https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-05-21/jason-greenblatt-trump-envoy-poisons-israel-palestine-peace

Twitter insults will make it harder to say yes to a soon-to-be-delivered White House proposal. It’s a blame game.

The most significant social media account in the U.S. presidential administration belongs to the tweeter-in-chief, Donald Trump. But the Twitter feed of Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s negotiator on Israel-Palestinian issues, is a close second.

Greenblatt’s tweets sound frivolous and naive, but they’re clearly calculated to poison the atmosphere before the publication of the administration’s promised peace proposal.

He’s emerged as a troll against a bewildering array of Palestinian individuals and institutions, not just key interlocutors like negotiator Saeb Erekat.

Greenblatt has browbeaten the entire spectrum of Palestinian political and civic life, from senior officials to random journalists, school districts and even the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. Nothing is too ordinary to escape his badgering.

His tone is self-righteous and arrogant. He speaks to Palestinians as if he were dealing with wayward children or hopeless maniacs.

He occasionally criticizes Israelis, such as a settler rabbi who called Hitler “the most correct person there ever was.” But his embrace of the settlers’ perspective appears total, and he evinces no understanding of any aspect of the Palestinian experience.

In his telling, Israel is under attack by fanatical Arabs brainwashed with hatred. He has never acknowledged the impact of the Israeli occupation or Palestinian dispossession, disenfranchisement and exile. He often sounds most like a spokesperson for the Settlers’ Council, whose propaganda he routinely cites.

Greenblatt’s tone-deafness on the occupation was recently demonstrated by his celebration of a Ramadan dinner held in Hebron by Israeli settlers and a few local Palestinians.

It was an astounding choice because Hebron is the epicenter of some of the worst abuses meted out by settlers and the Israeli authorities, which often go beyond segregation and repression.

Greenblatt’s sanctimonious tweets are oblivious to the essential feature of the Israeli-Palestinian relationship in the occupied territories, especially places like Hebron, which is the methodical subjugation of millions of people by an army that is systematically taking land from one group and giving it to another.

Greenblatt should study an important new book, “Freedom and Despair,” by the Israeli peace activist David Shulman, who has been trying to help Palestinians resist cruelty, abuse and land theft by settlers and the military in the South Hebron hills for decades.

Shulman’s powerful moral interrogation of himself and others stands in stark contrast to Greenblatt’s self-satisfied certainties.

Astonishingly, Greenblatt’s tweets also frequently engage with marginal Palestinian figures such as random Hamas members, not senior leaders, and fringe terrorist groups like Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

He doesn’t seem to realize that being directly addressed on Twitter by the chief U.S. negotiator is a major achievement for such extremists. He’s doing them an enormous favor. They must love him.

So why is the chief U.S. negotiator wasting his time hectoring random Palestinians, disseminating settler narratives and promoting extremists?

Greenblatt’s campaign is part of a calculated effort by the Trump administration to ensure that relations are so bad that there’s no chance Palestinian leaders can possibly engage with any new U.S. proposal.

The administration is instead counting on them to say “no” and then accuse them of recalcitrance.

The most recent example of other actions with the same purpose is the refusal of the State Department to grant a U.S. visa to Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian leader who has an unblemished, decades-old track record of advocating nonviolence.

Along with recognizing Israel’s annexation of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, cutting off all U.S. aid, shutting the Palestinian embassy in Washington and the U.S. consulate in East Jerusalem, Greenblatt’s Twitter feed is obviously intended to deny Palestinian leaders political wiggle-room.

Palestinians shouldn’t oblige him by just saying “no,” and they need to formulate a sophisticated response.

But Greenblatt is doing an excellent job of making any constructive reply as difficult as possible. His Twitter feed has been a key tool in that insidious project.

Gulf Arabs Caught between U.S. “Fire and Fury” and Iranian “Strategic Recklessness”

Saudi Arabia moves to consolidate Arab and Muslim support, anticipating intensified confrontation or diplomacy.

U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s rhetoric toward Tehran reached the “fire and fury” stage with a tweet on May 19 warning of “the official end of Iran” in the case of a conflict. Meanwhile, low-intensity attacks on U.S. and allied interests by Iranian-backed militias proliferated. These developments have increased fears of a looming, possibly inadvertent, drift toward all-out conflict. Yet, at the same time, a flurry of diplomatic activity, much of it involving Gulf Arab countries, seems aimed at forestalling such a development even as tensions mount.

Iran’s Low-Intensity “Proxy War” Heats Up

A telling aspect of the intensification of confrontation is the growing list of attacks conducted by Iranian-linked armed groups against U.S. interests and those of U.S. allies in the Arab world. Warnings in recent weeks of the potential for such proxy assaults and evacuations of, and warnings to, U.S. personnel in countries including Iraq and Lebanon increasingly appear to be validated. On May 12, there were sabotage attacks reported on oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates followed by a drone strike on two Saudi oil pumping stations on May 14. Recent major developments include a rocket attack on the Green Zone near the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and Saudi Arabia reported it intercepted two missiles over Mecca province it said were launched by Iranian-back Houthi rebels in Yemen.

While no group has claimed responsibility for the Baghdad rocket attack, and several notable pro-Iranian militia groups in Iraq denounced it, the strike appears consistent with previous conduct by such groups. Iraqi government sources said the attack was conducted by the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia. Last week U.S. officials said they had intercepted increased communications between the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and various Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and other Arab countries about potential attacks on U.S. troops and diplomats, as well as commercial shipping and other targets. Alarm was further stoked by reports from U.S. officials of aerial photographs of fully assembled missiles on small boats in the Gulf off the coasts of Iraq and Iran.

It has been widely reported that about a month ago IRGC Major General Qassim Suleimani assembled the leaders of pro-Iranian militia groups in Iraq and told them to “prepare for proxy war” against the United States and its allies. The IRGC was recently labeled a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department, the first official part of another government to be so designated. The recent spate of asymmetrical attacks on U.S. and allied interests by pro-Iranian militia groups seems to correspond to the beginning of a “proxy war” and to confirm the validity of intelligence warnings about the potential for such attacks.

Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, but seems to want to demonstrate it has less drastic but still effective options. Norwegian shipping insurers reportedly concluded that the IGRC was “highly likely” responsible for the attacks on the tankers off the UAE coast. According to the report, the attacks were “highly likely intended to send a message to the United States and its allies that Iran did not need to block the Strait to disrupt freedom of navigation in the region” and it suggested more such attacks are likely.

Trump Seems Sure Tehran Will Fold

The drift toward a potential conflict seems to be driven by the perceptions on both sides that they are operating from positions of relative strength. The Trump administration is buoyed by the effectiveness of the “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign against Tehran, which was recently compared by Iranian leaders to the devastating Iran-Iraq War. The administration says it wants Iran to negotiate a “better deal” than the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear pact from which the United States withdrew in 2018, and apparently feels that Tehran will soon buckle under the strain. On May 15, Trump tweeted that he is “sure that Iran will want to talk soon.” And, if nothing else, administration sources say that Iran now has much less money to lavish on its regional proxies, and this appears to be confirmed by the deep financial woes of Hezbollah in Lebanon. So the United States appears set to continue to ratchet up the pressure on Iran, for instance by imposing additional sanctions, while, as officials put it, waiting “by the phone.”

Yet it seems clear that Trump wants to avoid a war with Iran if he can, and apparently has been passing messages and “phone numbers” to Tehran through Swiss intermediaries, according to White House officials. Iranian officials appear to believe that this creates a potential opening for them, and that their best option is carefully calculated brinksmanship. This explains the recent spate of attacks and also why, as many experts have noted, they appear to be carefully calibratedto avoid provoking a massive U.S. retaliation. Iran seems to be testing U.S. resolve and willingness to use force, as Trump has reportedly told his advisors he doesn’t want an all-out conflict and even suspects some of them may be “getting ahead of themselves” and thereby “annoying” him.

Tehran’s Policy of “Strategic Recklessness”

Therefore, several key analysts argue that Iran has calculated that its best bet under the circumstances is to force the United States to confront the limitations of a maximum pressure policy that does not include a large-scale conflict option. The veteran Arab analyst and journalist Raghida Dergham has written two articles for the UAE newspaper The National arguing that Iran is pursuing a policy of “strategic recklessness” by pressing the confrontation and testing the United States’ will.

The Iranian-American analyst Trita Parsi, who is generally sympathetic to the government in Tehran, has reached the same conclusions, writing that “Tehran’s plan appears to be to accelerate matters toward the point at which Trump will have to decide whether he is truly willing to go to war with Iran.” More ominously, he warns that “having planned to thwart a U.S. military attack on Iran ever since the mid-1990s, Tehran also appears ready for this plan not to work” and Iran is prepared for its brinksmanship policy to fail and to end up actually provoking a major U.S. attack.

Additionally, the sudden fluctuations in Trump’s messaging toward Iran have had the, possibly intentional, effect of befuddling and disorienting friend and foe alike. The atmosphere of uncertainly generated by this brinksmanship could increase the risks of misinterpretation or miscalculation and raise the prospects of an armed clash.

Gulf Arab Countries Brace for Conflict or Diplomacy

All this adds up to an increasingly dangerous situation for the Gulf Arab countries, which would inevitably be caught in the middle of any Iranian-U.S. conflict and have already been the site of several of the low-intensity Iranian provocations in recent weeks. This largely accounts for the caution with which Gulf Arab governments are proceeding, and a growing flurry of Gulf and Arab diplomatic activity. The UAE, for example, has been careful not to directly blame Iran or its proxies for the attacks on commercial shipping off its coast and instead has referred the matter to the United Nations. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly said it does not want war, while emphasizing its determination to defend itself.

However, mixed messages have been emerging from Saudi Arabia on the conflict. The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir stressed that “We don’t want a war in any way” and that “We want peace and stability.” And Saudi academic Abdulaziz Sager co-authored an article in the New York Times with former Iranian official Hossein Mousavian calling for urgent dialogue between the two countries. On the other hand, the state-owned Arab News urged a U.S. (but not Saudi) “calculated surgical strike” against Iran and columnist Hassan al-Said of Okaz dismissed any possibility of reconciling with Iran or trusting it to adhere to any commitments it makes. But there is hardly an outpouring of calls for action or conflict in the Saudi media and rather a pervasive sense of alarm about the threats of both Iranian policy and the prospect of a war.

Oman may be at the center of Arab efforts to create a channel of communication to Tehran, possibly also on behalf of the United States. Omani Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi visited Iran on May 20, after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Oman’s Sultan Qaboos bin Said on May 15 and, according to the State Department, discussed “Iranian threats to the Gulf region,” among other things. It’s almost certain that the Omanis will be carrying messages from both Gulf Arabs and Americans directly to Iran and could, yet again, serve as a crucial back channel of communication if the parties are willing to seriously de-escalate.

As things stand, however, the situation remains volatile and extremely dangerous for the Gulf Arab countries. This helps to explain the caution of many Gulf governments and the Saudi moves to consolidate support. Riyadh has organized “emergency” Arab League and Gulf Cooperation Council summits before the next scheduled Organization of Islamic Cooperation meeting on May 31 in Mecca. Saudi Arabia appears to be leading an effort to circle the wagons in much of the Arab and Sunni-majority Muslim worlds to prepare for either intensified diplomacy or confrontation, depending on which direction Washington and Tehran decide to go in the coming weeks. The Arab world may, as it has in the past, find itself in a largely reactive mode as others take the key steps that will shape the immediate future of their region.

https://amp.thenational.ae/opinion/editorial/despite-the-redactions-the-truth-of-the-mueller-report-is-coming-to-light-1.862910?__twitter_impression=true

The document raises a number of important questions that have clearly shaken President Donald Trump.

