The Democratic Party and progressive politics in the post-Biden era

Brent Cebul and Lily Geismer have an helpful analysis in the new (Winter 2025) print issue of Jacobin on "Why Bidenism Failed." (1) It focuses on the Democrats' frustrating habit of passing substantive legislation that benefits large numbers of voters, but set them up so that the most obvious benefits are backloaded so that they may first become obvious to much of the public during a subsequent Republican Administration. And they also often do a weak job of identifying those programs and their benefits to their voters.

Biden’s return to pro-labor, Keynesian economics

Biden really did practice a kind of pro-labor, anti-monopoly, Keynesian, industrial-policy type approach that we have seen, really, since Lyndon Johnson’s Presidency. And Cebul/Geisner give a good description of this side of Biden’s Administration:

While he never embraced the full suite of “Green New Deal” initiatives urged by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders, and the Left, his three major pieces of legislation - the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) of 2021, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 [the cut-down version of Biden’s original Build Back Better proposal], and the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 - all aimed to use public power to spur private investment and manufacturing that would not only support the green energy transition but also stimulate good jobs for working people.

Biden even managed some actual Democratic partisan symbolism: “His fall 2023 trip to Michigan to walk the picket line with striking autoworkers was meant to symbolize his differences from Trump.”

This is the right way for the Democratic Party to move and has needed to move for a long time. But while the Republican Party and their allied media supporters do a disciplined job of pushing a particular message and repeating it over and over and over again across a wide variety of platforms, the Democratic Party, well, doesn’t. As Cebul and Geisner observe, “But given their sweeping scale, ambitions, and real policy successes [of those economic programs], it is especially telling that people rarely talk about them.”

And a lot of that is really a case of the Democratic Party just falling down on basic messaging. Or their self-branding, if one prefers. And they rightly note, “there is little evidence that Biden and Vice President Harris were even interested in trying [to tout those actually beneficial and substantial accomplishments].”

They received vanishingly little notice in Biden’s final State of the Union address. And in their lone presidential debate, when Trump challenged Harris on Biden’s (actually strong) record on stimulating industrial investment and manufacturing jobs, she failed to mention the IRA or the CHIPS Act.

Everyone knew in the campaign that Trump and the Republicans hated immigrants, and Black people, and uppity wimmin, and that they were all against “wokeism” and trans people and women’s right to abortion. But going into the election, voters were mainly hearing that Kamala Harris was getting glitzy celebrity endorsements and was really, really proud of having Dick and Liz Cheney supporting her.

The Democrats just have to be more willing to fight for their own side. They just do. Cebul and Geisner also call out the Democrats for not executing their own popular initiatives properly:

[H]ealth care reform has not yielded the political dividends Democrats long hoped it would. The architects of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) routinely promised that taking a market-based approach would make the delivery of care more efficient. The implementation of the ACA has nevertheless proven that structuring a market in health care delivery enables price inflation, not to mention grift by private companies. Biden’s successful negotiation with drug companies did lower the costs of certain prescription drugs like insulin, but these efforts ultimately treat the symptoms rather than the cause of the problem. And despite repeated updates to the ACA’s open enrollment website, it remains profoundly difficult to navigate the many plans to choose from and the complex rules of eligibility in the limited time provided to make plan selections. It is equally difficult to get a representative from HealthCare.gov on the phone.

This stuff matters. And, yes, good management is always a challenge. But it’s something that’s achievable, that pays real political dividends, and is something that politicians can remind voters during campaigns that they have been making it work right. This is not an exotic or theoretical leftie notion. It’s just basic politics and public administration.

It wasn’t so long ago inn the mists of time that Democrats would commonly quip that “Republicans campaign complaining that government doesn’t work, and then they get elected and prove it.” They could still do that and benefit from it. They just need to try.

