driven US policy since at least the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s and effectively since the 1967 war.

The two-state solution is also deeply rooted in international law, with its origins in UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, which followed the 1967 and 1973 wars respectively; the 1993 Declaration of Principles signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation; and UN Security Council resolution 1397, which in 2002 called for the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Mr Kushner and his colleagues have been remarkably agile in avoiding anything that might smack of this long-standing international goal. He says he won’t use the term “two states” because “if you say two-state, it means one thing to the Israelis [and] one thing to the Palestinians”. Obviously, that’s equally true of peace – or any word, for that matter.

Mr Friedman waxed philosophical, musing “What is a state?” as if the basic attributes of statehood and sovereignty under the UN system were a profound metaphysical mystery.

On Palestinian liberties, Mr Greenblatt also seemed bewildered by conceptual complexities, saying that, when it comes to Palestinians, “rights is a big word”.

Such sophistry aside, Mr Friedman last week acknowledged that the Trump plan will not call for Palestinian statehood but “Palestinian autonomy”, whatever that means, presumably within a vastly unequal Greater Israel.

These three men are passionate supporters of Israel but they are not simpletons. They know this is a complete non-starter for the Palestinians and other Arabs.

The Arab world remains united behind the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which calls for peace with Israel based on the creation of a Palestinian state, with its capital in East Jerusalem. No Arab government has given any indication of abandoning that policy.

Given that their efforts have nothing whatsoever to do with advancing peace, what is the Trump team really trying to achieve?

It has been obvious for more than two years, although it has taking many people a long time to see it.

They are trying to shift US policy away from the baseline expectation and long-standing bipartisan consensus of a two-state outcome and create a US political climate that supports the Israeli annexation of occupied territories such as Jerusalem and the Golan Heights and repudiates Palestinian independence.

Internationally, this is designed to advance the extreme Zionism championed by Mr Kushner and his colleagues, help Benjamin Netanyahu remain Israeli prime minister, facilitate the recognition of a Greater Israel and eliminate prospects for a Palestinian state.

Domestically, which is all Mr Trump cares about, the policy is aimed at appealing to his strongest body of support, those evangelical Christians who yearn for the apocalypse and second coming and who are single-minded in support of Israel’s occupation and expansion.

Republicans are also hoping that by abandoning the two-state solution – whose greatest champion, ironically, was probably George W Bush in his second term – they can create what they are calling a “Jexodus” of Jewish Americans away from the Democrats towards their own party.

Already, many Republican factions appear to be joining the Trump administration in renouncing the two-state solution and embracing Israeli annexation.

Whether this could lead to serious Republican inroads with Jewish Americans remains to be seen. It is possible that Democrats might follow suit to keep hold of Jewish support, expanding the US constituencies abandoning the idea of peace.

Mr Kushner’s current trip, just like his investment conference in Bahrain, will almost certainly prove a total bust – and the release of any such plan would be a devastating blow to ending the conflict.

But none of that is a failure for Mr Kushner and Mr Trump. To the contrary, while it’s a catastrophe for peace, this elaborate fiasco is serving their cynical ideological and political purposes admirably. For them, this is a great success.

https://agsiw.org/uae-outreach-to-iran-cracks-open-the-door-to-dialogue/

While the Emiratis have their own reasons for outreach to Tehran, Washington and Riyadh may find it useful as well.

Over the past week, at least two official delegations from the United Arab Emirates have visited Iran to discuss issues of mutual concern. While routine contacts between the governments had been a regular feature of relations in the past, such open contacts dried up as regional tensions intensified, leaving only a quiet intelligence backchannel between the two countries. The Emirati outreach is all the more striking given that a number of the low-intensity military actions allegedly conducted by Iran in an effort to break out of the Washington-imposed economic straitjacket were aimed at the UAE and UAE-related interests, including oil tankers. Yet this marked adjustment of UAE diplomacy is neither unexpected nor inexplicable.

On July 26, Iranian officials told the media that the UAE had dispatched a “peace delegation” to Tehran to discuss unspecified issues; the timing of the visit was notable, coming in the immediate aftermath of the announcement that there would be a significant drawdown of Emirati forces in southern Yemen. The UAE did not deny these reports, but also did not put its own spin on the nature or topics of the conversations.

On July 30, both sides acknowledged that an Emirati delegation led by coast guard commander Brigadier General Mohammed Ali Musleh al-Ahbabi went to Iran to discuss maritime security. The UAE insisted that this was the sixth in a series of coast guard meetings to discuss fishing issues that have traditionally arisen because of several disputed islands currently under Iranian control. But reports suggest that the talks also covered border security and other unspecified issues presumably related to attacks on shipping in Gulf waters. In the aftermath of this visit, the UAE Foreign Ministry officials expressed “satisfaction” with the outcome.

