http://www.agsiw.org/china-leg-key-success-king-salmans-asia-tour/

The administration of President Donald J. Trump has suggested that one of its foreign policy goals may be to attempt to persuade Russia to distance itself from Iran and even cooperate with the United States against Tehran. The benefits for Moscow seem clear to those in Washington who think the United States and Russia have important common interests in the Middle East: Russia’s relations with the West and the Gulf Arabs would markedly improve, and, as the P5+1 nuclear deal demonstrates, the United States and Russia working together have greater prospects for ensuring that Iran does not break out of its commitment not to acquire nuclear weapons (which is just as much of a threat to Russia). Further, sidelining Tehran would enable Moscow and Washington to cooperate on resolving the conflict in Syria and pursue the mutual aim of eliminating the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and other extremist groups.

But, while this logic may appear compelling to its advocates in Washington, it is not likely to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin, for whom it poses two problems: First, siding with Washington against Tehran involves serious risks for Moscow; second, Putin cannot be confident that the costs he incurs from a poorer Russian-Iranian relationship will be compensated by benefits from a potential improved Russian-U.S. relationship.

For Moscow to side with Washington against Tehran means that Russian-Iranian relations are bound to deteriorate, and Moscow has reasons to fear this. As many Russian observers have pointed out, the Kremlin has benefited significantly from the improvement in Moscow-Tehran ties that occurred at the end of the Cold War. Tehran worked with Moscow to resolve the 1992-97 Tajik Civil War on terms favorable to Tajikistan’s pro-Russian government. Moscow and Tehran both supported the Taliban’s adversaries that prevented the group from taking over Afghanistan before the U.S.-led intervention after 9/11. And most important, the Iranian government (unlike the governments of some Arab states) expressed support for Russian efforts to prevent secessionist efforts by Muslim rebels in Chechnya.

Maintaining good relations with Iran, then, has been seen as important for Moscow in maintaining its influence in Central Asia as well as control of the North Caucasus inside Russia. If Russian-Iranian ties deteriorate in response to Putin responding to Trump’s invitation to side with the United States against Iran, all this could be put at risk. A hostile Iran could do much to support anti-Russian forces in Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. Tehran may not be able to bring these groups to power, but it could greatly increase the costs Russia must pay to suppress them.

Perhaps the most contentious issue between Russia and Iran is the future of Syria, where, despite many tactical and short-term commonalities, the longer-term interests of the two partners appear to diverge. But even in this case, Moscow is in no position to break with Tehran, at least under current circumstances, and lacks any clear motivation to do so. The coordinated Russian-Iranian intervention in Syria that began in fall 2015 (supplementing an ongoing Iranian intervention with Hizballah and Iraqi Shia militias that had been failing) was a dramatic military, diplomatic, and political success for both countries. Iran was able to secure its interests, and that of its paramount international asset, the Lebanese Shia Hizballah militia, and forestall a potentially disastrous defeat through the downfall of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Russia was able to reassert its influence in the Middle East and claim to be a resurgent power on the international stage, not just along its borders or within the territory of the former Soviet Union.

However, their broader interests in Syria, while overlapping and complementary, are not, and never have been, identical. In addition to asserting a regional and global role, Russia is assuring access to its only major military bases outside of the territory of the former Soviet Union, in Tartus and Hmeimim. Russia also has major financial assets and investments in Syria, and a significant number of expatriates living in the country. The stakes for Iran are much more existential. Tehran regards its presence in Syria as essential to securing and maintaining its all-important “land bridge” to Hizballah in Lebanon. It also regards the maintenance of a friendly, and in many ways subordinate, regime in Damascus as essential to the defense of the Shia-dominated (and Iran friendly) Iraqi government, which might be destabilized by a hostile Sunni regime in Syria. The Iranian right wing even raises fears that a hostile Sunni regime in Damascus could threaten Tehran’s hold over Iran’s predominantly Arab Khuzestan region. The emergence of an antagonistic, or even ambivalent, government in Damascus, then, would be an enormous setback to Iran and its entire regional project.

In the immediate term, Moscow and Tehran are both getting their way in Syria, though their interests might diverge. Any party seeking a stable end to the conflict in Syria will have to accept that the Assad regime, particularly without a change of leadership at the top, cannot preside over a sustainable new national order, however decentralized. Assad himself is simply too tainted with the brutality and bloodshed of the conflict to be seen by much of the population as minimally legitimate.