And that’s still true. People want to be able to access government services like health care. They want to be able to find basic information about paying their taxes without having to first get a college degree in accounting. They want to government to negotiate reasonable prices on drug purchases. The Democrats should be out there every day saying what Bernie Sanders does, that the US is the only country in the world that doesn’t negotiate the purchase price of drugs and instead just lets Big Pharma dictate the price (with a very few exceptions now that the Biden Administration won but fumbled marketing even that as a political achievement).

But the class analysis that Cebul and Geismer make is more dubious. They identify the “professional-managerial class” as dominant in the Democratic Party, having replaced working-class voters as a driving force:

Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren: all were creatures of modern liberalism’s professional-managerial class (PMC) consultants, attorneys, professors. They were precisely the kinds of elites Donald Trump could easily paint as aloof and out of touch.

This is a bit murky, to put it generously. Even the most flaming leftwing, hardcore pro-labor campaigns would also use “consultants, attorneys, professors.” To use an old leftie concept, class allegiance is more important in politics than class background. The problem is much more a dependence on well-heeled donors than it is that Democratic campaigns use consultants and attorneys.

The opposition in the Trump II era

The direction the Democratic Party needs to go to become a more democratic and genuinely working-class party is pretty straightforward to describe. Getting there is a much heavier lift.

Biden’s return to stimulate Keynesian economic policy and something like a national “industrial policy” (as it was called in the 1980s) is the right way to go. Democrats need to encourage in word and deed the formation of much larger, serious labor unions. They also need to develop real state-level party organizations again that reach into smaller cities and towns. That will look different in a lot of ways than similar organizational efforts looked into the past. After all, we have Zoom calls and What’s App and the like today.

There are networks of progressive organizations, think tanks, and activists out there. They have had big effects in the past and still can and will. Hopefully, the next time a movement like, say, Black Lives Matter develops, the Democrats can come up with a better reaction than “We should all agree the answer is not to defund the police is to fund the police. … Fund them. Fund them. Fund them …” (2)

Democrats need to get better at fighting for their own side – their voters’ side, not wealthy donors’ side. Democratic officials like Minnesota’s attorney general Keith Ellison have found ways to fight against police abuse while supporting responsible law enforcement. “Fund them, fund them, fund them” is mainly a reflex appeal to police unions. But when we look at events like the mass murder at the elementary school shooting in Uvalde TX in May 2022 it’s painfully clear that we have to demand responsible policing.

That means in extreme emergencies like Uvalde, the cops’ job is not to stand out in the hall listening to the murderer shoot and kill 19 children and two teachers. Their job is stop the killer. It’s because the sometimes do have to take extreme risks that can even put their lives in danger that ordinary police officers are honored like no other ordinary public employees. And are generally paid very well in comparison to others.

Nobody that’s not basically a hardcore racist or sociopath wants to see cops do what those four officers in Minneapolis did to George Floyd in 2020 in the incident that became one of the key drivers of the BLM movement, i.e., holding him down and deliberately strangling him to death on a public street while being filmed in the act of murder.

Running away from common decency, whether it’s in defending cops who murder innocent people or in funding a genocide in Gaza, is not what the Democratic Party needs to stand for. The Republicans pretty much have the militia-movement and fans-of-sadistic-cops vote locked up. The Democrats aren’t going to be able to compete with them on things like that.

It shouldn’t be a hard lesson. Democrats don’t need to be campaigning with Republicans named Cheney. They need to be campaigning for things that will make the lives of ordinary people more prosperous and secure. (And, yes, the latter includes supporting responsible policing and condemning any other kind.)

And on issues like xenophobia that rightwing parties across the world embrace and which fits well with an authoritarian, anti-democracy political orientation, the Democrats have to push back against demagoguery. Yes, by all means campaign for responsible immigration policies that recognize the actual, critical role that even “undocumented” immigrants play in the US. Kamala Harris’ and Joe Biden’s position of we-hate-the-immigrants-more-than-the-Republicans do will continue to fall as flat as it did in 2024.

We can leave the copaganda and bitching about the existence of homeless people and lurid, exaggerated stories about foreign criminals to the Republicans and to neo-MAGA converts like Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian of TYT.