Seen in the broader context, these visits make sense from the UAE’s perspective. The widespread perception that the UAE (along with Saudi Arabia and Israel) has been pressing the United States into a conflict with Iran deeply misunderstands Emirati policy goals. While it welcomed the U.S. campaign of “maximum pressure” against Iran, the UAE sought policy change, not regime change, in Tehran. It never advocated warfare between the United States, or anyone else, and Iran. Such a conflict would not only fail to achieve the UAE’s aim of moderating Iran’s destabilizing regional conduct, it would also place the Emiratis themselves in peril. As Iran’s “maximum resistance” campaign of low-intensity military actions and sabotage have recently demonstrated, Tehran’s Gulf Arab adversaries would be immediate targets in any intensified regional conflict.

Given Iran’s apparent determination to continue testing the limits of “maximum resistance” with carefully calibrated escalations, the UAE has incentives to use dialogue to try to ensure that its interests are not targeted in the future. Moreover, the timing of the July 26 talks suggests that Abu Dhabi saw utility in dialogue with Iran in the immediate aftermath of the UAE’s drawdown of forces in Yemen. It would be reasonable that the Emiratis would want to explain directly to Iran their intentions in Yemen, to urge Iran not to interfere with the process and try to persuade the insurgent Houthis not to try to gain battlefield advantage from this redeployment.

Furthermore, for almost a year key Emirati officials have been quietly warning that while they strongly approved of the new sanctions regime against Iran, they worried that there did not appear to be a viable diplomatic or political path for translating the gains made by “maximum pressure” into a clear policy framework. Therefore, given recent reminders of its vulnerabilities, and since it was already quietly pressing for concerted outreach to Iran to leverage the sanctions, it is not surprising that the UAE is the first of Iran’s main antagonists to conduct this sort of public outreach. While all parties appear to be seeking a way to avoid conflict, and Washington and Tehran each has made conciliatory gestures, at the same time each has slowly continued to ratchet up pressure.

Washington does not appear to take exception to this modest outreach to Iran by the UAE. The administration of President Donald J. Trump has made its desire to engage in a dialogue with Iran very clear. So, if its allies begin the conversation with Tehran, even about unrelated issues like disputed islands, for example, that at least pushes in the direction Trump would like to go. If nothing else, the Emirati outreach to Iran, however limited, can serve as a test case for Washington itself for some sort of resumption of dialogue with Iran. If it succeeds and builds, perhaps there will be something for Trump to work with. If it fails, that comes at no cost to the U.S. administration.

The bigger question is whether Saudi Arabia will similarly feel comfortable with this outreach. If Riyadh was going to be displeased by UAE policy changes, it is more likely to have been over Yemen. By withdrawing most of its forces from southern Yemen, the UAE has pulled out of the most high-profile joint endeavor it has been engaged in with Saudi Arabia. That decision has left Riyadh essentially alone in pursuing the far more difficult tasks of dislodging the Houthis from Sanaa and much of the north and, most importantly for Riyadh, securing the kingdom’s southern border with Yemen.

Saudi Arabia could just as easily see the UAE’s very limited outreach to Iran in the same light as the Trump administration probably does: as a test case, to see how far Iran is willing to cooperate and what dialogue with the least threatening of its primary adversaries might produce, therefore suggesting whether others might also engage in “satisfactory” discussions with Tehran.

It is, of course, important not to read too much into this. The UAE is right that conversations between Iran’s border police and the UAE’s coast guard have gone on in the past. Emirati media emphasis that this is the “sixth in a series of meetings” clearly is meant to portray it as unremarkable, although on several issues there has not been such a conversation in six years. The caginess of this formulation indicates due caution. It is, of course, what outreach looks like unless there is a sudden and dramatic breakthrough. That is certainly not the case here, as the UAE and Iran remain at loggerheads.

Feeling that it had the advantage in recent years, Tehran has typically emphasized its willingness to talk, while Gulf Arab states have tended to insist that dialogue could not go very far unless Iran started to behave “like a normal country,” meaning that it should stop destabilizing the region through its support for nonstate armed groups. But in the light of “maximum pressure,” dialogue may be starting to look very different to both sides. While this outreach to Iran signals a shift in the UAE’s diplomatic tactics, it is important not to mistake these gestures for a significant change in policy. The same, of course, applies to Iran. But the door between the UAE and Iran, while never fully shut, has been cracked open a bit more and over time, that could enhance the prospects for dialogue between the United States, or Saudi Arabia, and Iran as well.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/despite-trump-s-cries-of-victory-no-one-emerged-a-winner-from-mueller-s-testimony-1.891441

Those hoping for impeachment were let down, while the damning facts about the president were confirmed

The highly anticipated testimony by special counsel Robert Mueller, at two hearings on Wednesday, established no new facts and changed almost no minds about Donald Trump’s conduct. It greatly bolstered the position of the Democratic Party leadership that a drive to impeach Mr Trump now would be a mistake and that the focus should be on the 2020 election.

Mr Trump crowed with victory, but he clearly was not a winner. Mr Mueller confirmed a litany of damning facts, most notably that Russia systematically interfered with the 2016 election on behalf of Mr Trump, and that he welcomed this intervention, then lied about it, including under oath. And he dismissed Mr Trump’s claims of “complete exoneration, suggesting he could be prosecuted after leaving office.