On this key point, Moscow and Tehran will not necessarily see eye to eye in the long run. For Russia, it is easy to imagine maintaining its interests in Syria following a regime change, as long as those interests are respected by all parties. However, neither Iran nor Hizballah can secure their core interests in Syria beyond the present ruling elite, and probably not beyond Assad himself. There is simply no other plausible regime in Syria that would acquiesce to placing the basic interests of the state at the service of Iran and its Lebanese proxy group. Moreover, Russia could seek to parlay its influence in Syria; its ability to work with Turkey to forge a functional cease-fire, and possibly even a viable endgame in the country; and its vital cooperation in the battle against ISIL, for potential Western concessions regarding Crimea and parts of Ukraine.

However, none of these divisions has been exploited by the West, Turkey, or the Arab states in a manner that incentivizes Moscow to distance itself from Tehran. To the contrary, as things stand both Russia and Iran need each other to secure their fundamental interests in Syria. Russia has provided the air cover, intelligence, weapon systems, and key diplomatic and political support for the Iranian/Hizballah project in Syria. Iran, Hizballah, Iraqi Shia militias, and the Syrian forces under Iran and Hizballah’s sway have provided the key ground troops that have driven rebel fighters out of Aleppo and many other areas of what both Moscow and Tehran regard as “necessary Syria” for their own purposes. Without Russian support, Iran and Hizballah wouldn’t have been able to engineer the regime’s remarkable turnaround and inflict the strategic losses suffered by the Syrian rebels. But without Iranian-allied forces, Russia wouldn’t have been able to outflank the United States, Turkey, and the Gulf Arab countries in engineering the survival and limited victory of the regime.

Therefore, neither Moscow nor Tehran has any incentive to break their alliance on Syria. As things stand, they are both pleased, albeit for very different reasons, by the dramatic resuscitation of the Assad regime and the relative collapse of more moderate rebel groups in key strategic areas. And given that nothing has been done to exploit the ways in which they differ, Moscow has every reason to stick with the Iranians and their allies in a partnership that has produced strikingly effective mutual benefits.

Moreover, Iran and its allies on the ground in Syria have the ability to greatly complicate the Russian position in the country should Moscow attempt to undermine and thwart them, particularly in concert with other powers. Therefore, whatever Russia’s differences with Iran over the long-term future of Syria might be, for now the partnership between the two seems rock-solid, and highly unlikely to be threatened without major efforts to change Russia’s calculations and incentive structures. There is, moreover, scant basis for anticipating any such developments in the near future.

Besides, what would Putin gain from Trump in return for running the risks he would incur for distancing Russia from Iran? There was great hope in Russia when Trump was elected president that Washington would ease the sanctions regime on Russia as well as accommodate Russia on Crimea, Ukraine, and NATO (which candidate Trump had described as obsolete). So far, though, none of the benefits Moscow expected have materialized. Further, despite his positive statements about Russia, some of Trump’s top foreign policy, intelligence, and defense appointments have expressed a much more negative view toward the country. Finally, rising concerns about the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia have now made it very difficult for Trump to do much of anything favoring Russia. Indeed, Trump’s statements about increasing the U.S. nuclear arsenal after he became president may have led Putin to wonder whether Trump ever really intended to oversee an improvement in Russian-U.S. relations.

For Putin to side with Trump on Tehran, then, could risk serious costs for Moscow from Iranian retaliation while yielding few, if any, benefits from the United States in recompense. While the logic of why Russia should cooperate with the United States against Iran might seem persuasive in Washington, the logic of why Russia should not remains highly compelling in Moscow.

Mark N. Katz is a visiting scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. Hussein Ibish is a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/republicans-start-to-look-to-mike-pence-for-comfort

Vice-president Mike Pence is starting to cast a very long shadow indeed in Washington. Events are brewing that, just possibly, might make him the most consequential second fiddle, though perhaps not for long, in recent American history.

Either the noose is really beginning to tighten around the Donald Trump administration regarding connections between his campaign and Russian intelligence, or one of the most ridiculous comedies of error in American memory has been playing out in recent weeks.

While it might all be a massive farce rather than a tragedy, it’s not too early to speculate about what, if things start to completely unravel for Mr Trump, the endgame might look like.

His first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was fired after he lied to Mr Pence and the FBI about phone calls with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, in which they discussed sanctions imposed by the outgoing Obama administration.