While global attention was understandably focused on Iran, the US-China trade talks, Venezuela and other dramatic developments last week, more information is seeping out about what happened surrounding the 2016 presidential election – and the news isn’t good for the White House.

The redacted version of the Robert Mueller report released to Congress and the public was clear that it could not establish any unlawful conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence during the election.

But it specifically refused to clear the president of obstruction of justice, largely on the grounds that the Justice Department, somewhat controversially, believes that no serving president can be criminally charged; only impeached by Congress. The report said if it could have cleared the president, it would have, but it could not.

That has left unanswered what potentially criminal acts of obstruction was the Mueller report referring to, though 10 incidents were cited as problematic, and, more importantly, what such obstruction was intended to hide.

We may be inching closer to the truth.

Several key incidents on both counts involve President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, the retired General Michael Flynn.

It has been long established that, before Mr Trump was inaugurated, Mr Flynn had highly questionable conversations with the Russian ambassador, in which he encouraged Moscow to ignore new sanctions imposed by the still-serving administration of Barack Obama, and promised a new relationship with the incoming Trump administration.

Two key questions remain unanswered, at least in the public realm.

First, why did Mr Flynn make such an offer at all, especially when he was still a private citizen, and particularly given its obvious impropriety and dubious legality?

Second, why did he subsequently lie about these discussions to the FBI, which is a crime, and to others, when, as a former senior intelligence official, he knew full well that the US government was undoubtedly tracking the Russian ambassador’s phone calls?

And, last but hardly least, why does most of this information appear to have been redacted from the Mueller Report by Attorney General William Barr?

On Thursday, a federal judge ordered that the transcripts of Mr Flynn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador be made public.

He also mandated the release of a voicemail message from Mr Trump’s personal attorney emphasising the president’s continued affection for the fired Mr Flynn, even as he was preparing to co-operate with prosecutors.

The Mueller Report declined to make any judgment about Mr Trump’s criminal culpability on obstruction of justice, except to emphasise that it could not exonerate the president. Yet within hours of receiving the report, Mr Barr did precisely that.

The new information emerging calls that snap judgment into even greater question.

In a memorandum written when he was still a private citizen last year, Mr Barr suggested that a president cannot commit obstruction of justice while conducting otherwise normal functions of the executive branch, because criminal intent would be almost impossible to prove. But, he did admit that a president could commit obstruction by “sabotaging a proceeding’s truth finding function” if he “knowingly destroys or alters evidence, suborned perjury, or induces a witness to change testimony” and so on.

The problem for both Mr Trump and Mr Barr is that, apparently, Mr Flynn told prosecutorsabout several episodes in which “he or his attorneys received communications from persons connected to the Administration or Congress that could have affected both his willingness to co-operate and the completeness of that co-operation”.

In other words, precisely the exceptionally high standard the current attorney general has already set for presidential obstruction.

It also raises the question of who in Congress is involved in this possible obstruction. And why did Mr Flynn encourage an outspoken anti-Mueller congressman while he was supposedly co-operating with prosecutors?

All of this, obviously, also puts Mr Barr’s extensive redactions of the Mueller report in a new light. Speculation that he may have been concealing evidence of obstruction of justice now rests on much more solid ground.

Anyone who doesn’t wonder why any president would be trying so hard to keep his former associates from co-operating with law enforcement and prosecutors simply isn’t thinking.

Meanwhile, it is obvious that the president is extremely concerned.

On Friday, he tweeted: “It now seems the General Flynn was under investigation long before was common knowledge. It would have been impossible for me to know this but, if that was the case, and with me being one of two people who would become president, why was I not told so that I could make a change?”

But, of course, he was warned, multiple times, about Mr Flynn, by Mr Obama, then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, then-New Jersey governor Chris Christie, Representative Elijah Cummings, and, not least, then-FBI director James Comey.

Why would Mr Trump seek Mr Flynn’s silence long after his resignation and agreement to co-operate with prosecutors? It is hard not to assume he was trying to contain a potential crisis.

The attorney general’s conclusion that there was no presidential obstruction of justice, even by his own extraordinarily narrow standards, is looking increasingly shaky. And Mr Trump seems to know it.

https://agsiw.org/amid-saber-rattling-in-the-gulf-crisis-voices-of-caution-emerge/

While some urge confrontation, powerful voices of reason emerge.

Mounting tensions between Washington and Tehran have recently reached a boiling point, leading many observers to wonder if key factions in each government are quietly hoping for a military confrontation, or if miscalculation, misperception, and miscommunication could lead to the unintentional ignition of a conflict that no one wants.

These frictions have been steadily mounting for several years, following the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal and the refusal of Iran’s senior-most leaders to discuss any additional non-nuclear concerns. Any hopes the deal would moderate Iran’s aggressive regional policies were dashed. Tensions intensified with the election of Donald J. Trump as U.S. president, who campaigned denouncing both Iran and the JCPOA. Shortly after Trump’s inauguration, his first national security advisor, retired General Michael Flynn, put Iran “on notice” that a new era of U.S. pressure and skepticism was at hand. That culminated with the announcement of the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA in May 2018 and the initiation of a campaign of “maximum pressure” against Tehran, mainly in the form of far-reaching new U.S. economic sanctions.

Gulf Arab countries were nervous about President Barack Obama’s nuclear negotiations with Iran, in large part because they did not attempt to address Iran’s regional conduct and hegemonic ambitions. However, these countries did not initially urge the United States to withdraw from the JCPOA, which they hoped would be used as leverage to change Iran’s regional policies. And, there is no evidence that any of the Gulf Arab governments have been promoting a military conflict between Washington and Tehran.

The Gulf Arab states appear to understand the limits of what Washington might be willing to do, unless attacked, regarding Iran. They seem fully aware that a U.S. invasion and occupation of Iran, akin to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is not in the cards. They seem to realize that a series of inconclusive military engagements such as airstrikes or skirmishes could leave them worse off than they already are. And they apparently understand, perhaps better than some U.S. officials, that regime change cannot be imposed on a large and well-organized country from the outside, particularly through mere financial pressure and political machinations.