Anyone backing impeachment was obviously a big loser. Inexplicably, some hoped for a blockbuster “made-for-TV” moment that would suddenly and powerfully dramatise the president’s misdeeds for the public.

They were never going to get that.

Mr Mueller practically begged Congress not to make him testify, insisting that he would not go further than confirming what was in his report. True to his word, he refused to offer anything that might contribute to a partisan agenda on either side, generally restricted himself to yes or no answers, and simply reiterated that everything in his report was accurate.

This was widely viewed as a bumbling and incompetent performance. But, whatever its flaws, it was true to his stated intention to remain an impartial and thoroughly professional prosecutor. He did not breathe life into his report as many had hoped. But Mr Mueller had made it clear long in advance that he did not consider that his role, and he refused to change his mind.

The big winner clearly was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has been restraining her overzealous colleagues, including Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler, from launching formal impeachment hearings against Mr Trump.

Even if a more effusive performance by Mr Mueller would not have convinced much of the public or any Republican lawmakers to back such an inquiry, it might have intensified pressure on Democratic leaders to charge in this quixotic direction.

In the event, Ms Pelosi, Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff and other key Democrats claimed vindication for caution about impeachment and focusing on the upcoming election.

Moreover, impeachment proponents are simply running out of time before the next election.

Ms Pelosi and her allies generally rely on two arguments against an immediate impeachment inquiry: that most of the public, including most Democrats, don’t yet support it, and that there is no Republican support either, meaning that any impeachment would result in an acquittal in the Republican-controlled Senate.

These are good arguments, but the idea that there is insufficient public support could be countered by noting that, without an impeachment inquiry, the public will not have heard the facts yet. There was little public support for the impeachment inquiry regarding Richard Nixon until that brought out the details of his corruption.

The strongest case, though, against impeachment is only whispered, and centres on the fact that no one can be confident Mr Trump will not be re-elected next year.

Imagine Mr Trump impeached, acquitted and then re-elected. The only real obstacle before him at that point would be a four-year term limit. Other than that, it might be a terrifying new version of Mr Trump, thoroughly unrestrained.

It’s not a coincidence that both of the serious impeachment efforts In the past century, against Nixon and Bill Clinton, occurred in their second terms.

If Mr Trump is re-elected, and there is still a Democratic majority in the House, which appears likely, then a thoroughgoing set of impeachment-related hearings might make sense.

Even if there is a Republican Senate, if the facts uncovered are grave enough, it could shift opinion, as happened with Nixon.

However, until then it would be madness to squander the potential for an impeachment push when it is likely to fail and when Mr Trump could well be defeated at the polls.

Far wiser to keep that powder dry for a second, and far more ominous, Trump term.

Now, centrist Democrats will have to prevent their party’s most left-wing members from dragging the presidential nominee too far in their political direction on two key issues that Mr. Trump hopes to exploit for re-election.

He wants to campaign on race, and is using immigration as a proxy for white communal interests. Most Americans still favour immigration and are appalled by his brutal tactics, such as separating children from their parents. They want humane and fair border security.

But some Democrats are overreacting by threatening to abolish immigration agencies and giving the impression that they favour open borders. The party as a whole certainly doesn’t, and has just approved almost $5 billion more for border security.

It is essential that the Democratic candidate does not appear to be an extremist polar opposite of Mr Trump on immigration. Balance is vital.

Similarly, the push for universal healthcare coverage is crucial, but proposing that all private insurance policies will be eliminated by a comprehensive single-payer system will not play well.

By adopting moderate positions on immigration and healthcare, and abandoning immediate impeachment, Democrats will be well positioned for 2020.

The Mueller hearings have been extremely helpful in focusing them on their real task.

https://agsiw.org/conflict-or-compromise-u-s-and-iran-on-a-knifes-edge/

Whatever the path out of the current crisis, Gulf Arab states seeking an end to Iranian interference in regional affairs are likely to be disappointed.

The simmering confrontation between the United States and Iran is delicately poised on a knife’s edge between an emerging bargain and steadily mounting potential for direct armed conflict. The ongoing de facto war of attrition with a “maximum pressure” sanctions regime being countered by “maximum resistance” low-intensity military provocations could grind on for months, assuming commanders in the field do not overstep or make a mistake that ignites an open conflict. But eventually a fork in the road will be reached. The logic of confrontation, if continued indefinitely, leads sooner rather than later to a military clash. Since neither side wants even a limited war, however, the potential for an agreement is clearly emerging. Almost all elements are in place for both scenarios, with conflict and accommodation appearing almost equally plausible and imaginable – a most unusual circumstance in international relations. Yet the key reality for the Gulf Arab countries, especially those most antagonistic toward Iran – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain – is that neither scenario is likely to deal with their greatest concern: the growth of Iranian hegemony in the Arab world and Iran’s use of nonstate proxies and clients to destabilize its neighbors and spread its influence throughout the region.

The Logic of Confrontation
Since President Donald J. Trump withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or nuclear agreement, the confrontation between the United States and Iran has gradually escalated. Washington has waged an aggressive campaign of “maximum pressure,” mainly in the form of sanctions and financial warfare, against Iran. Tehran, finding itself increasingly boxed in by an ever-constricting economic vice, has responded with a carefully calibrated program of “maximum resistance,” especially in the form of low-intensity and sometimes deniable attacks on commercial and military assets in the Gulf region.