Now, attorney general Jeff Sessions has been caught in an equally blatant lie about contacts with this same senior Russian diplomat and, almost certainly, key intelligence official.

Mr Sessions told the Senate, verbally and in writing, that he had had no contact whatsoever with Russian officials during the campaign. But, in fact, he met the ambassador twice. He is now thoroughly tainted and has recused himself from the Russia investigations.

Why, like Mr Flynn, did Mr Sessions tell a stupid and reckless lie that was bound to be discovered and exposed? What is the Trump team hiding about their connections to Russia?

Could this be a cover-up without any underlying scandal? Does that ever happen? Is it all just rank stupidity, and Mr Trump’s inexplicable infatuation with Vladimir Putin just a coincidence?

It’s always possible, but looking increasingly less plausible. Whenever, as now, a White House is pressuring the FBI not to investigate something, every alarm bell shrieks.

Very few facts are known, but a pattern is emerging: for whatever reason this administration is engaged in a Nixonian stonewalling and denial effort, increasingly reminiscent of Watergate, no less. If any underlying scandal is indeed connected to efforts to influence the election by a hostile foreign power, it will be an even bigger earthquake.

Richard Nixon was somewhat immunised by his clownish, fuming vice president, Spiro Agnew. Anyone considering removing Nixon had to take seriously the prospect and consequences of facilitating the emergence of a President Agnew. It gave them pause.

Agnew’s guilty plea on corruption charges was a significant blow to Nixon. So was Agnew’s replacement by Gerald Ford, who was widely considered plausible, though hardly ideal, presidential material.

Just as the spectre of Agnew bought Nixon some precious political space and time, now the looming shadow of Mr Pence may start to haunt Mr Trump.

The conventional wisdom is that Mr Trump is protected from any effective oversight by the Republican-dominated Congress because he seems willing to sign much of their legislation, nominate judges they like and cooperate on some things.

However, many congressional Republicans still harbour private doubts.

The only major tenet of traditional American conservatism Mr Trump truly embraces is deregulation. Regarding almost all other once-core Republican principles, such as small government, budget hawkishness and entitlement rollbacks, social conservatism, and robust international leadership, he either isn’t interested or is actively hostile. Mr Trump’s recent address to Congress reflected none of these ideas.

Mr Pence, by contrast, is a traditional conservative Republican. His politics reflect the Reagan legacy, not the populist “nationalism” of Breitbart.com.

Moreover, as unsettling as Mr Trump has been as president, Mr Pence has proven reassuring, and, perhaps surprisingly, statesmanlike, as vice president. Despite his doctrinaire Republican background, he has been among the more calming features of the administration, a welcome vestige of American political normality, however conservative, in profoundly abnormal circumstances.

Republicans, particularly in Congress, have made little real progress in ensuring that Mr Trump embraces their governing agenda rather than his wildly divergent campaign pledges.

If the Trump-Russia imbroglio continues to develop, as seems likely, and significantly undermines Mr Trump’s credibility and legitimacy as president, congressional Republicans will be faced with a very difficult choice.

Getting rid of a president from their own party would certainly be painful and difficult.

However, when the alternative is a familiar, trusted figure Mr Pence, who could be counted on to return the party, government and agenda to a more familiar conservative approach, rather than Mr Trump’s wild-eyed nativism, that very bitter pill may have a sugary coating.

They may not relish the required process, but how many conservative Republicans in Congress wouldn’t, in their heart of hearts, much prefer to work with a president Pence instead of president Trump? It’s a question they may have to ask themselves sooner rather than later. Some of them, very quietly, already are.

https://thebaffler.com/blog/undoing-islamophobia-ibish

The moment is ripe to reverse anti-Muslim narratives

As the Muslim American community is learning, sometimes the worst of times can also be the best of times. The era of Donald Trump presents a series of profoundly difficult, and in many ways unprecedented, challenges to the diverse, dispersed, extremely heterogeneous, and almost entirely politically unorganized Muslim American communities. But, since American Muslims have largely failed to take advantage of earlier opportunities (which, it’s true, were likewise quite well disguised as disasters) to deepen their collective identity and complete the process of mainstreaming their participation in American society and culture, there is a surprisingly compelling argument for greeting the current baptism of fire as a golden opportunity that cannot be squandered.