Therefore, what the Gulf Arab countries undoubtedly seek is what they in fact say they want: not regime change as such but rather a significant change to Iran’s regional and foreign policies, particularly an end to Iran’s meddling in the Arab world, destabilizing of neighboring Arab states through nonstate militias and sectarian armed groups, and efforts to export its revolutionary agenda to the region. And while they welcome a wide range of U.S. and other pressures on Iran to achieve that goal, they do not appear to be pressing Washington toward an all-out military conflict.

As always, there is a range of views within and between the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain are strongest in categorically opposing Iran’s regional agenda. Qatar has always had to moderate its policies toward Iran because of their shared natural gas field that provides Doha with almost all its income, and, since a Saudi- and Emirati-led boycott against it began in June 2017, Iranian-provided civil aviation routes and other benefits. Oman has long maintained good relations with Iran, and Kuwait has established itself as the Gulf Arab mediator with the Iranians.

Some Gulf Arab leaders have welcomed U.S. sanctions and “maximum pressure” against Iran, which, in the short run, have led to diminished resources for Tehran to fund its armed proxies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and elsewhere in the Arab world. But privately there is a real concern among key Gulf Arab leaders that the gains of this campaign could be squandered without a political mechanism for translating them into agreements that involve changes in Iran’s behavior. They have always viewed the endgame as the establishment of a new, and less threatening, arrangement with Tehran about the limits of Iran’s ambitions and the threat it poses to regional stability.

These countries will almost certainly welcome statements by senior U.S. and Iranian leaders that neither country wants or expects a war, even if they wonder whether smaller factions in both might welcome a limited military confrontation for domestic political or ideological purposes. Yet U.S. and Iranian officials continue to accuse each other of trying to provoke a full-scale confrontation and tensions have risen to the point where a miscalculation or misinterpretation could lead to an unintended conflict.

In recent days, Saudi Arabia and its closest allies appear increasingly leery of the prospect of a military conflict. Perhaps the strongest signal of this was the New York Times commentary co-authored by Saudi analyst Abdulaziz Sager and Iranian former diplomat Hossein Mousavian, each of whom is known to be close to – and therefore unlikely to break ranks with – key leaders in their respective countries.

Sager and Mousavian wrote that “now is the time to explore a new foundation for a lasting peace in our region … because the situations in the historic conflict zones are ripe for diplomacy.” Their op-ed points the way forward to renewed dialogue between Tehran and Washington, and signals that Saudi Arabia, at least, felt it necessary to announce that it is open to such a process with Iran, implying Washington should be as well. It’s also a clear sign that Riyadh does not want to be seen as working in tandem with Israel, which has a very different set of concerns and priorities, in pushing the Trump administration into war.

It’s especially noteworthy that this comes at a time of increased Gulf Arab anger and anxiety given recent sabotage attacks against international oil tankers off the UAE coast and Houthi drone attacks against Saudi oil pumping stations. But even as such attacks prompt outrage, they also serve as useful reminders of the cost of conflict.

The Sager-Mousavian commentary not only indicates an appreciation of those costs, but virtually confirms the existence of a rumored high-level “Track II” or diplomatic backchannel between influential Gulf Arabs and Iranians. That suggests both parties are potentially ready for negotiations as brinksmanship begins to play itself out and the limits of what is achievable under the current circumstances are reached. Trump, too, campaigned against large-scale foreign commitments such as the Iraq and Afghan wars, and is unlikely to view an avoidable conflict with Iran as politically acceptable. Yet it’s possible that hard-liners in his administration such as National Security Advisor John Bolton and others, as well as extremists in Iran and elsewhere, could push the situation to a tipping point.

In the past, Oman has played a crucial role in providing a venue for U.S.-Iranian negotiations, and if the parties are looking for an offramp before they reach a broader conflagration neither wants nor needs, that could happen again. Europeans, too, could play a useful role in developing a new understanding with Iran based on economic and trade carrots and sticks that maintains Iranian compliance with its JCPOA commitments. This could then be expanded to include the two remaining key concerns of the Trump administration and its Middle East allies: Iran’s regional conduct and missile development. In the past, that United States’ European allies have served as the initial interlocutors with Tehran, sketching out the essential framework of agreements later involving Washington, and they could again play that role. Alternatively, Russia, which has good relations with both Iran and Gulf Arab countries, as well as Trump personally, could be a useful bridge away from a looming confrontation.

A resolution to the Yemen war, or at least some progress toward a negotiated end to the conflict, which once again seems possible given redeployments of Houthi forces from key Red Sea ports, could serve the interests of both Gulf Arab states and Iran and might be a good starting point. Maritime security, as well, has emerged as an obvious mutual imperative that could be cautiously explored between Saudi Arabia and its allies on the one hand and Iran and its allies on the other. This kind of sequential framework for Arab-Iranian dialogue remains a viable option.

An effort to calm frayed nerves seems to be developing as Trump continues to leave the door open to talks with Iran and reports suggest he has strongly pushed back on hawkish advisors, and UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said his country is “very committed to de-escalation,” and would not to be baited into crisis. If an effective and dynamic Middle Eastern, European, or even Russian track with Iran can be developed, it can serve to further reduce tensions and eventually either expand to include the United States or lay the groundwork for new direct dialogue between Washington and Tehran. As things stand, the parties are dangerously close to a conflict no one wants or needs. But it’s reassuring to see that constructive and well-positioned voices are already seriously looking for a way out.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/the-trump-administration-s-dismantling-of-political-norms-will-have-to-be-fought-at-the-ballot-box-1.860323

It is increasingly clear that the United States has a president who places no importance upon adhering to the rules of the constitutional system.

Since the start of the Trump administration, I have been tracking in these pages a creeping process of American political deinstitutionalisation.