While it is widely assumed that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has coordinated or conducted these attacks, it has been careful not to cross any redline that would necessitate a military response. Tankers have been sabotaged with limpet mines but only above the waterline and none have been sunk. A British-owned tanker was seized but Iranian officials said this was in retaliation for Britain’s seizure of an Iranian shipment of oil off the coast of Gibraltar allegedly destined for Syria in violation of European Union sanctions. Iran has suggested an exchange of the ships to resolve the issue. Iran shot down a U.S. drone, which it claims was in Iranian airspace, but both Iranian and U.S. officials noted that Tehran did not attempt to down any U.S. aircraft with personnel aboard.

Lacking any leverage with Washington of its own, but unable to sustain the intense economic damage being wrought by sanctions, Iran’s aim has been to try to force U.S. allies and trade partners to intercede with Washington and loosen the financial stranglehold. Iran has pressured these countries with threats to maritime security in the Gulf region and potential disruptions to the free flow of Gulf energy exports. With European signatories committed to trying to preserve the JCPOA, Iran has used the confrontation as a rationale for abandoning its own commitments, first by increasing stockpiles of low-enriched uranium and then by increasing the enrichmentprogram itself. It is threatening a full “hard exit” from the deal and even hinting at abandoning the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the first step toward the open development of a nuclear weapon.

Iran’s actions to date make it likely that Gulf Arab countries would be prime targets in any tit-for-tat exchange of military attacks. In particular, attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure gave the most direct hint of what might be expected in the context of a full-blown military conflict. And while the Gulf Arab countries welcomed the “maximum pressure” campaign, none of their governments want a military conflict, hoping the aggressive U.S. strategy toward Iran will achieve the desired change of behavior. At a minimum, sanctions have started to deprive Iran of resourcesto feed to its network of nonstate clients, militias, and extremist groups throughout the region. Short of that, many of the Gulf Arab countries were hoping that “maximum pressure” would at least yield a policy of containment, limiting Iran’s ability to continue to spread its hegemony and opening space for rolling back some of the strategic gains it has accumulated over the past 15 years.

Thus far, Iran’s strategy to counter this pressure has not worked. The United States’ European and Arab allies have not strongly lobbied Washington to ease the sanctions, and international energy markets have remained relatively calm in the face of Iran’s threats to international shipping in the Gulf and Red Sea. Trump has not been baited into an overreaction to Iranian provocations, particularly a military response that the international community would regard as disproportionate and reckless. He has even dismissed Iran’s suspected sabotage of commercial tankers as “very minor.” And he made a big production of ordering and then dramatically calling off at the last minute a missile strike aimed at Iranian targets in retaliation for the drone attack.

If Tehran was counting on Trump to overreact, it must be gravely disappointed. Washington has made clear that the killing of any American would cross a redline requiring a direct kinetic response, but Tehran was already taking great pains to avoid any action that would likely appear to the international community to justify a U.S. military response. Still, “maximum resistance” has not yet produced any breathing space for Iran or its economy. Therefore, the logic of confrontation, if it continues to unfold, dictates not only continued Iranian provocations but gradually intensified ones. If Iran’s actions thus far have been insufficient to prompt a U.S. overreaction or an intervention by Washington’s allies to force Trump to ease the pressure on Iran, more of the same is unlikely to suffice. Yet continued intensification could well lead, sooner rather than later, to a direct clash that neither side wants.

The Logic of Accommodation
As a consequence, the potential for an accommodation that reduces the likelihood of direct military conflict has been developing despite the bellicosity. From the outset, Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and other administration officials have insisted that their goal has been the negotiation of a “better deal” with Iran. The Iranian leadership initially reacted to mounting U.S. pressure with outrage and ruled out any new negotiations on nuclear and other issues with Washington and especially with Trump himself. Yet as pressure has mounted and “maximum resistance” has failed to yield any results, Iran’s position has been notably softening.

Tehran has clearly abandoned its insistence that any dialogue must begin with the United States rejoining the JCPOA. Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, has repeatedly said that Iran is willing to have a dialogue with the United States as long as Tehran is treated “with respect,” and Iran’s president has made the same offer if sanctions are lifted. Washington also appears to have tacitly acknowledged that the expansive list of 12 demands on Tehran presented by Pompeo in May 2018 were a wish list and opening bargaining position. In recent weeks, Trump has said he is not interested in regime change in Tehran, only in curbing its nuclear agenda, and Pompeo repeatedly has said Washington is willing to negotiate with Iran without preconditions.

On July 18, Washington and Tehran took the first tentative steps toward direct dialogue when Zarif met in New York with Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, a key Trump ally in Congress and a leading neo-isolationist. From this tentative beginning, the outlines of a potential agreement are becoming dimly visible. In effect, such an agreement would mimic several of the trade deals Trump has secured, such as the pending renegotiated NAFTA agreement with Canada and Mexico. In this template, existing accords, which Trump passionately denounces as “the worst ever,” of which the JCPOA and NAFTA are key examples, are effectively tweaked, updated, renamed, and then pronounced “the best ever.” This model suggests Trump might be open to a kind of JCPOA 2.0, a renegotiated version of the nuclear agreement that deals with several of the flaws its critics identified from the beginning, such as relatively short sunsets, but is still largely restricted to the nuclear issue.