In some ways, of course, it’s been worse in the past. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, were a social, cultural, and political earthquake for Muslim Americans. The metaphorical ground shifted under our collective feet suddenly, unexpectedly, and irrevocably. I was then serving as the communications director of what was, at the time, the largest national Arab-American organization, and all of us scrambled to adjust our expectations, rhetoric, and priorities accordingly. Most of the immediate damage was at the level of immigration, and noncitizens bore the brunt of the backlash.

But over the ensuing few years, the steady and inexorable rise of Islamophobic narratives and political attitudes ensured that a climate of cultural hostility only grew, despite the obvious disinclination of Muslim Americans, with extremely rare exceptions, to display any sympathy with terrorist groups, let alone specific acts of violence. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Islam rated just slightly lower than Catholicism in American public opinion. By the middle of the decade, these ratings plummeted, and rampant bigotry was both on the rise and making inroads in the political mainstream, particularly within key elements of the right. Meanwhile, the Muslim-American community had virtually no organized presence at the national level, certainly none that was any better than what had been in place prior to 9/11. This meant, for better and worse, that we were entirely dependent on the goodwill of our fellow citizens.

These Islamophobic narratives eventually broke through into the cultural and political mainstream in the Trump campaign. Indeed, they were instrumental in the victory of a racist demagogue who showed a particular animus against Mexican immigrants and Muslims in general. Worse, President Trump has appointed a number of hateful ideologues to senior administration positions, such as Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Michael Anton, and Sebastian Gorka, and they wasted no time in crafting an anti-Muslim travel ban executive order so crude that it met with a series of mass protests at U.S. airports. In short order, it was blocked by the courts, and now awaits re-drafting from the Muslim-baiting Trump White House.

There is no doubt that the cultural and political mainstreaming of Islamophobia in the Trump era is profoundly alarming. But the moment is ripe with genuine possibilities for political organization and wider civic acceptance over the longer term. Muslim Americans now find themselves in roughly the same position as millions of other members of racial and ethnic minorities: targeted by the rhetoric of an intolerant administration and its fan base that derives much of its energy from hatred, scapegoating, and demonization. This means that the American Muslim community now possesses—unwillingly, no doubt—vital new opportunities for coalition building, and creating new modes of cross-racial and religiously plural solidarity. And this means, in turn, that American Muslims can mount new and sturdier grassroots and national cultural efforts to mainstream the community.

Moreover, in contrast to the aftermath of 9/11, while in this case the bigots wielding executive power in the White House have definitely tried to “come first for the Muslims” (or at least travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries—initially including even green card holders—plus all Syrian refugees), the worst excesses of the Trumpian assault on minorities will be clearly visited upon the undocumented, mainly from Mesoamerica. Already the horror stories of roundups, deportations, intentions to recruit a small army of 10,000 new immigration and 5,000 new border enforcement officers, and other dystopian realities are mounting daily.

As for religious hatred, naturally this cannot be restricted to the bashing of Muslims. Trump was consciously courted and coddled by the “alt-right”—a new euphemism for white nationalists and neo-Nazi racists—during his campaign. In office, the president persists in embracing, often implicitly but sometimes explicitly, these groups and individuals. It’s no surprise, then, that a wave of anti-Semitic hatred, no doubt egged on by what racist groups themselves described as “winking and nodding” from Trump, is sweeping the country. Jewish community centers face waves of bomb threat hoaxes and Jewish cemeteries are being vandalized across the country. But what can we expect when one of the final campaign ads by the new president reproduced the feel of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, illustrated with footage of three prominent Jewish financial figures? No one is naïve enough not to pick up on such crude anti-Semitic stereotyping, or to extrapolate from what it portends for other minorities. And in a continuation of the pattern, Trump has had to be forced, probably by his own daughter, into making the simplest of expressions of concern. This reticence in the face of a morally unconscionable form of bigotry in effect lends encouragement through faint condemnation.

It’s essential for Muslim Americans to express full solidarity with these, and all other, victims of official prejudice during the next four years. Apart from the inherent justice of such a stand, this new mode of outreach born of necessity will permit American Muslims to re-inscribe their place in the mainstream American cultural narrative and normative self image. At the same time, though, far too little was also done to mainstream the community or effectively combat narratives that push Muslims to the margins of society, at least in stereotypical cultural terms. Likewise, nothing effectively dislodged Muslim Americans from the suspicion-laden role of quintessential other in the contemporary American imagination.

