https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/donald-trump-s-withdrawal-of-troops-from-syria-is-a-huge-win-for-damascus-moscow-and-tehran-1.804679

The US president has dropped the ball on two key foreign policy goals – combating terrorism and confronting Iran

US President Donald Trump yesterday stunned Washington by ordering the complete withdrawal of all US forces in Syria, beginning immediately.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. Mr Trump frequently promised a withdrawal and tried to order it several times, only to be blocked by a near-unanimous outcry.

Most other parties can see that this move makes no sense, especially since it is predicated on the delusion that ISIS is no longer a meaningful threat.

That is obviously wrong. It is a reprise of George W Bush announcing in 2003 that it was game over in Iraq, with a “mission accomplished” banner as a backdrop – a speech that was followed by a sharp rise in insurgency and attacks.

Estimates suggest about 20,000 ISIS militants remain active in Syria and Iraq and no one really believes the group has been decisively “defeated”.

Although this rapid withdrawal has a certain nativist and neo-isolationist appeal for Mr Trump, it completely sabotages two of his key international priorities.

Along with challenging China and others on trade, Mr Trump has identified combating terrorism and confronting Iran as his main foreign policy goals.

Walking away from Syria, especially for no good reason and at an extremely precarious time, when the post-ISIS environment is being shaped daily on the ground, drops the ball decisively on both.

Areas where the ISIS caliphate used to predominate and that US-backed forces now control will likely fall into the hands of the Assad regime, Iran or Hezbollah if US troops abandoned the field.

That’s a huge win for Damascus, Moscow and Tehran. It would be entirely possible for Iran to conclude that the financial cost of the new sanctions is more than compensated by this titanic strategic victory.

It might even make a Tehran-controlled land bridge from the Iranian border through Iraq and Syria into Lebanon, and all the way to the Mediterranean sea, at last a reality. Tehran could be forgiven for concluding its earlier sacrifices were worth every penny.

In the process, of course, ISIS is likely to make a comeback, presenting itself as the only effective defender of local Sunni Arab populations being set upon by fanatical sectarian enemies. It’s probably the only scenario that could lead to a quick and comprehensive resurrection of the extremist group.

Worse, this is exactly what happened in Iraq when Barack Obama continued to withdraw US forces precipitously until 2011, causing a previously moribund Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia to morph into ISIS and launch its rampage.

The withdrawal would not only be a huge victory for Tehran, its proxies, and ISIS. It will also deliver a death blow to US credibility, given the abandonment of Kurdish and Arab groups in the Syrian Democratic Forces, which formed Washington’s ground troops fighting ISIS and will now be thrown to the mercy of Turkey and the Syrian regime.

ISIS is not fully defeated and yet those who fought and sacrificed their lives in battling the extremists are about to be callously abandoned. If that happens, why anyone would ever again regard Washington as a faithful and reliable ally?

There is no logical or strategic justification for this reckless move. Hence almost all of Mr Trump’s key officials, including national security adviser John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, special envoy to Syria Jim Jeffrey and head of the anti-ISIS coalition Brett McGurk have all publicly insisted the US was in no way preparing to leave Syria.

Mr Trump knows he has virtually no support for this among his own cabinet or Republicans in Congress but is moving quickly to make it a fait accompli before he can be stopped. It is reminiscent of how, when his former economic adviser Gary Cohn asked him why he clings to ridiculous views on trade, he answered: “I just do”.

But he must be persuaded to reverse this disastrous error. It is fortunate, in this case at least, that Mr Trump is so mercurial and changes his mind frequently in often dramatic ways.

This is the same man who went from threatening North Korea with “fire and fury” to rhapsodising about having “fallen in love” with its despotic leader Kim Jong-un a few months later.

On the same day he had announced a withdrawal from Syria, there was a very useful example of his ability to make a volte face on an issue he had strongly campaigned on.

For weeks, Mr Trump insisted he needed $5 billion for a border wall between the US and Mexico, insisted he would not take a penny less and vowed to shut down the government if he didn’t get it.

But yesterday, the Senate announced a new agreement for government funding until February, which includes no money for the wall and postpones the next round of negotiations until the new year, when Democrats will control the House of Representatives.

Mr Trump continues to bluster, rage and promise that his wall will be built, with or without Congress’s help. But the border wall remains entirely his fantasy while the government has remained open, despite his declarations.

In short, Mr Trump is perfectly capable of conceding that he has no intention of following through on any given pronouncement and that, on second thoughts, some flawed policy – whether shutting down the government or charging out of Syria – won’t be happening.

Those around Mr Trump still have a chance to persuade him to avoid this catastrophic blunder. Washington’s Arab allies should do whatever they can to help. It’s imperative they succeed – for Arab and American interests alike.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-12-18/tension-over-qatar-stalls-trump-s-mideast-agenda

The first step toward any progress for the U.S. would be to resolve the conflict between its allies.