Zarif publicly suggested that Iran might be open to precisely such a renegotiated JCPOA-plus, telling reporters that Iran could speed up its formal ratification of the deal’s “Additional Protocol,” that allows for international nuclear inspectors to have extensive access in Iran. Since Iran already abides by the protocol, though its Parliament has not ratified it, critics have dismissed this offer as insubstantial. The additional protocol offer, however, is a hint of what might be possible under the right circumstances and shows a willingness to barter concessions, at least in theory.

Assuming both sides resolve to craft a revised agreement, the biggest obstacles are likely to be the vexed question of Iran’s “right to enrich” uranium and its missile program. The turning point that led to the achievement of the JCPOA was the acknowledgment by the administration of President Barack Obama that any agreement would need to recognize Iran’s right to enrich, as the agreement did under limited and highly controlled circumstances. The Trump administration has not opined in detail on this issue, but it has certainly given the impression that it wishes to eliminate such a supposed right. However, if the 10 to 15-year sunsets in the JCPOA on limitations on Iranian enrichment and processing were extended or made permanent in any new agreement, the Trump administration could well agree to some enrichment in practice. Such a reversal has been seen in negotiations with North Korea: The administration began by insisting on a “complete, verifiable, irreversible” nuclear disarmament by Pyongyang, rejecting North Korea’s preference for a phased process, and now appears to accept that this is the only way to make progress.

Tehran presumably does not want any new understanding to address the missile issue. Even though Trump, Pompeo, and others have lambasted the JCPOA for not restricting Iran’s missile development and testing, they could still argue that as long as any new accord effectively eliminates the potential for Iran developing a nuclear warhead any time in the foreseeable future, conventionally armed missile development by Tehran can be adequately countered with missile defense systems and by deterrence from U.S., Arab, and Israeli missile arsenals and other means of counterattack. So, although Washington is likely to try to put the missile issue on the table in any substantial talks with Iran, failure to achieve that may not prove a deal breaker.

“Malign Activities” and “Regime Change”
The painful truth for the Gulf Arab countries is that neither of these scenarios is likely to adequately address their main concern regarding Iran: its “malign activities” in the Middle East, particularly destabilizing its neighbors by funding and arming nonstate militias. This has been a key feature of U.S. and Israeli criticism of Iran as well and is prominently represented in critiques of the JCPOA and in Pompeo’s 12-point agenda. However, when Trump declared that he is not interested in regime change in Tehran, that may have implied a recognition that forcing Iran to abandon such conduct completely probably is not achievable through “maximum pressure,” a view that National Security Advisor John Bolton does not share. The Trump administration may be confronting the reality the Obama administration accepted in the run-up to the nuclear deal – that while an accommodation with Tehran on nuclear issues is possible there is virtually no chance that the Islamic Republic will abandon policies that are both the core of its national security agenda and a key part of its foundational raison d’etre.

Iran’s support for armed nonstate groups such as Hezbollah, Iraqi Shia militias, and the Houthis, among others, are the centerpiece of Iran’s regional and national security policy. Such groups are the primary means through which Iran spreads its influence, weakens its local adversaries, and acquires strategic depth. It allows Iran to engage in armed conflicts with its antagonists entirely outside of its own borders and largely without using its own citizens and personnel (with the partial exception of the intervention in Syria). This also supplies it with a degree of deniability and the rationalization that it is only supporting groups fighting to defend themselves and secure their legitimate rights within their own country. Despite its deep cynicism, it has the patina of a moral agenda for certain audiences. Moreover, many of these groups are deeply motivated by sectarian and religious passions, which Iran exploits to secure zealousness in combat and, in many cases, a highly regimented obedience to Iran’s leadership and, therefore, foreign policy agenda.

Iran is playing a very effective game that Tehran’s regional adversaries generally seek to avoid, and therefore have great difficulty countering. This is amplified in that Iran’s goals in most cases involve disrupting the status quo and destabilizing neighboring states and societies. Therefore, even when nonstate allies such as the Houthis fail to fully implement Iran’s suggestions, their activities are still almost always a net benefit to Iran because they contribute to the overall promotion of disruption and disorder.

By leading this effort since the founding of the Islamic Republic, the IRGC has risen to a place of remarkable prominence. Particularly in the past 15 years, the IRGC, especially the Quds force that oversees these proxy militias and Iranian expeditions abroad, has been at the forefront of Iran’s transformation from an isolated and contained pariah during the Iran-Iraq War and the subsequent era of dual containment into a budding regional hegemon. Iran now has tremendous influence in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and beyond. As a consequence of this centrality to Iran’s growing power, the IRGC has concomitantly developed into a major economic and political force within Iran.