That’s very much still the case—and under Trump, probably more than ever for much of the country. It’s hard to not strongly suspect that the two Indian engineers shot by a racist anti-immigrant fanatic at a bar in Kansas were assumed by the gunman to be of Middle Eastern origin, and probably Muslims. Racists frequently mistake South Asians for “Arabs,” while actual Arab Americans often remain largely undetected by racists unless identified by distinctive names. Hollywood, which so often plays a leading role in shaping the cultural logic of ethnic exclusion and assimilation, has a long history of casting South Asian actors as Arab and Muslim terrorist villains—presumably because actual Arabs aren’t quite dark and swarthy enough to meet the stereotype, whereas many Indians are.

Nonetheless, the central place of anti-Muslim hatred in the Trumpian spectrum of indeed deplorably hateful attitudes is why a new mobilization of Muslim Americans represents not only an urgent tool of survival, but also a dramatic moment of political opportunity. Islamophobia is now part and parcel of a broader agenda of intolerance, nativism, and white nationalism aimed at huge portions of the country. And this threat is demanding and receiving massive resistance from the energized center-left axis of tolerance in American civic life. During the few days that the “travel ban” was in force, tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Americans participated in those airport protests and mobilized otherwise to resist. Millions, including many conservatives and Republicans, made their disgust with the scarcely concealed racism behind the ban quite clear. (Just yesterday, in fact, George W. Bush gave an interview to People magazine deploring the racism that the Trump administration echoes and legitimizes in American life.)

And now, in turn, Muslim Americans are mobilizing to help repair desecrated Jewish cemeteries, support undocumented immigrants facing deportation, and join with their fellow Americans in rejecting the entire atrocious package of hate that this new administration has brought through the front door of the White House.

It’s a pretty good start, but it’s not nearly enough. If Muslim Americans are smart, they will ensure three things. First, they will continue to emphasize their solidarity with other targeted communities and all Americans who reject bigotry of all kinds. Second, they will make themselves invaluable participants in the campaign to defend traditional American values of tolerance, openness, liberty and respect for others. And finally, they will collectively seize the opportunity to re-inscribe their place in the American narrative as an integral part of mainstream society and culture. Rejecting extremism and condemning terrorism isn’t enough; what’s more, it’s been done by almost all noted Muslim Americans since 9/11, if not before. What’s essential is to embrace Americanness, and real, traditional American values. This means, among many other things, that Muslim Americans must be at the forefront of the fight to preserve—and increasingly, to restore—them in the face of the most sustained assault they have received in many decades. A concerted effort on all these fronts, both nationally and globally, may well ensure that at the end of this ordeal, Muslim Americans will never be the “other” again.

To view the paper in full, click here.

Turkey and the GCC: Cooperation Amid Diverging Interests

Since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in November 2002, Turkey’s relations with the Gulf Arab countries have fluctuated between varying degrees of cooperation and mutual suspicion. From the Turkish perspective, these dramatic shifts have been driven primarily by changing political needs of the AKP’s leadership against the backdrop of a political worldview that sees Turkey as a natural leader in the Muslim world. This has led to moments of unprecedented cooperation between Turkey and some of the Gulf states, as well as instances of mistrust and competition. This pattern is likely to continue as the Turks cope with multidimensional security threats and domestic political challenges that threaten to further destabilize the country.

The Gulf Cooperation Council countries view Turkey as an indispensable Sunni ally and counterweight to Iran, but a difficult, and at times unreliable, partner. This has been especially evident in Syria, where, until recently, Turkey joined Saudi Arabia and Qatar as the main outside powers pressing for regime change. However, this partnership has been strained as Turkey has shifted its focus to Kurdish issues and partnered with Russia on a long-term cease-fire effort. Further, Turkey’s view of Iran as a problem to be managed rather than resolved places Ankara at odds with the Gulf Arab states. Additionally, the Gulf states are divided on the Turkish government’s Islamist leanings, with the United Arab Emirates especially concerned about its regional ideological influence. Gulf Arab countries also have some long-term concerns about Turkey’s regional ambitions. Therefore, Gulf Arabs seek to ensure that Turkey remains an engaged regional power, but not too engaged, playing a major regional role, but not an overbearing one. However, if Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s effort to consolidate domestic political power leads him back to a more active and less constructive approach to the region, Turkey and the Gulf Arab countries could once again find themselves on different sides of various regional issues.