President Donald Trump has at least one clear and coherent foreign policy goal: to try to force Iran back to the negotiating table for more favorable terms in a nuclear accord. His administration is trying to lead a “maximum pressure” campaign, including wide-ranging new sanctions. The problem is, the countries most important in supporting this initiative — Washington’s key Arab allies — are too busy squabbling among themselves.

A series of recent developments, and my own trip to the region this month, strongly suggest that this isn’t likely to change anytime soon. Unless, that is, Trump decides to get serious about ending the argument.

For decades, the mainstay of support for the U.S. and hosting of American military bases in the Persian Gulf region has been from Gulf Cooperation Council countries: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait.

But in June 2017, long-simmering tensions within the group boiled over as Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and Bahrain — joined by Egypt — announced a “boycott” of Qatar, which they accuse of promoting extremism and terrorism and coddling Iran. Qatar describes it as a “blockade” and says it’s being bullied by reactionary and autocratic neighbors.

Trump initially signaled support for the boycott but, over time, like the parties, Washington has apparently come to view the standoff as a “new normal,” despite the obvious disruption this is causing to the U.S. policy focus on Iran and complications for the massive American military assets strewn across these very countries.

Last week, the council held one of its increasingly truncated and pro forma leaders’ summits, but rather than pointing to a way forward, the dysfunctional meeting simply underlined and even exacerbated the internal Gulf Arab crisis. They are supposed to have annual summits with the U.S. president too, but that can hardly happen until their own differences are resolved.

Even more than last year’s meeting in Kuwait, which was suddenly cut short as tempers flared, this summit was a vivid enactment, in several episodes, of the depth of alienation among these core U.S. allies.

It was originally supposed to be held in Oman, but at the last minute, Saudi Arabia intervened and insisted it must be held in Riyadh.

Then Qatar began to complain that its ruler, Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, might not have been invited by the Saudis. When Riyadh made it clear that he was welcome, he refused to show up. The Saudis then framed that as an insult against them.

Meanwhile, the war of words continued to rage, with Qatar still complaining about being abused and with the boycotting countries dismissing Qatar as both irresponsible and irrelevant.

Worse, the standoff isn’t contained to internal council rows. Qatar recently withdrew its membership in the OPEC petroleum cartel, essentially to distance itself from Saudi Arabia.

And Qatar continues to deepen its ties to Turkey, which is a major beneficiary of the impasse.

But Turkey has also moved closer to Kuwait, which just signed a military cooperation agreement with Ankara.

One of the more dangerous effects of the lingering boycott is that not only Qatar but also Kuwait and Oman are becoming very nervous about what they see as an aggressive Saudi and Emirati effort to make all regional states conform to their agendas.

This is exacerbating one of the main reasons for the boycott: the sense that Turkey, in conjunction with Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood parties, constitutes a third, Sunni Islamist, bloc in the Middle East competing with both the pro-Iranian and pro-Saudi and U.S. camps.

While they won’t say so publicly, the boycotting quartet is increasingly concerned that, in a nightmare scenario, the Turkish-Qatari alliance could slowly begin to absorb other countries such as Kuwait and Jordan and constitute a real potential alternative set of allies against Iran for the U.S.

There are many reasons this scenario is far-fetched. It’s hard, after all, to imagine Washington basing its Middle East policies on a partnership with what amounts to an Islamist coalition.

But anxieties are running high, and such a scenario is not impossible. And there is no question that the boycott and its long-term impact is at best complicating and at worst disrupting the Trump administration’s efforts to keep everyone’s attention squarely focused on checking Tehran.

These and other recent developments show that the standoff is not only continuing, but in many crucial ways deepening. My own recent conversations with officials and experts in the U.A.E. indicated a clear determination to keep up, even intensify, the pressure on Qatar.

While Trump initially seemed to back the boycott, in fact Washington has adopted an effectively neutral stance on the confrontation.

It has been urging the Gulf Arabs to put their differences behind them and focus on countering Iran and terrorist groups. But it hasn’t made any major aspect of U.S. relations with any of these parties contingent on any particular outcome. So American interventions have basically been helpful hints rather than urgent demands.

Both sides have known from the beginning that the U.S. role could be decisive, but Washington hasn’t really tried to sort things out among its key Middle Eastern allies. The Trump administration would be wise to send two clear messages: First, Qatar’s policies, and especially its promotion of radicals, need to change. And second, on that basis the boycott needs to end. These messages need to be connected to real consequences. That’s the path to ending this impasse and achieving other key goals in the Middle East.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/as-trump-s-aura-of-invincibility-dims-he-will-seek-to-intensify-racial-and-cultural-divides-1.802919

Donald Trump’s political and legal predicaments are starting to look unsustainable. His presidential campaign, business, foundation, administration, and inaugural committee are now all, separately, under criminal investigation.