All of this has emerged against the backdrop of the revolutionary ideology that underpins the Islamic Republic, and the founding imperative of exporting the revolution and establishing Iran’s supposedly rightful place as the leader of the entire Islamic world and a major global force on behalf of the downtrodden. The policy therefore has the triple protection of being a foundational ideological commitment, the main and highly effective tool of national security and foreign policy, and the institutional bedrock for one of the most powerful factions within the state and society.

That’s why demands for Iran to abandon these policies are regarded as tantamount to calls for regime change. Any Iranian regime that did not pursue such a policy, even if it were still packaged under the brand of the Islamic Republic, would be, in effect, a new regime. The Obama administration recognized that and eventually secured its nuclear-only agreement with Tehran.

Even if a new agreement moves forward, then, the core Gulf Arab concerns regarding Iran are not going to be practically resolved, even if there is a fig leaf of pledges to respect the independence and territorial integrity of Iran’s neighbors. “Malign activities” will almost certainly continue, at least in an attenuated fashion, and could be ramped up at any moment. Similarly, in the event of a conflict, unless it somehow leads to the collapse of the Iranian regime or the full-scale invasion of Iran by the United States (both of which are exceedingly unlikely), that is likely to intensify Iran’s use of and reliance on nonstate militias. They would be a key weapon in Iran’s counterattacks against U.S. interests in the region, the Gulf Arab countries themselves, and conceivably even Israel.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and others are therefore probably going to have to look beyond the current confrontation for a long-term solution to the problem of Iran’s destabilizing activities in the Arab world. Neither plausible scenario, a conflict or an accommodation, is likely to resolve their fundamental concerns about Iran’s regional role over the long run. The best-case scenario from their point of view would be a continuation of the current situation – a slowly developing process of containment of Iran. But for that to really address Tehran’s “malign activities” it would require a level of U.S. regional military engagement, particularly in countries like Iraq and Syria, that appears unlikely. Worse, the current situation may not prove sustainable for much longer. Whether a clash or a deal ultimately develops, Gulf Arab countries may find themselves still facing a hostile Iranian regime that is ready, willing, and able to use armed nonstate groups, terrorism, and a campaign of widespread destabilization in the Arab world to try to advance its interests.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/trump-s-go-home-comments-present-republicans-with-a-stark-choice-1.888786

Members of the GOP must now must adopt or accommodate the US president’s racial attitudes – or leave

Donald Trump is determined to make 2020 the “send her back” election. That ugly taunt is shaping up to be the defining slogan of his campaign.

The US president has moved dramatically to solidify his position as the champion of white Christian Americans. Moreover, he is forcing many apprehensive Republicans to go beyond coded dogwhistles and embrace his openly strident white nationalism.

Mr Trump has looking for a target to replace his 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton.

Last week, he found them in a squabble between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and four newly elected Democratic congresswomen, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley.

Ms Pelosi dismissed challenges to her authority and the Democratic Party leadership by these young left-wing lawmakers. They in turn accused her of marginalising women of colour.

Mr Trump immediately smelled blood.

Despite being no fan of Ms Pelosi, Mr Trump insisted that she is not a racist, even though the young Democrats never directly accused her of that. He even seemed to be using her as a proxy for himself.

The four women are ideal targets for his politics of rage: they are stridently left wing, young, female, non-white, and, best of all for his purposes, in the cases of Ms Omar and Ms Tlaib, Muslim.

That places them far outside the normative American identity Mr Trump believes to be under attack. They typify the diverse new society he hates and fears.

He unleashed a series of largely false Twitter attacks against them, even demanding they “go back” to “the countries” they came from, though only Ms Omar is an immigrant.

The age-old taunt of “go back” to “where you came from” is the quintessence of US intolerance.

Mr Trump’s own Equal Opportunity Employment Commission identifies this as an exemplary form of unlawful harassment based on national origin.

In the private sector, anyone saying this would be immediately sacked. It has been unacceptable for decades.

“Mr Trump is determined to bitterly divide the country. His eventual opponent’s best bet is uniting it.”

At a North Carolina rally on Thursday, the president denounced the congresswomen as “anti-American,” despite his own extraordinary history of denouncing other presidents, the FBI, CIA, Congress, courts, the press and many other core national institutions – not to mention his fawning over such hostile dictators as Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un.

When he targeted Ms Omar, the crowd erupted in chants of “send her back,” echoing the campaign mantra “lock her up” which was used against Mrs Clinton. The president beamed.

Mr Trump and his base evidently believe that only they are “real Americans,” entitled to howl about everything they dislike, while people of colour are citizens only under the sufferance of white Christian Americans and cannot assert contrary views without being treasonous.

Congressional Republicans publicly defended the president but privately expressed alarm at the depth of the racism beginning to characterise his re-election campaign. They are used to Mr Trump’s antics, but were taken aback to see them taken up by large crowds and redefining the party ethos.

They convinced Mr Trump to claim he did not like the chant and that he moved quickly to stop it, although video evidence refutes that.

This limited retreat lasted less than 24 hours.

By Friday, Mr Trump was back to extolling the “tremendous patriotism” of the crowd and retweeting comments by a notorious british anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim extremist praising the chant.