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/20170225/a-book-on-vietnam-offers-clues-about-us-adviser

Donald Trump’s new national security adviser, General HR McMaster, is an excellent choice. But the two may be headed for trouble if Gen McMaster’s writings are any indication.

Mr Trump loves soldiers, including the “FA 59” strategic and operational planners among whom Gen McMaster is a revered guru.

He will join the “grown-ups” in the administration – sober figures such as defence secretary James Mattis, secretary of state Rex Tillerson and even vice president Mike Pence.

There are other factions. One, led by Mr Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, is personally loyal to Mr Trump.

Another, comprising extremist ideologues, is led by White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and attorney general Jeff Sessions. Well represented in executive branch second-tier staff, they include hardliners such as Stephen Miller, Michael Anton and Sebastian Gorka.

By radical contrast, during the Iraq war, Gen McMaster showed a refined appreciation of the sensitivities of the Iraqi people, never regarding them as the enemy or a burden to be managed.

On the contrary, he argued that the right thing was also the smart thing, and winning over Iraqis by recognising and respecting their dignity and identity was the key to any successful American-led counter-insurgency.

There is no way to integrate this subtle, serious perspective on security and counter-terrorism, since the same logic must hold globally as well as regionally, with hateful and counter-productive measures such as Mr Trump’s ill-fated anti-Muslim travel ban.

Gen McMaster thus seems on a potential collision course with the Bannonites and possibly the president himself.

That’s why the McMaster hire is both heartening and somewhat mystifying.

Mr Trump’s first national security adviser was his hotheaded, Islamophobic loyalist, Gen Michael Flynn, but he was almost immediately fired. Mr Trump then offered the post to vice-admiral Robert Harward, who rejected it over staffing disputes and the chaos swirling around the administration.

Now Mr Trump has turned to Gen McMaster, whose superb and scholarly book, Dereliction of Duty, chronicles, in excruciating detail, the failings of the American political and military systems during the Vietnam War.

It also presages potential clashes Gen McMaster may face in the Trump administration.

The book illustrates how the technocrats assembled by John Kennedy and inherited by Lyndon Johnson shared the disdain of both presidents for military expertise. Men such as Robert MacNamara, Dean Rusk and McGeorge Bundy believed their analytical and statistical techniques and political imperatives outweighed whatever top military leaders might think.

These military leaders – who Gen McMaster deems “silent men” – colluded in massive administration lies and deferred to a politically motivated and ill considered strategy of “graduated pressure” designed to “communicate messages” and persuade North Vietnam to end support for the South Vietnamese Viet Cong rebels. Given Vietnamese attitudes, this was futile.

Gen McMaster argues the war was lost from the outset, perhaps even before Johnson became president.

The alternative would have been the early and decisive application of massive force that the military wanted but did not press for or even strongly recommend.

Gen McMaster clearly feels the Vietnam War was possibly avoidable but, worse, that there was no need for the United States to lose it if the military had been allowed to fight it their way.

Therefore he is unlikely to now bow to foolish demands from Mr Bannon, and even Mr Trump, both of whom have their own disdain for experts.

That’s very encouraging. If Gen McMaster can insist that he and the other real strategic thinkers know better, and prevail, that will be a huge improvement.

But his book also reveals a blind spot: Gen McMaster delves deep into Vietnam War history, but probably not far enough.

He doesn’t give sufficient consideration to the striking insight that Vietnam was actually “lost” immediately after the Second World War when the US allowed France to reclaim its former colonial possessions in Indochina from the Japanese.

By 1964, Ho Chí Minh and his communist Viet Minh militarily drove the French from the North and became the incontestable face of Vietnamese nationalism.

The colonial-collaborationist southern state under emperor Bao Dai and his thuggish successors had neither nationalist credibility nor political legitimacy.

Ho’s communist/nationalist hybrids were thus virtually inevitable long-term victors. Almost as suspicious of their nominally communist “comrades”, but actually age-old antagonists, in China as they were of the colonial West, they ultimately had nowhere to turn but Moscow. Thus was Vietnam lost to the Russian orbit.

The American commitment really required to prevent Vietnam from eventually being united under Ho’s movement was never practically viable, especially because wooing communists wasn’t ideologically or politically plausible.

Along with Gen Mattis, Gen McMaster is by far Mr Trump’s best appointment. Yet even if Gen McMaster prevails on policy, despite the desperately needed sophistication he would undoubtedly provide, he may not have all the answers. But, then, no one does.