With the explosion of a series of bitter disputes between the White House and the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives this week, this alarming dynamic leapt out of the shadows of US governance and onto centre stage.

How the battle over Congress’s constitutionally mandated – but, for the president, extremely inconvenient – oversight authority proceeds will go far in determining whether the Trump administration succeeds in reshaping core political functions and expectations in the United States.

For more than 200 years, presidents have pushed back against congressional oversight. But all of them also recognised the legitimacy of that authority and the constitutional system of checks and balances, of which it is a cornerstone.

Until now.

This week, Mr Trump made it clear that the United States has a president who simply does not recognise, understand or care about the key balancing mechanisms in of the constitutional system, insofar as they interfere with his own interests.

He has asserted an unprecedented, blanket rejection of Congress’s role as a check on the executive through oversight and investigation. And if his absolute refusal to co-operate or reveal vital information proves effective, the balancing mechanisms of the US political system will be smashed to pieces.

Given that the House is now in the hands of the Democrats and the Robert Mueller report has been released by the Justice Department in a redacted form, this fight is no longer avoidable.

Mr Trump says he will oppose every single lawful subpoena from House committees, without exception.

Attorney General William Barr has refused a House Judiciary Committee order to produce Mueller investigation documents under an almost certainly spurious claim of “executive privilege”. The Committee has voted to hold him in contempt.

Former White House counsel Don McGahn is, on the same sweeping grounds, refusing a subpoena to testify. Donald Trump Jr seems to be preparing to do the same.

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin has flatly refused to obey a law that clearly requires him to release Mr Trump’s tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee.

In short, Mr Trump’s administration is asserting the authority to refuse, unilaterally and absolutely, to co-operate with Congressional investigations and requests for information, dismissing them all as “presidential harassment”, no matter what the law and the Constitution, let alone American norms, dictate.

Democratic leaders in Congress have deemed this “a constitutional crisis”. Influential commentators on both the left and the right have argued that, if they really believe this, they should push forward with Congress’s main weapon against a rogue president: impeachment.

But Democrats are clearly reticent to do that, because while impeachment in the House would be easy, a conviction in the Republican-held Senate is virtually impossible. Worse, the whole process would not only fail, it could easily prove a political godsend for Mr Trump, who will use his rhetoric of grievance to present it as another groundless “witch hunt” based on “fake news”.

That would leave Democrats relying on the courts to uphold congressional authority. However, there is a new, highly partisan five-vote Republican majority at the Supreme Court that, many fear, would be just as eager to serve Mr Trump as the Republican Senate is.

Only Chief Justice John Roberts – a lifelong republican but also a self-described defender of the court’s integrity – might defect to preserve traditional checks and balances. But it’s at least as likely that he will prove yet another GOP apparatchik. At this point, counting on a single person’s institutional imperatives and integrity seems desperate and naive.

A meticulously sourced New York Times investigation has demonstrated that Mr Trump’s carefully cultivated public persona, as a dynamic, highly successful, self-made real-estate billionaire in the 1980s and 1990s was an elaborate fiction.

In fact, he lost around $1 billion in less than a decade in terrible business deals, even though he received an equivalent of $413 million in today’s money from his father’s own real estate empire. Much of this cash, the report alleges, came Mr Trump’s way because he helped his father avoid paying taxes.

In response, Mr Trump characterised his suspect tax tactics as “sport”, which dovetails with his campaign pronouncement that not paying taxes merely “makes me smart”.

Yet, in Mr Trump’s hands, business after business has ended up in receivership, while he walks away, only to be salvaged by banks that are so deeply committed to him that they dare not abandon his debts, and so have bailed him out every time.

In his last debate against Hillary Clinton, Mr Trump told Americans he wanted to “run our country the way I’ve run my company”. Sadly, he seems to be doing precisely that.

The ultimate goal of deinstitutionalisation is the replacement of a country’s processes by an individual’s will.

Turkey has just provided yet another excellent example of what that looks like, with the order to rerun the Istanbul municipal vote, simply because the result did not suit President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Faced with these challenges to legislative authority, the Democratic House lacks good options, not to mention crucial allies in the Senate and judiciary.

It seems clear that the last and best chance to stop the Trump administration’s historic challenge to core American democratic institutions will be at the ballot box in 2020.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-05-06/putin-s-russia-gets-higher-marks-from-young-arabs-than-u-s

Surveys show respect for Putin and his country surpassing longstanding faith in the U.S. It probably won’t last.

Lots of Americans fear that Russia has returned as a major player in the Middle East. Lots of Arabs seem to hope so.

The impression rests on Russia’s successful intervention, along with its allies Iran and Hezbollah, in the Syrian war. Even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made more trips to Moscow of late than to Washington, as Israel tries to secure its interests in Syria.

Among U.S. Arab allies, too, Russia’s influence has been growing, and not just with governments.

The last two editions of the Arab Youth Survey, an annual study of attitudes among 18- to 24-year-olds in the Middle East and North Africa, show young Arabs increasingly looking to Russia as an ally and viewing the U.S. as unreliable or worse.

Young Arabs unsurprisingly identified Iran as the main national “enemy” at 64 percent, but the U.S. came in second at 59 percent.

Meanwhile, the U.S. reputation as an ally is in decline. The proportion of young Arabs identifying it that way has gone from 63 percent in 2016 to 35 percent last year before ticking up a little to 41 percent now. Russia, by contrast, continues to get high marks, down slightly from 69 percent last year to 65 percent now.

In the strongly U.S.-aligned Gulf Arab countries, 43 percent of the young people surveyed see Washington as a “stronger ally” than Moscow, but only by a single percentage point, with Russia getting 42 percent.

This is particularly intriguing since the devastation in Syria tends to be Exhibit A in the bill of particulars against Iran and Hezbollah. But Russia appears to get a free pass on being the global godfather of the entire project.