This clarifies several things.

Mr Trump and the Republican Party are running the next election mainly on race, championing white Christian Americans against others.

The uneasy coexistence of the traditional, conservative Republican Party and Mr Trump’s essentially white nationalist movement is over. Republicans now must adopt or accommodate his racial attitudes or, like the Palestinian-American congressman Justin Amash, leave the party on principle.

Most Republican officials want Mr Trump to run his campaign on the current strength of the US economy. But the truth is that he inherited sustained growth from Barack Obama, and it could slow, or even tank, in coming months. Besides, Mr Trump is clearly determined to double down on the racial politics that secured his 2016 victory.

This is the game he wants to play and, at this stage, the genie probably cannot be put back in the bottle. Expect to hear regular chants of “send her back” from now on.

Some Democrats, like the young congresswomen, may also welcome an identity-based fight. Unlike Ms Pelosi, who is fixated on defeating Mr Trump in 2020, Ms Ocasio-Cortez, Ms Omar, Ms Tlaib and Ms Pressley have a much longer-term agenda to push their party to the left and secure control of it. For them, 2020 is just the start.

But to defeat Mr Trump, Democrats should avoid fighting on his terms. Far better to focus on the interests of all middle and working-class voters, for example regarding healthcare and income.

Mr Trump is determined to bitterly divide the country. His eventual opponent’s best bet is uniting it with a programme to improve the lives of ordinary people and counter tribal chauvinism with genuine, inclusive patriotism.

Naturally, Mr Trump wants to run against these women as a proxy for all the social and demographic changes he and his supporters so fear. And until the Democrats have a nominee, he can pretend that he is.

Eventually he will face a real adversary who cannot be told to “go back to the country you came from”. And with the right approach, that person should be able to send him back to Manhattan.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/trump-s-social-media-summit-reveals-a-new-and-darkly-authoritarian-post-truth-information-order-1.886032

The first Twitter President still feels persecuted by the very online platforms he exploits.

Donald Trump is obviously the first Twitter president in US history. As Franklin D Roosevelt perfected the use of radio and John F Kennedy television as instruments of governance, Mr Trump has made social media the tool of a new style of outreach to the public.

Yet he has a love-hate relationship with the social media he relies on, because he and his supporters have made an art form of playing fast and loose with the truth, norms and even rules.

They’re right to feel vulnerable about being able to sustain such conduct. Some of the most extreme, like Alex Jones of Infowars, are finally being banned from various online platforms for consistent racism, incitement to violence and libelous conspiracy theories.

Mr Trump’s political mentor, Roy Cohn, preached a doctrine of denial, evasion and constant attack, and his best student unwaveringly follows his playbook.

So, now that his far-right supporters are finally faced with red lines on hate speech by social media companies, Mr Trump decided to counterattack.

On Thursday, in the most outlandish circus ever held at the White House and its stately Rose Garden, the president convened a menagerie of 200 internet provocateurs at a “social media summit”. Social media companies themselves were, naturally, not invited.

The worst of the worst were not present, but the guest list was largely composed of conspiracy theorists, hate-mongers and slime-throwers, there to simultaneously celebrate and castigate the social media in which they thrive.

Mr Trump was in his element, having risen to political prominence as the loudest proponent of the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, and therefore was an illegitimate president.

Mr Trump set the tone, celebrating his mastery of Twitter, marveling at its power, and boasting about the ease with which he uses it to dominate news cycles. He even boasted about the effectiveness of his Tweets, falsely accusing Mr Obama of having wiretapped Trump Tower during the 2016 election campaign.

Like his guests, Mr Trump values social media, particularly Twitter, precisely because it lends itself so readily to the propagation of such falsehoods – stories that would never be lent credibility by the mainstream news media. Mr Trump and his coterie were clear that they view social media as a corrective to the “fake news” of actual fact-based reportage.

“The crap you think of is unbelievable,” Mr Trump told the assembled provocateurs, obviously intending a compliment.

Since the Roy Cohn playbook holds that attack is the best form of defense, although they rely on Twitter and Facebook, Mr Trump and his far-right minions have been increasingly complaining that these companies have an anti-conservative bias.

Not only is there no evidence of that, it is both obvious and empirically verified that conservatives have been much more effective in going viral on these platforms than liberals.

The point of these groundless complaints is to stave off any additional efforts to curtail hate speech, conspiracy theories and the deliberate spreading of libelous falsehoods.

Twitter even recently decreed that, owing to public interest in their pronouncements, world leaders such as Mr Trump could break their rules without risking suspension, although offending tweets might be labelled as such.

There is also a struggle in the courts over whether politicians such as Mr Trump can block other users based on their political views. A judge recently ruled that, because the president uses Twitter as a public forum for governance, he can’t.

Now, Mr Trump waxes furious at the idea that, even though he governs by Tweet, he is not allowed to block people who disagree with him, while simultaneously denouncing social media companies for supposedly discriminating against his allies because of their own political beliefs.

Mr Trump directly threatened legal protections for fact-based reportage, saying: “Free speech is not when you see something good and then you purposefully write bad. To me, that’s very dangerous speech and you become angry at it. But that’s not free speech.”