There are also criminal convictions or guilty pleas against his campaign manager, personal attorney, national security adviser, foreign policy adviser, and numerous other associates.

Most attention has understandably focused on Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the presidential campaign. And, indeed, it has already produced many important convictions and indictments.

But it was never right to view Mr Trump’s myriad problems through a mono-dimensional lens.

As legal experts Mikhaila Fogel and Benjamin Wittes argue, these manifold investigations are like “a multi-front siege on a walled city that is, in fact, relatively well fortified”. But if the defences are slowly degraded by constant attacks, eventually a political battering ram can bring the walls down.

The president’s new and massive legal crisis isn’t centred on Russian collusion, or money laundering, or even obstruction of justice. Instead it stems from the sentencing of his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, for hush-money payments to two women who say they had extramarital affairs with Mr Trump.

Buying the silence of Playmates and porn stars for personal reasons isn’t illegal. But if the intent was to protect the campaign, and someone other than Mr Trump paid – as Mr Cohen did – it was an unlawful campaign contribution and a major felony.

Mr Trump wasn’t merely deceiving his wife and friends. He was withholding crucial information from the voting public and, in effect, defrauding the election. It’s an extremely serious charge legally, politically and morally.

And Mr Trump’s story keeps changing wildly.

First, he said none of this ever happened. Then he said that if it did, he knew nothing about it. Then he admitted he did know about the payments, but only after the fact. And the payment’s aren’t a crime, he now claims, but if they were, that was Mr Cohen’s fault because he was the attorney. Moreover, Mr Trump insists that such payments are normal and private, and totally unconnected to the campaign.

But the payments were obviously prompted chronologically by the campaign. Mr Cohen admits that. Far worse, American Media Inc and its chairman, David Pecker, a close friend of Mr Trump, in consideration for a non-prosecution agreement, have also sworn the payments were entirely about the campaign.

Moreover, they say that Mr Pecker and Mr Cohen were joined at the crucial meeting in which the payoff plot was hatched by “at least one other member of the campaign”, widely, and unsurprisingly, reported to be Mr Trump himself.

The Justice Department has a rule against prosecuting sitting presidents. Otherwise, by now Mr Trump would surely have been indicted and facing prison time for this serious felony, which may have been decisive in helping him win the election.

The ironies are overwhelming.

The statute of limitations on such crimes is five years, meaning that in the 2020 election, Mr Trump will be fighting to either stay in the White House or probably go to prison on these charges alone. The implications of what that might prompt are terrifying.

Meanwhile, other massive investigations, especially Mr Mueller’s, are ongoing. Additional bombshells are likely.

No surprise, then, that in the midst of this maelstrom, Mr Trump picked a massive fight with Democratic leaders over a possible government shutdown, with the president demanding $5 billion for his preposterous border wall.

Legal woes aside, it has been clear since the November midterm elections that Mr Trump and the Republicans are in real political trouble.

He is convinced that immigration issues – effectively racial anxieties and white identity politics – were the key to his election. And he is sure that they are central to his chances of being re-elected and thereby remaining at liberty.

He has fashioned himself as the white, Christian tribal leader of the American majority, and as the staunch defender of their collective power.

The more trouble he is in, the more he will try to stir up as much racial, ethnic and cultural discord as possible, while painting his adversaries as soft on immigration, crime, national security and, essentially, white Christian communal interests.

As the walls have started closing in around him, the signs are ominous. Mr Trump has said “the people would revolt” if he were impeached. Senator Orrin Hatch summed up the views of many of his fellow Republicans by bluntly saying “I don’t care” about Mr Trump’s apparent involvement in major campaign violations.

So, the United States enters the second half of the Trump administration with a president with one foot in the White House and the other in prison, a dominant party that shrugs at major lawbreaking to gain power, and threats of violent rebellion if constitutional remedies to illegal acts are sought.

Meanwhile, many of the most serious allegations are still being quietly investigated. Almost everyone realises that the worst is yet to come and the chaos is only just beginning.

But at least Americans now know what long-suffering citizens of the “banana republics” to their south, so long the butt of demeaning jokes and stereotypes, have endured. If nothing else, a particularly offensive version of traditional Yankee arrogance must now be surely, and mercifully, extinct.

Donald Trump’s appointment of Heather Nauert as UN ambassador shows his disdain for multilateral institutions

The appointment of Washington’s new UN ambassador Heather Nauert reveals much about the politics within the Donald Trump administration and the trajectory of US foreign policy-making.

Mr Trump has always approached the presidency like a reality television producer, which was his most successful previous role. According to the New York Times, before taking office he even told his staff to consider every day of his administration to constitute an episode in which he ultimately vanquishes some opponent.