The Soviet Union was largely elbowed out of the region after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war and Egypt’s drift into Washington’s orbit. And after the end of the Cold War, Russia struggled to cling to any presence in the Middle East at all. But now it’s widely viewed as the primary outside power.

Its appeal can probably be best understood as a theoretical alternative to the U.S.

Its only role in the Gulf region is as Iran’s key international ally and as an alternative arms supplier for those who don’t get weapons from the U.S. Russia may well be serving as a proxy for an appealing, but hypothetical, multipolar reality in which Arab societies have many options for international support while most, practically speaking, really have just one: the U.S.

It’s unlikely that this apparent surge of sympathy for Russia is based on Moscow’s actual policies, particularly its intervention in Syria and patronage of Iran.

But the Syrian war may be helping the Russian image. When Moscow intervened in 2015, along with Iran and Hezbollah, to save the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, that was arguably the first successful international intervention in the Arab world since the liberation of Kuwait in 1991.

It gave Moscow the patina of being a powerful partner, a force for stability and sovereignty, and a winner. By contrast, the U.S. under Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump has looked timid and ineffectual despite Trump’s occasional air strikes in Syria and Yemen, and a financial war against Tehran. These seem like no-risk ventures.

Moreover, U.S. Arab allies often use Russia as leverage to get what they want from Washington. When Saudi Arabia tried to buy the anti-missile Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, it had to move toward buying the Russian S-400 alternative before making real progress with Washington. The same goes for efforts by the United Arab Emirates to buy a modern U.S. jet fighter. The U.A.E. wants American F-35s, but to get them will probably have to negotiate for a Russian alternative.

It’s also helpful to Russia that it has been relatively absent from the Middle East for decades, leaving the U.S. to be blamed for everything that’s gone wrong since the 1970s or before.

Personalities are also in play. Trump is widely regarded globally as an absurd figure and champion of racists. Russian President Vladimir Putin, by contrast, manages to convey strength, determination, ruthlessness and gravitas. It also doesn’t hurt that Trump seems to be in awe of him.

Thus Putin seems to personify a determined and reliable Russia versus an indecisive and hapless U.S.

The honeymoon, though, is unlikely to last. Sooner rather than later, Russia is going to be held to account for its own conduct. And given the limitations of Russia’s ability to project power around the world, with an economy no larger than Italy’s, it is probably already overstretched in Syria alone.

If Washington ever awakens from its self-defeating retreat from active engagement in the Middle East, the idea that Russia is once again a major regional power could, and probably would, dissipate in a few weeks

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/a-strategic-us-approach-is-required-to-counter-the-muslim-brotherhood-1.857100

After meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi last month, US President Donald Trump has been contemplating designating the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organisation (FTO). However, many experts have been pointing out the pitfalls of such a broad categorisation, so the issue remains unresolved.

The State Department maintains a list of formally designated FTOs, the main purpose of which is to criminalise dealings with those groups by Americans. The operative law from 1996 was intended to make otherwise lawful activity criminal, if it in any way benefited designated organisations, including charitable and educational efforts, and any kind of advice, even about how to stop being a terrorist group.

When the US wants to directly punish a foreign individual or group with sanctions, that is mainly done by the Treasury Department. This State Department FTO list is political and often symbolic. It brands contact with entities such as Hamas and Hezbollah as unacceptable, under penalty of law.

It is easy to see the appeal of designating the Muslim Brotherhood, since it is indeed the main source of ideology behind almost all Sunni Islamist terrorism. There would be no Al Qaeda or ISIS, if not for the Brotherhood.

It is also accurate to compare the Brotherhood to a gateway drug for terrorism. If only one in 10 Brotherhood members graduates to Al Qaeda, that is one too many.

And while it has become easy for young radicals to bypass a Brotherhood phase, the group’s ideology is still the fount of many of the basic ideas and aims, such as the restoration of a caliphate, that animate the most violent Sunni extremists.

But that doesn’t make this a good idea. The Brotherhood, writ large, isn’t an organisation at all, but a loose network that encompasses entities with many different orientations and conduct within a broader context.

So, the practical meaning of the designation of a monolithic Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation would be up for grabs, unless the specific standalone, vertically integrated groups were clearly defined. Lack of such clarity will ensure endless confusion.

The US government could designate the Egyptian Brotherhood, the oldest Brotherhood group, but that organisation itself hasn’t engaged in much recently documented violence. It makes more sense to single out breakaway factions or groups with ties to the Brotherhood that have unquestionably conducted systematic mayhem, such as Harakat Sawa’d Misr (HASM) and Liwa Al Thawra, both of which the State Department made Specially Designated Global Terrorists last year. That allows the Treasury Department to freeze and block their assets, along with other sanctions, but its less far-reaching than an FTO designation.

If the Egyptian Brotherhood itself was designated without significant new documentation of direct responsibility for violence, that might undermine the credibility of the entire list and make it appear not just political but arbitrary.

A blanket designation of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in general would also cause no end of legal headaches.

Who, precisely, would it include? How could it be enforceable? Would it target all those who acknowledge being Brotherhood affiliates? What about those who deny that? What happens if a group insists they no longer are, or never were, affiliated with the Brotherhood? Who judges that? What’s the standard?

More importantly, there are Brotherhood-influenced or purportedly formerly Brotherhood-affiliated parties in some aspect of the governments of numerous US allies.

Would the US extend the Lebanon model in which it deals with the government, but not individual Hezbollah ministers?

So, it is unlikely that a blanket designation will be issued, and, though it is possible that the Egyptian Brotherhood in general could be designated, it is wiser to add groups such as HASM, with a sustained record of terrorism.

But this debate again raises the issue of how to deal with political Islamism. The Brotherhood is unquestionably a radical movement, and hardly pacifist.

History shows it is prepared to engage in wholesale violence when it finds that useful, as Hamas in particular has shown. But most Brotherhood parties have preferred a political to a violent approach to gaining and holding power, because they believe that will be more effective.

Yet the ultra-religious do exist and there should be an acceptable role for them in national politics. Otherwise, some will surely take up arms.