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/trumps-white-house-a-fine-tuned-machine-or-a-wretched-mess

Well, that didn’t take long. Even those of us who fully expected Donald Trump to become mired in a major political crisis didn’t think it could possibly happen during his first month in the White House.

Just how grim Mr Trump’s situation is becoming may not be immediately obvious. But a closer look reveals a critical condition and worse prognosis.

Far from the “fine-tuned machine” he describes, his administration is a wretched mess.

His main policy initiative, the notorious “travel ban”, was so incompetently drafted that it was immediately blocked by the courts and will probably have to be discarded altogether in favour of a workable executive order.

Mr Trump’s early record of legislation and other substantive accomplishments is strikingly thin compared to most of his predecessors. And of the 696 senior positions that require Senate confirmation, 661 still have no nominees.

Last week his national security adviser, Michael Flynn, may have set a record for the earliest resignation-in-disgrace of any major appointee. Worse, it points to a far larger scandal involving ties to Russia that is just starting to seriously unravel. Robert Harward, Mr Trump’s choice to replace Mr Flynn, refused the coveted position.

Before Mr Trump’s inauguration, Barack Obama imposed new sanctions against Moscow. Mr Flynn called the Russian ambassador and implied that they could be lifted, providing Russia did not overreact.

After initially calling retaliation essential, Mr Putin did nothing. Mr Trump then fulsomely praised his brilliance. Mike Pence, the US vice president, assured the public that sanctions weren’t discussed because Mr Flynn lied to both him and the FBI.

As a former military intelligence chief, Mr Flynn knows all such conversations are routinely recorded by the National Security Agency.

But he may have believed he was protected because he was acting at the explicit or implicit behest of Mr Trump.

Weeks before the media revealed the truth, Mr Trump learnt that Mr Flynn was lying about the conversation and was also, therefore, open to Russian blackmail. Yet he took no action, and did not inform Mr Pence about the deception.

Clearly he would never have fired Mr Flynn if the truth had remained hidden. Indeed, he still insists Mr Flynn is a “wonderful man” who was “just doing his job” and “doing something right”, but has been “treated very, very unfairly by the media”.

Mr Trump is outraged, not by Mr Flynn’s misdeeds and lies, but at the officials who told journalists, and the press that told the public the truth.

But it gets much worse.

Trump campaign officials are now known to have been in “constant contact” with Russian intelligence officers over the past year. There is no plausible innocuous explanation for this, especially since, as Mr Trump publicly begged them to in July, Russian intelligence was actively interfering with the American election.

The circumstantial evidence suggesting they were in cahoots is becoming almost incontestable.

US investigators have also corroborated some parts of what initially seemed a highly dubious dossier alleging Russian efforts to compromise Mr Trump on financial and sexual grounds. Since those details are correct, the entire document is inevitably being taken more seriously.

It will provide an indispensable road map for any serious investigation of the real Trump-Russia relationship.

All this may finally explain his mystifying adulation of Russia’s thuggish president, Vladimir Putin. Mr Trump and his minions are plainly hiding the truth about their dealings with Russia, and it is now a national imperative to uncover it.

Congress, fully controlled by Mr Trump’s Republican party, must either conduct a credible investigation itself or, more appropriately, appoint a special commission or independent prosecutor.

Republican lawmakers would rather not act at all, and certainly not before the midterm elections. Most don’t like or trust Mr Trump and would undoubtedly prefer Mr Pence as president.

But the process of investigating, and possibly removing, a president from their own party is still too much for almost all of them.

As senator Rand Paul shamelessly explained “We’ll never even get started with doing the things we need to do, like repealing Obamacare, if we’re spending our whole time having Republicans investigate Republicans.”

But, eventually, even such hyper-partisan hands will be forced.

Unless Mr Trump and his defenders can quickly concoct convincing answers to questions they have yet to even acknowledge exist, additional leaks, damaging revelations and, possibly, resignations will continue to steadily pile up until, probably very suddenly, the whole house of cards begins to come crashing down.

At this rate, that may happen sooner than anyone could have imagined.

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/who-is-salam-fayyad-and-why-does-the-us-fear-him

The Trump administration shocked everyone at the United Nations, including American diplomats, by suddenly blocking the appointment of a new peace envoy to war-ravaged Libya.

On Thursday, confident he had secured Washington’s private agreement, United Nations secretary general Antonio Guterres announced his selection of former Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad.