He was, after all, the simulacrum of a successful mogul on the television programme The Apprentice, one whose casino and hotels empire had repeatedly run into financial trouble and had been declared bankrupt several times. So this president is less interested in governing than in playing the role for the cameras and has even publicly referred to the White House as a “set”.

Consequently, Mr Trump has looked for new recruits – that is, supporting cast members – from, as he puts it, “central casting”. He wants people to “look the part”, as he imagines his viewers will as well.

There has always been a certain overlap between US television and the theatre of politics but under Mr Trump, those lines have become particularly blurred.

He has appointed a number of officials and senior aides from television, particularly from the Fox News channel, which has long supported him and, under his administration, all too often acts as a mouthpiece for the White House.

No programme has been more closely linked to Mr Trump than his favourite, the inane morning chat show Fox & Friends. Indeed, a number of studies have suggested that many of his more mysterious early morning tweets are directly prompted by the content of the show.

Now the link between this programme, its network and the administration has been greatly strengthened. Ms Nauert came to widespread attention as an anchor on that show, which led directly to her appointment, at the beginning of the administration, as the chief spokesperson for the State Department.

Blonde and attractive in the standard Fox News mould, Ms Nauert no doubt seemed straight out of Mr Trump’s vision of “central casting”, especially since she was unencumbered by any relevant diplomatic or administrative experience or expertise.

But central casting can be unreliable. Former Exxon chief Rex Tillerson was, around the same time, nominated as Secretary of State, partly because of the recommendation of Republican bigwig James Baker and partly because Mr Trump thought he “looked the part”.

But Mr Tillerson did not share much of Mr Trump’s vision of “America First” and the two rapidly fell out. It was to Ms Nauert’s huge advantage that she was ostentatiously marginalised by Mr Tillerson and appeared more eager than him to defend the president’s policies.

But her appointment isn’t just a reward for loyalty and yet another snub to Mr Tillerson. It also indicates the growing bureaucratic power of national security adviser John Bolton.

Mr Bolton had his own favourite for the post, current US ambassador to Germany and far-right activist Richard Grenell. But Ms Nauert will suit his purposes admirably.

The appointment of such a relative nonentity to the UN position conveys precisely the kind of disdain for multilateral institutions that Mr Bolton has championed.

Moreover, she will be in no position whatsoever to challenge Mr Bolton’s command of US foreign policy and her media-centred and skimpy resume suggests the most she will be expected to do is defend other people’s policies on television.

Mr Trump, too, will certainly welcome having a relative lightweight in the UN post. His initial appointment of former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley emerged as a serious mistake within months.

Along with Vice President Mike Pence, she was one of two potential successors as president within the administration. And unlike the vice president, she proved willing to stake out her own path and even challenge the president when she found it politically useful.

By the time Mr Trump had to replace Mr Tillerson, Ms Haley had ruled herself out as a candidate because she had used her UN post to become too powerful and independent.

But Ms Haley was one of the most senior of Mr Trump’s initial appointees. Ms Nauert, by contrast, is shockingly junior, to the point that she might not even be part of the cabinet (the UN post being cabinet secretary level at the discretion of the president).

Such a move will not only reassure Mr Trump that there will be no repetition of Ms Haley’s independence and potential challenge, which remains plausible even after – or perhaps especially because of – her resignation. Demoting the status of the UN envoy to sub-cabinet level would also undoubtedly please Mr Bolton and his allies by sending a message to multilateral institutions that they are not worthy of such top-level representation.

Even if she does end up sitting in the cabinet, however, Ms Nauert’s appointment will strongly solidify Mr Bolton’s pre-eminence in foreign policy-making, typically in coordination with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. And “America First” will continue its metamorphosis into America alone.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/climate-change-denial-is-just-the-latest-example-of-trump-s-post-truth-presidency-1.798696

Politically inconvenient reality is discarded by a president who claims gut instinct is more credible than hard fact

The Donald Trump administration is increasingly developing into a post-truth presidency and the costs are becoming clearer. On the Friday after Thanksgiving, one of the most low-key days on the US political calendar, the administration quietly released a bombshell scientific report.

Thirteen federal agencies collaborated on the major, 1,656-page study, which outlines the grave consequences of uncontrolled climate change. It predicts a devastating toll on the US economy, infrastructure, living spaces and public health if present practices continue.

The findings are alarming and unassailable. But they are also totally incompatible with the campaign of deregulation that has characterised the Trump administration’s environmental approach.

As president, Mr Trump employs a small army of scientists and experts, who have just collectively told him what they think.

His response has been to try to bury the report by releasing it during a public holiday, then scorning its findings by shrugging and saying: “I don’t believe it.”

It’s easy to see why Mr Trump prefers not to. Opposition to environmental regulation has been a cornerstone of his political profile, including dismissing climate change as a Chinese hoax designed to fleece Americans.