He also vowed to “explore all regulatory and legislative solutions” to control social media.

The president insisted he would have been elected without Twitter, but that cannot be known. He is the Twitter president, using social media with unprecedented effectiveness while castigating it as biased against him.

Sure, these are mutually exclusive thoughts, but that’s the beauty of narratives that can reach the public directly at an emotional level, without any effective fact checking by actual journalists.

Mr Trump was partly trying to distract attention from his final surrender on the issue of adding a citizenship question to the upcoming census.

But he was also certainly trying to protect the strong advantage he and his troll army gain from social media by condemning it in advance of any pushback.

This adds up to a clear vision of a darkly authoritarian, post-truth new American information order that may never be born, but is clearly gestating in the right-wing womb.

So is the idea, which Mr Trump keeps “joking” about – on Twitter, naturally – that he will be president long after constitutional term limits, if not for life.

Neither are likely, but anyone who thinks the president and his allies are just kidding about any of this is being pathetically naive

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-07-12/qatar-juggles-alliances-with-iran-turkey-and-the-u-s

How a tiny Middle East emirate preserves its alliances with Iran, Turkey and the U.S., even as those powers tear at each others’ throats.

This week’s visit to Washington by the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, including an appointment with President Donald Trump at the White House, is the latest performance of the most delicate high-wire act in international politics.

Isolated by its neighbors, Qatar is improbably balancing friendships with the three contesting powers in the Middle East: the U.S., Turkey and Iran. In a Venn diagram of Middle Eastern strategic relationships, Qatar would account for most of the heavily shaded areas.

It’s being boycotted by Egypt and three of its Gulf Arab neighbors — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain — which accuse the tiny emirate of sponsoring extremist groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood.

The boycott hasn’t changed Qatar’s policies, but it has made it rely more on the support of regional powers. And while the U.S., Turkey and Iran all offer crucial forms of support, Qatar is also striving to offer up crucial benefits in return.

The key relationship for Qatar’s security is with Washington. That partnership is centered on the al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which hosts 10,000 U.S. troops and the forward operating headquarters of U.S. Central Command.

Al-Udeid has the only regional runways capable of handling B-52 bombers, which means there aren’t any obvious alternatives nearby. Moreover, the Qataris were so keen on bringing the U.S. military into their country for their own security that they not only financed and constructed the base, they essentially gave the U.S. extraterritorial jurisdiction over it, allowing it to function almost as sovereign U.S. territory.

The U.A.E. has encouraged the U.S. to relocate its Central Command headquarters there, but there’s no chance the Emiratis would agree to such extraordinary terms.

Since the boycott began in the summer of 2017, Qatar has been agreeing to virtually everything Washington has asked of it, ranging from agreements on curbing terrorism financing to capitulating on a civil aviation dispute, agreeing to massive new contracts for U.S. military and commercial goods and services and upgrading and expanding the air base.

Moreover, Qatar has been trying to frame its good relations with radical groups as an asset for the U.S., even as other Gulf states complain about them. With Israel’s encouragement, it has been providing Hamas with cash payments on a quarterly basis to meet payroll in Gaza. And it recently hosted what might prove to be a breakthrough negotiation between the Taliban and members of the Afghan government.

During his Washington trip, the Qatari leader reportedly offered to be a go-between with Iran but said the U.S. didn’t appear interested since it wants to apply further sanctions on a country it regards as a rogue state.

Since the boycott began, Qatar has failed to get the U.S. to intervene on its behalf, but has successfully consolidated its relationship with Washington.

This has occurred despite a spike in tensions between the U.S. and Qatar’s other major partner, Turkey. Turkey’s efforts to purchase Russian S-400 missiles are only a symptom of a deeper rift with the U.S. as Turkey begins to try to assert itself as a major Middle Eastern power.

The irony is that Qatar is Turkey’s main partner in this effort, since the two countries are the founding members of a coalition that primarily backs Sunni Islamist groups, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood. Thus far, the U.S. has preferred to ignore this aspect of Qatar’s regional agenda, but if Turkey continues its regional ascent, that might not continue.

The contradiction is even stronger with the third major Middle East power, Iran, with which Qatar must maintain good relations. Almost all its income comes from a natural gas field it shares with Iran. And since the boycott, it has depended on Iranian airspace overflight rights to keep its airline viable and itself widely internationally accessible.

Despite the boycott, Qatar was included in Gulf, Arab League and Islamic “emergency meetings” that Saudi Arabia organized on May 30 as the confrontation with Iran boiled over. The Qataris seemed to go along with a joint statement criticizing Iran’s regional policies, which suggested potential progress in healing the Gulf Arab rift.

But the next day, Doha stepped away from many of the criticisms of Iran, underscoring the divisions with its neighbors. But it certainly must have mollified Tehran.

So while Qatar works hard to provide its American and Turkish partners and Iranian friends with what they need, and has been able to balance these delicate relationships, there isn’t much of a net under the tightrope. If any two of Doha’s three senior partners ever come to blows, Qatar may experience a long, hard fall.