The traditional Brotherhood model has three primary characteristics that are strictly incompatible with law, order and stability: it is revolutionary, conspiratorial and transnational.

Some increasingly post-Islamist groups, such as Ennahda party in Tunisia, maintain that they are no longer any of those things. They say they are not revolutionary, because they accept the existing constitution. They are not conspiratorial because they obey the law and do everything in the open. And they are no longer part of any transnational agenda.

If true, such transformations should be welcomed.

Mainstream Arab politics should be open to religious conservatives, and even former Brotherhood parties and members, who are not violent and are genuinely no longer revolutionary, conspiratorial or transnational.

Any group that truly adopts such changes does not belong on a list of terrorist organisations. It belongs in the political process of its own country, according to national laws and, hopefully, always in the loyal opposition.

https://forward.com/opinion/423659/how-palestinians-should-react-when-trump-unveils-his-peace-plan/

With the Donald Trump/Jared Kushner “peace plan” probably to be released in June, Palestinians are facing a terrible conundrum. To save their national project, they must defend the terms of reference for peace formally agreed upon in the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles. But it’s not going to be easy, because the whole point of the Trump/Kushner project appears to be to destroy those terms and replace them with a new framework that inexorably leads not to two states but to some version of a Greater Israel.

If Palestinian leaders say “no” to the plan, which is certainly what Trump, Kushner and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are counting on, the US and Israel can start to build a new framework that dispenses with any two-state logic. This intention is already evident in Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and in Netanyahu’s intensified settlement building, pledge to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, and suggestion that Palestinians can only aspire to a “state-minus,” whatever that means.

Palestinians could say “yes” to a new American proposal to avoid being frozen out of an unfolding process that, in effect, will determine their future. But given what Kushner and other administration officials have said, the Trump plan is likely to impose new and highly disadvantageous terms that dispense with the 1993 agreement. Palestinians absolutely cannot endorse or accept anything of the kind.

So, what should the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) — which is universally recognized as the sole diplomatic representative of the Palestinian people — do when neither “yes” nor “no” is a viable answer?

What the PLO needs to say is, “yes, but…”

They need to be very clear that what they are saying “yes” to is any opportunity to talk with Israel and the US, but not to the substance of any such proposal. When the plan is presented, it will surely be floated with the outline of the series of talks designed to implement it. Palestinians should show up at every opportunity but make it crystal-clear that they are participating specifically to remind Israel, the United States and the whole world that both countries are already signatories to the 1993 DOP. Its framework logically leads only to a Palestinian state, and doesn’t permit several of the most pernicious recent actions, specifically the American recognition of all of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

The DOP specified several core disputes, most notably Jerusalem, as “final status issues” to be resolved only by agreement and not by any unilateral action. Despite their shenanigans, both Israel and the Palestinians kept the 1993 framework viable for almost 25 years. In a cruel twist of ironic fate, it was the United States, which is a signatory guarantor of the DOP, that finally shattered this solemn covenant by recognizing all of Jerusalem, without qualification, as Israel’s capital.

Moreover, Trump has repeatedly insisted he has taken Jerusalem “off the table” so that “we don’t have to talk about it anymore.” Such unilateralism abrogates the entire document and renders its operating logic irrelevant.

But the Trump plan is likely to go much further.

It has become alarmingly clear that the main purpose of the Trump/Kushner effort is not to create a new paradigm for peace. Instead it is primarily designed to ensure that the existing Oslo framework and its two-state architecture cannot be resurrected by any future administration.

The designers of this new US plan — Kushner, special envoy Jason Greenblatt and Ambassador to Israel David Friedman — are all dedicated advocates of a Greater Israel. They are plainly hoping to drive a stake through the heart of the undead Palestinian national entity to ensure that it can never again haunt their nightmares.

For Palestinians, this is arguably the greatest national threat since the 1967 war. After the 1967 war, it became obvious that a state in the territories Israel has just occupied (East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) had to be the focus of Palestinian national aspirations. Since then, an independent state there has been their de facto goal, though they were slow to admit it to themselves and others.

The Trump policy assumes this Palestinian dream is another dead letter. These Manhattan real estate mavens are treating the Palestinian national movement as if it were a bankrupt venture to be liquidated at political pennies on the national dollar.

Hence the Kushner and Greenblatt rhetoric about “making Palestinian lives better” and economic development rather than human rights, political freedom and national independence. Of course, there’s no way that Palestinian Muslims and Christians will agree that only Jews can have national and political rights in the emerging Greater Israel — especially when both populate it in equal numbers — as Netanyahu and Israel’s notorious “Nation-State Law” insist.

Systematically denying Palestinians genuine equality and authentic independence simultaneously is not something they, or any people, would ever accept.

So, in the long-term interests of all parties, the best way for Palestinians out of the trap set by the Trump/Kushner proposal is to say “yes, but…” and enthusiastically attend every possible meeting while loudly insisting that they are there to remind the others of the commitments in the 1993 DOP. They should speak of little, if anything, else. They must never stop asking how any new proposals are fully consistent with those signed agreements, as well as with UN Security Council resolutions, including 242, 338 and 1397, the last of which specifically calls for the creation of a Palestinian state (all voted for, and indeed drafted, by the United States).

Since the US and Israel have agreed to a set of solemn and binding obligations about the framework for Israeli-Palestinian peace, there’s an excellent alternative for Palestinians from falling into the traps of either saying “no,” and letting the two other parties go ahead without them, or saying simply “yes,” and appearing to endorse a set of new and unacceptable terms of reference.

There’s a way to simultaneously sit at the table, and reinforce their commitment to peace, without allowing any of that to happen. And that’s to say “yes, but we are here to discuss the already agreed-upon terms, how to implement them and how or if any new proposals fit into that established framework. By the way, here’s a copy of the signature page.”

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/changing-the-us-census-is-an-attempt-to-alter-the-character-of-the-nation-itself-1.854249

Including a question that asks if respondents are American citizens is a calculated ploy to erase large numbers of non-white residents from the process.