This is typical. The dismissal of fact and opposition to the very notion of truth as a measurable, verifiable phenomenon is essential to his presidency and, above all, to his campaign of de-institutionalisation in the US.

Mr Trump began as a national political figure by promoting an enormous and racist lie. Championing the conspiracy theory known as “birtherism”, he suggested Barack Obama was not born in the US and was therefore an illegitimate president.

Now he is president, Mr Trump frequently dismisses what his own experts say, deriding them as part of a corrupt “deep state” apparatus, full of partisan hacks. It’s the same charge he has been levelling at judges, the FBI, police and parts of the military.

Mr Trump’s political base has demonstrated an impressive appetite for falsehoods, which he is now estimated to have uttered 6,420 times in a mere 649 days as president. It’s mind-boggling.

He lies about things little and big, significant and insignificant. He lies constantly and apparently compulsively. No major American leader has ever wallowed in so much – often pointless – deceit.

People know this by now but a substantial group of Americans do not care. They believe that, through his false statements, Mr Trump is expressing a deeper or higher truth that resonates on an emotional register and therefore goes beyond mere fact.

The facts might be wrong, when, for example, Mr Trump asserts a correlation between immigration and crime. Indeed, there is a negative one: immigrants of all kinds commit crimes less frequently than native-born Americans.

But given a widespread racial and cultural hostility towards immigrants, who are often perceived as threatening the social, economic and political primacy of white Americans, the essential argument of a deadly threat is perceived as somehow correct, nonetheless.

Such “higher truths” were also embedded in administration efforts to falsely link terrorism to immigration that deliberately removed all instances of domestic terrorism from the statistical equation.

When defending Mr Trump, former House speaker Newt Gingrich asserted that violent crime is rising in US cities but was confronted with the fact that it has been consistently decreasing.

His reply perfectly encapsulated the post-truth logic. He insisted because “the average American does not think crime is down” that the two claims were “equally true”. He added: “I’ll go with how people feel and I’ll let you go with the theoreticians.”

This quintessentially Trump-style manoeuvre privileges popular prejudices over quantifiable evidence.

This attitude informed the Trump administration’s notorious championing of “alternative facts” and insistence that “truth isn’t truth” and “what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”

Politically inconvenient reality is dismissed as “fake news” and Mr Trump, with a straight face, asserts that his “gut” is more accurate than experts’ brains.

This post-truth political ecosystem is, crucially, impervious to contradiction or correction, precisely because it doesn’t purport to value or prioritise fact. Instead, the instincts of leaders and the prejudices of their followers are paramount measures of “truth”.

Since Mr Trump’s political career began with the birtherism delusion, it is unsurprising that what is now developing is an entire political atmosphere structured around the false logic of an obsessive conspiracy theory: if it feels right, it must be true.

Mr Trump’s thorough de-institutionalisation doesn’t only target existing organisations. It also attacks entire categories of knowledge.

Just as the media, police, courts, Congress and all other independent sources of information and authority must be systematically discredited and disempowered, the opponents of de-institutionalising leaders must also be denied a recourse to the facts. Otherwise, there’s every danger they might prove their point.

But if what people believe and leaders feel has primacy over verifiable or quantifiable knowledge, then meaningful conversation and, soon, political opposition, essentially ceases.

Another major obstacle to the leader’s will is swept aside − and democracy will surely die as a result.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/editorial/in-his-drive-to-dismantle-american-institutions-trump-is-following-in-erdogan-s-footsteps-1.795238

Starting with the the media, the US president has systematically attacked symbols of trust and authority – but the courts are pushing back

This year’s Thanksgiving holiday in the United States was punctuated by an unprecedented war of words between President Donald Trump and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

Mr Trump dismissed the federal judiciary as, in effect, partisan hacks. Mr Roberts fired back defending judicial integrity. The Republican heads of two of the three branches of US government were suddenly clashing.

But this was readily foreseeable. In these pages, I have been tracking Mr Trump’s experiment in American de-institutionalisation, and specifically predicted it back on June 2.

Observing that the US president was systematically discrediting all sources of authority and veracity beyond his own direct control − beginning with the press, and moving on to Congress, the FBI and Justice Department, and the intelligence services – I wrote that “his probable next target is alarmingly obvious. An independent judiciary is an enormous obstacle and threat to any leader. The courts must be next…”

Mr Trump has never had any respect for courts. He repeatedly attacked Gonzalo Curiel, the judge presiding over the lawsuit against his “Trump University” over alleged fraudulent practices, as a hopelessly biased “Mexican”, although he was born in Indiana.

And from the outset of his presidency, Mr Trump has been repeatedly thwarted by federal judges.

Several early versions of his Muslim “travel ban” were struck down by courts as unconstitutional, and Mr Trump responded by describing one of the key jurists as a “so-called judge”.