But on Friday, jaws dropped as Washington’s UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, issued her unexpected, and bizarre, public response. Foreign Policy magazine reports that “the White House stepped in at the last minute to kill off the appointment”.

Once again, Donald Trump’s left hand seemingly had no clue about what his right was doing.

In yet another mind-boggling inversion of reality – an emerging hallmark of Mr Trump’s maladministration – the White House denounced the selection as “unfairly biased” against ­Israel because Mr Fayyad is Palestinian.

Shabby gloating by Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, notwithstanding, this wasn’t an Israeli idea. The Israeli daily Ha’aretz confirms that the Israeli government wasn’t even consulted about the decision.

Barring Mr Fayyad because he is a Palestinian reflects the same depersonalisation, dehumanisation and identity-based marginalisation that permeates the Trump administration’s refugee and travel bans, and plans for massive anti-immigrant witch-hunts.

It is the handiwork of the American alt-right, not the Israeli far-right.

A racist coterie within the Trump administration, led by White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, has been ramming through as much of its fanatical agenda as possible, before more normative power centres that may oppose them can fully form.

This clique of crackpots was primarily responsible for both the venomous excesses and inept blunders of Mr Trump’s disastrous first three weeks.

Mr Bannon’s alt-right gang surreptitiously drafted the notorious travel ban, which has been blocked by a court that cited the “public interest in freedom from discrimination”. Mr Bannon even insisted on trying to prevent permanent US residents from returning to their homes, jobs and families. But that was so blatantly illegal it was immediately withdrawn.

The statement barring Mr Fayyad speaks in this distinctive, immediately identifiable and sadistically racist voice. It does not acknowledge him as a person to be judged on his own merit, instead casting him as a kind of flag with legs.

The statement doesn’t even refer to Mr Fayyad by name, only as “the former Palestinian Authority prime minister”, as if all such persons constitute an interchangeable generic category that tells you all you need to know about how bad they are.

Any former Palestinian prime minister must apparently be ostracised from international public service and, presumably, polite company.

Mr Fayyad is actually an outspoken and pro-American secular liberal who embodies moderation, pragmatism, accountability and good governance.

He worked to build the state institutions of the Palestinian people, improve their living conditions, give them hope, and constructively harness their skills and energy. He created a clean and transparent Palestinian public finance system.

Mr Fayyad opposes violence but participates in non-violent protests. He led settlement product boycotts, but also pursued security coordination with Israel in the interests of both peoples.

He courageously questioned the ill-considered Palestinian UN bids in 2011 and 2012 as only promising symbolic gains with huge real costs. Reckless, unthinking American and Israeli responses targeted his budgets and destroyed his premiership.

The US statement opposing Mr Fayyad issued a Kafkaesque indictment of Palestinians, punishing them for their own statelessness. Mr Fayyad is a Palestinian. Therefore, he is stateless. Allowing him to work for the UN might imply that, like everyone else, Palestinians should have a state or functional citizenship. Israel allows them neither independence nor citizenship. Therefore, Palestinians must be excluded from international institutions to spare Israeli discomfort.

Palestinian statelessness is reinscribed as a crucial signifier, not of suffering, but of guilt. Allowing Mr Fayyad to serve the UN might highlight his statelessness. Therefore, it would be “unfairly biased” against Israel to allow him any notable role. Possibly he might be allowed to empty the rubbish at night, but the same logic might easily identify that as another threat to Israel.

If Mr Fayyad working for peace in Libya is “detrimental” to Israel, then any Palestinian doing anything anywhere can certainly also be objectionable. Why not?

Mr Fayyad’s exclusion might have been intended as retaliation for the recent UN Security Council condemnation of Israeli settlements. But Mr Trump is inching ever closer to the only rational position, now agreeing that “going forward with these settlements” is not “a good thing for peace”. “Every time you take land for settlements, there is less land left,” the property developer explained.

The Jerusalem Post said a senior administration official also confirmed Mr Trump is committed to a two-state solution and opposes unilateral actions that could undermine peace efforts, including settlement announcements.

That sounds like former president Barack Obama. It sounds nothing like the Trump administration’s atrocious, alt-right inflected statement opposing Mr Fayyad.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/02/07/trump-is-proving-the-bad-guys-point-with-his-terrorism-executive-order.html

Yes, it’s offensive, and yes, it wouldn’t have prevented the things Trump says it would have. But worse, it’s written confirmation of the terrorists’ narrative.