The Donald Trump presidency arouses such passion because core American national questions are often at stake. Behind the incomprehensible tweets, weird outbursts. shady operators and paid-off porn stars, the character of the country is frequently being contested.

Several crucial themes, especially the demographic and cultural nature of US society, and the role and credibility of the judiciary, are distilled in a new Supreme Court case.

Last week, oral arguments were heard in Department of Commerce v New York, a lawsuit challenging a Commerce Department plan to cook the books in the upcoming census by asking if respondents are US citizens.

That question hasn’t been asked of everyone since 1950, because, as the Commerce Department’s own experts maintain, it will produce a significant undercount of roughly six to seven million people.

The US Constitution calls for an “actual enumeration” of all people in the country, not just citizens, every 10 years.

But, given the current climate of fear and anger regarding immigration, suddenly asking everyone this loaded question will lead many, especially Latinos, to not respond and therefore not be counted.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, a noted Trumpian with, to put it gently, anti-immigrant attitudes, is insisting on adding this question precisely because he knows that will be the result. It’s exactly what he wants.

The thinly disguised raison d’être of the Trump administration is to champion supposedly besieged white ethnic interests.

The relationship of racial and ethnic groups, and various regions, with the government in the next decade will be largely shaped by the census.

If between six and seven million people, mainly of Latino origin, can be simply wiped off the books, there will be colossal repercussions.

Areas of high immigration will find themselves underfunded, underserved, and disadvantaged in almost every way government operates.

The congressional and other elected representation of these districts will be significantly weakened, while residents of other areas that are not undercounted will be relatively strengthened.

It’s instantly obvious how deeply this will advantage the Republican Party and its voter base, at the expense of the Democratic Party and its constituencies. The change will be far-reaching, fundamental and will take at least 10 years to repair.

Like so much else in Mr Trump’s agenda, it’s a futile but damaging effort to turn back the tide of history, which is generating irreversible demographic and cultural changes in the United States.

That intention is implicit in Mr Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again”, which suggests that in the good old days of racial segregation, rampant discrimination and a clear white demographic majority the country was better off.

But if you can’t turn back history, at least you can manipulate essential data in an attempt to politically downplay and hamper the emerging new reality, which is what Mr Ross is trying to do.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-04-26/sudan-protests-ignite-turkish-saudi-competition


Pro-democracy protests have reignited a strategic clash between coalitions led by Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Neither side favors democracy.

Sudan wasn’t exactly a rich country even before sanctions were imposed against it and it lost oil-rich South Sudan in 2011. The country has been especially shaky following a military coup three weeks ago that inspired protests against the decades-old dictatorship of General Omar Bashir.

So you’d think that a pledge of $3 billion in emergency aid from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, announced on April 21, would be unanimously welcomed.

The Gulf countries plan to deposit $500 million into the Sudanese central bank to prop up the ailing currency, and to deliver the rest in food, medicine and fuel. What’s not to like?

It’s impossible to gauge Sudanese public sentiment, but some protesters aren’t happy. They say they fear that conservative Gulf rulers are trying to stop a revolutionary process in its tracks.

They note these same countries also rushed to support the Egyptian government of President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi in 2013, following the ouster the elected Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government in response to similar street demonstrations in Cairo.

Since then, Egypt has experienced both alarming political repression and impressive economic revitalization.

The Gulf countries are obviously seeking to stabilize the situation in Sudan, which is crucial to Egyptian security and important to their joint intervention against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Their critics charge that these countries are acting in Sudan out of hostility to democratic change and that their aid is intended to prop up a new autocratic junta. The Gulf countries insist they are only trying to help,

But the struggle over Sudan is more complicated.

It’s happening amid a burgeoning rivalry between the two Gulf powers and a newly assertive regional coalition led by Turkey and Qatar that promotes what they call “revolutionary” change in the Arab world, not to build democracies but to empower their Islamist Muslim Brotherhood allies.

Sudan has long been a wild card in the competition among Middle Eastern regional alliances.

Before the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, Sudan was closely identified with Muslim Brotherhood groups and, like many of them, was loosely affiliated with Iran under the rubric of an “axis of resistance” against Israel, the West and the Arab status quo.

During the Arab Spring era, however the Saudis wooed Khartoum away from Iran and into a broad anti-Iranian Sunni coalition.

But with the war in Syria subsiding in the past 18 months, and Turkey emerging as leader of an assertive new Sunni Islamist coalition, Turkey and Qatar have been attempting to win over the Sudanese strongman with support and investments.

Especially significant was a $4 billion deal signed in March 2018 for Qatar to help develop Sudan’s Red Sea port of Suakin and give Turkey a naval outpost there.

When protests first broke out in January, Bashir, who has been indicted by the international criminal court for murder and other crimes against humanity and is cautious about travel, went directly to Qatar to seek financial and diplomatic support.

At the very least, he was clearly willing to play both sides against the other.

The tumult in Khartoum gives Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. a chance to prevent Sudan from drifting into Ankara’s orbit.

It’s especially helpful to the Saudis that the Sudanese generals who have taken over are close to Riyadh. But unless Islamists had taken charge, the Gulf coalition would probably have swung into action to try to restore order and keep any new Sudanese government in their camp.

The pro-democracy movement in Sudan has been inspiring, and it’s heartening to see another brutal dictator overthrown, especially one wanted for war crimes and genocide.

But neither Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. nor Turkey and Qatar are interested in Sudanese democracy for its own sake. Both sides, after all, had been competing for the affections of the same murderous dictator, and seemed perfectly comfortable with him as long as he cooperated with them.

There are no pro-and anti-democracy coalitions among Middle Eastern states, or “revolutionary” versus “counterrevolutionary” ones either.

The outcome in Sudan is entirely in the hands of the Sudanese. But in the regional competition for influence, the Saudis and Emiratis seem to be winning out over the Turks and Qataris.