He has repeatedly threatened to dissolve or purge the Ninth Circuit Court, which he particularly dislikes.

There have been numerous other instances in which courts have blocked his attempted policies.

In other cases, they have rescued Mr Trump from himself. One example is his deeply unpopular effort to strip people brought to the United States as children, who have since lived exemplary lives, of protections from deportation instituted by the Obama administration. He has been saved from the damaging impact of this order by courts that have repeatedly blocked it.

Another court may, however, be positioned to hoist Mr Trump with his own petard. His Justice Department and several state attorneys general have been suing to effectively overturn “Obamacare” health laws that are now very popular, especially since they protect Americans against denial of insurance because of “pre-existing conditions”.

In the recent midterm elections, for instance, Mr Trump preposterously claimed that Democrats would strip people of such protections while Republicans would preserve them, even as his own attorneys were trying to overthrow those very rules in the courts. Should Mr Trump prevail in the suit, public outrage would be colossal.

Either way, in this and several other encounters with the courts, he loses. That’s precisely the problem: he cannot control what the courts will or won’t do.

That is unacceptable for a leader seeking de-institutionalisation. The best example of this process succeeding is probably Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom Mr Trump greatly admires.

Mr Erdogan inherited a Turkish system with many institutions, no matter how fledgling or fragile they may have been. He has systematically dismantled them, particularly after the failed 2016 coup attempt, and replaced them with hollow institutional simulacra that, in reality, simply rubberstamp his own decisions.

Whether he fully realises it or not, that’s exactly the de-institutionalisation process Mr Trump is groping towards in the United States.

And he is going down the list of independent sources of authority and information with a relatively impressive precision, beginning with the media, which was low-hanging fruit, and only now directly attacking the courts and his other new target: senior military leaders, such as the widely respected retired Admiral William McRaven, architect of the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Unlike Republicans in Congress, however, Chief Justice Roberts appears to be strongly signalling to Mr Trump that even though he and a majority of Supreme Court colleagues − now including Brett Kavanaugh − may be committed Republicans, they have a keen sense of their institutional judicial prerogatives and are prepared to defend them against executive encroachment.

Mr Trump is likely to face some serious legal headaches in the coming months with the Robert Mueller investigation no longer restrained by a looming midterm election, and with Democrats poised to retake control of the House of Representatives’ committees and investigative authority in January.

Mr Mueller may attempt to subpoena the president. House Democrats may seek to subpoena his tax records. Many of his most controversial policies may also face serious legal challenge, and his conduct investigation and exposure.

He knows this, and his extreme anxiety is evident.

Obviously, the US judiciary is highly political and quite partisan. It is certainly clear that there are Republican and Democratic judges who often rule accordingly.

Chief Justice Roberts is implying that there is a limit to how compliant many Republican judges, especially on the Supreme Court, might be when the law clearly contradicts Mr Trump’s wishes.

Courts, however, have no enforcement power. They rely on the executive to respect their authority. Mr Trump is signalling he does not.

If they rule against him, and he does not accept their decisions, a historic constitutional crisis, which could decide the fate of Mr Trump’s de-institutionalisation project, will ensue.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-23/khashoggi-killing-saudi-king-is-accountable-too?srnd=opinion

One of the central figures in the drama over the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has remained an invisible man. Global attention has focused on the role played by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oct. 2 killing at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. But another figure deserves equal billing: the prince’s father, King Salman.

The crown prince is often referred to as the “de facto ruler” of Saudi Arabia. But that’s not what he really is. The king has virtually total power. He has apparently delegated a lot of administrative authority to his son, enough to make “day-to-day ruler” a reasonable description of the younger man’s government role. But the king remains the ultimate authority.

It’s significant, then, that King Salman either goes unmentioned by public figures demanding accountability for the killing, or is specifically exonerated. Writing in the Washington Post, for example, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisted that “We know the order to kill Khashoggi came from the highest levels of the Saudi government” but added, “I do not believe for a second that King Salman, the custodian of the holy mosques, ordered the hit on Khashoggi.”

From this, Erdogan reasoned, “I have no reason to believe that his murder reflected Saudi Arabia’s official policy,” and that there was therefore no reason for a rift in Turkish-Saudi relations.

Exonerating the king thus reflects Turkey’s impulse to inflict as much damage on a regional rival as possible without precipitating a geopolitical meltdown.

U.S. politicians and media have also given the king a pass while demanding accountability from the crown prince.

Even in his statement on Tuesday defending strong U.S.-Saudi ties, President Donald Trump acknowledged, “It could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event — maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!” Trump didn’t say anything like that about King Salman.

There are defensible reasons for this. The king is elderly and is assumed not to bother himself with day-to-day governance. He lacks the reputation for rashness and adventurism that his son has acquired.

Yet if blame for the killing and a subsequent cover-up goes all the way to the top in Saudi Arabia, it cannot stop at the crown prince. And while there is no evidence indicating that the king was involved, he must certainly have played a major role in shaping the Saudi response, which is almost universally regarded as inadequate.

Several factors are at play. First, by distinguishing between the king and the crown prince, Saudi Arabia’s interlocutors preserve their ability to accuse parts of the Saudi government of culpability while sustaining the relationship with the state. It’s a pragmatic fiction.

Second, the narrative props up a simplistic fantasy of two Saudi Arabias, each personified by one of the Saudi royals. The king represents the “good” Saudi Arabia of caution and stability. The crown prince represents the “bad” Saudi Arabia of recklessness and ruthlessness.

In truth, the old Saudi Arabia personified by the king had many flaws, not least of them the propagation of a dogmatic version of Sunni Islam that informed extremists. And the prince’s new Saudi Arabia has much to recommend it, including advances in women’s rights, a retreat from religious extremism, and economic modernization.

The distinction is mythological. Saudi Arabia has changed, but it hasn’t gone from good to bad or bad to good. It remains an essential but problematic U.S. ally.

Washington and Riyadh need their vexed partnership, which survived the 1973 oil embargo, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the 2003 Iraq war and other strains. But there’s no need for fake nostalgia or fantasies about “good” versus “bad” leaders of the same Saudi government.

Those who want Washington to back away from Riyadh — including Erdogan, much of the U.S. media and many in Congress — find the dual-leader fable to be convenient. But it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny and it won’t produce an intelligent policy response.

The U.S. is going to have to deal with Saudi Arabia for what it is. In that sense, Trump’s willingness to overlook the Khashoggi killing in the name of sustaining the alliance has more integrity despite its flaws than the mythmaking that defends the Saudi king while attacking the crown prince.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/a-shift-to-the-left-is-now-the-biggest-threat-to-democrat-ambitions-1.792854

Democrats obviously performed very well in the US midterm elections. More importantly, they now appear to have a clear path to regain the White House in two years, if they pick their battles wisely.

They will now face a familiar dilemma. Do they embrace their ideological impulses and reward their base by shifting radically to the left, or do they make the compromises necessary to ensure that they remain a “big tent” grouping that can appeal to moderates − and even some conservatives − and therefore win nationally?

If they can resist being co-opted by an angry base, their chances of regaining the White House in 2020 are starting to look quite strong.

While the initial results on election night caused many who were hoping for a “blue wave” repudiation of President Donald Trump to feel disappointed, in fact Democratic gains are very much in “wave” territory.

With the final results still coming in, they appear on track to have gained at least 35 seats, an impressive performance by almost any standards.

Republicans may increase their Senate majority by one or two votes, but given the extremely disadvantageous Senate election map they faced this year, Democrats actually did well to hold their losses to such a limited level.

Indeed, given the large number of seats they had to defend in states that voted enthusiastically for Mr Trump two years ago, it’s remarkable they didn’t lose more.

But looking forward to the 2020 effort to regain the White House, particularly given that Americans have a solid pattern in recent decades of re-electing even decidedly mediocre sitting presidents, the party has to be concerned.

Mr Trump has a firm hold on his own base, strong support in many rural and exurban areas, which are disproportionately powerful in the presidential electoral college, and, at least as things stand now, can certainly try to take credit for a strong economy.

Democrats are mesmerised by their inroads in several traditionally conservative “red” states, such as Georgia and Texas, where they narrowly lost hotly contested elections. The idea of an African-American woman winning the election for governor of Georgia, as Stacy Abrams nearly did, was deeply inspiring to many Democrats.

“Flipping” traditionally Republican red states across the South and the Bible Belt is extremely appealing emotionally.

However, the crucial fact is that Democrats don’t need to perform such relative political miracles in order to retake the White House in 2020, although they certainly could.

As the noted political commentator William Galston has pointed out, there is a much simpler and more logical path for the Democrats in the next election. Three Midwestern states that have frequently voted Democratic in the past are the key.

Begin with the assumption that Democrats can hold onto all the states that Hillary Clinton carried in 2016. Mr Trump and the Republicans don’t seem to be increasingly competitive in any of them at this stage.

Even concede that Mr Trump can again prevail in crucial swing states, such as Florida and Ohio, which seems entirely plausible.

Nonetheless, all the Democrats would need to add to Mrs Clinton’s 2016 performance are victories in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Together, they provide 46 additional electoral college votes, which is enough to regain the White House.

Ohio seems to be consolidating as a Republican state, and Democrats certainly can’t count on winning Florida against Mr Trump.

But if they focus on Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin − and the blue-collar and unionised voters there who were seduced by Mr Trump two years ago − they could beat him.

Democratic candidates performed very well in all three states in the midterms. A key reason is that Mr Trump’s main achievement so far has been a large tax cut for the wealthy and corporations, at the expense of working people.

Mr Trump could complicate this if he resurrects his idea of a trillion-dollar infrastructure public investment, which would create large numbers of jobs. But he’s shown absolutely no sign of it, and could face stiff resistance from conservative Republicans, and possibly Democrats, if he did try.

For now, he seems focused on staging poisonous fights over race and culture. Such white-nationalist fear mongering works in many parts of the country, but probably won’t be sufficient in these Midwestern states.

The biggest obstacle for Democrats could be an ideological shift too far to the left. The Bernie Sanders-led “democratic socialist” faction is certainly thriving.

However, around the country in the recent election, Democrats showed an encouraging willingness to tailor nominations to suit local preferences, running left-leaning, centrist and even slightly conservative candidates where that proved most effective.

A presidential nomination, though, is more complicated. That person will be a national leader, and Democrats may well have to endure a bitter struggle between the left and the centre.

However, the election result they just secured in the face of a prosperous national economy suggests that if Democrats can remain open to a wide range of orientations, nominate a candidate with broad appeal, and focus their energies on Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, they can make Mr Trump a one-term president.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-16/yemen-war-u-a-e-and-saudi-arabia-look-for-a-way-out

The war in Yemen, and the humanitarian crisis it has inflamed, is usually thought of as Saudi-led and controlled. But the reality is more complicated, and involves a major role by the United Arab Emirates.

That’s why a meeting in Abu Dhabi this week between the leader of the U.A.E. and the heads of the main Sunni Islamist political party in Yemen is a dramatic development, and could be a crucial step toward ending the war. The conflict has killed at least 10,000 people, put millions under threat of starvation, worsened the global refugee crisis, and divided Arab governments from each other and from their allies in the West.

Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. intervened jointly in Yemen in 2015 in response to the takeover by Iran-backed Houthi rebels of the capital, Sanaa, along with large amounts of territory. Since then, though, the conflict has diverged into two separate but overlapping campaigns.

The Saudis and their Yemeni allies are concentrating their efforts in the north of the country and are mainly opposing the Houthis. That’s where the war has turned into a desperate quagmire.

But in the south, the U.A.E. and its more effective Yemeni allies have largely driven out Houthi forces and have been concentrating on a counterinsurgency against terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and Islamic State, often in coordination with U.S. special forces.

A key ideological division has emerged between the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia in how to end the conflict. The U.A.E. is categorically opposed to all forms of political Islam. Saudi Arabia detests the terrorist groups and is wary of most Islamist parties, but is not as rigid as the Emirates.

In particular, Riyadh has been willing to work with the Yemeni party al-Islah, which is associated with the oldest and most established Islamist network in the Middle East, the Muslim Brotherhood, because they share an uncompromising antipathy towards the Houthis and their Iranian backers.

The Saudis think al-Islah’s cooperation can help stabilize the situation, especially in the northern parts of the country where the kingdom is most influential. And they’re optimistic about al-Islah’s claim to be part of a post-Islamist wave of religiously-oriented political groups that are getting rid of the revolutionary, conspiratorial and transnational aspects of Islamism and re-emerging as law-abiding conservative nationalists.

The U.A.E., by contrast, has continued to view al-Islah and all Brotherhood-oriented parties with suspicion, and dismisses any claims about a post-Islamist tendency as opportunistic hypocrisy.

But as pressure from the West increases on Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E., the coalition’s leaders are clearly trying to think through an exit strategy.

Saudi Arabia has been pressing the U.A.E. to join Riyadh in putting aside doubts about al-Islah and working with the group to craft a domestic political alternative to Houthi domination.

So when al-Islah Chairman Mohammed Abdullah al-Yidoumi and Secretary-General Abdulwahab Ahmad al-Anisi suddenly appeared in Abu Dhabi this week to meet with the de facto ruler of the U.A.E., Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, something significant was going on.

After all, bin Zayed could have met al-Islah leaders quietly if he wanted to. Indeed, relatively senior Emirati officials have sat down with Yemeni Islamists in Saudi Arabia on more than one occasion over the past two years in response to prodding by Riyadh.

But on this occasion, the senior U.A.E. leader met publicly in his own capital with the heads of the Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood group and publicized it aggressively on all forms of media, including through his own Twitter account, complete with pictures and mainly in Arabic.

The message was not primarily aimed at Washington, but at regional neighbors and his own domestic audience. It was intended to show Saudi Arabia that the U.A.E. is serious about helping Riyadh work with al-Islah to stabilize those parts of Yemen in which its influence predominates, and possibly to signal a willingness to cooperate with the group in Emirati areas of influence as well.

There’s every reason to hope that this is a signal that both the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia are seeking a way to get out of Yemen, as Washington and most of the world are increasingly demanding.