Aside from the patient work of building progressive activist networks inside the Democratic Party and outside, the promotion of left media is critically important. The establishment Democrats’ and Joe Biden’s favorite “resistance liberal” network MSNBC is crashing and burning. Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski of Morning Joe were quick to make their pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago after the election to kiss Trump’s ring after years of calling him a fascist threat to democracy. (The latter was and is true, BTW.)

We need to pay attention to and support where we can progressive media, both print and broadcast, that present good quality journalism in the context of pro-democracy analysis. I recently posted the following on Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta platform Facebook, and the algorithms apparently buried it. I usually get some kind of reaction to most anything I post there. But not this time. One of the signs of the evolving media environment:

GETTING TO KNOW OUR TECH-BRO OVERLORDS

Who knows how the billionaire-run social media algorithms work these days? I sure don't. But I'm guessing that this Kyle Kulinski video (3) is not likely to appear on most of my Facebook friends' feed.

Anyway, this is still a wonderful takedown of Peter Thiel, the TechBro overlord who is part of the so-called "Paypal Mafia" and the sweaty guy on the right in the image below. Also known as a key patron and booster of incoming Vice President J.D. Vance and also of Sebastian "Basti" Kurz, the former Prime Minister of Austria who is mainly known for his, uh, tolerance for corruption and his general suspicion of this whole "democracy" thing.

It has some not-appropriate-for-the-office language. (Although these days, who plays stuff like this out loud in the office anyway?) Kyle is married to Krystal Ball, who is one of the two principals in the "Breaking Points" YouTube channel. With the spectacular crashing-and-burning in process at MSNBC, channels like this are actually where the media environment is these days for the US. At least this side of the FOX News world, which I understand pulls way more viewers these days than CNN.

The "Walter Cronkite era" is long, long gone. I'm "old enough to remember" when Cronkite actually interviewed Daniel Ellsburg on camera when Ellsberg was underground as a fugitive from the federal government for leaking the Pentagon Papers. It's literally almost impossible to imagine a senior reporter at today's corporate media doing such a thing.

Notes:

(1) Cebul, Brent & Geismer, Lily (2024): Why Bidenism Failed. Jacobin Winter 2025, 72-79.

(2) WATCH: ‘Fund the police,’ Biden says at State of the Union. Associated Press 05/01/2022. <https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-fund-the-police-biden-says-at-state-of-the-union> (Accessed: 2024-20-12).

(3) Gooey Billionaire MELTS When Asked BASIC Question. Secular Talk YouTube channel 12/16/2024. <https://youtu.be/H5dgWQr4IBQ?si=7kFJ8vF5_-8H8gmw> (Accessed: 2024-20-12).

The TYT pile-on (which needed to happen): Progressive alternative media evolving in the wake of the US Presidential election

The tanking ratings and possible near-term demise of MSNBC is one of the events that focused commentators on the reality that the Republicans and the right in the US more generally have established a far more robust media environment than the Democrats and the political left have been able to do.

The demise of the now-long-ago US media environment dominated by three TV networks (ABC, CBS, NBC), weekly news magazines like Newsweek, Time, and US News & World Report and a large network of dead-tree newspapers has left us with media environment that relies increasingly on online media. I wouldn’t want to idealize that era. But there was more of an expectation, encouraged by the Fairness Doctrine for television news that Ronald Reagan put an end to, that at least “respectable” news media would present facts accurately as far as possible and give a sense of the kinds of wider debate over issues and events.

Those rules don’t apply to today rightwing media environment. And while the wealth of information available online is an incredible thing that provides opportunities for people to easily access a volume of information from a huge diversity of sources that is qualitatively different than the pre-Internet information environment. But today’s environment also makes fact-checking and critical thinking by information consumers more important than ever.

There is a left-leaning media environment online including podcasts that is much smaller than the equivalent on the right. Well-heeled donors love to donate money to right-leaning online media. The left side of that spectrum relies much more heavily on subscriptions and revenue from sites like YouTube. Liberal foundations and donors are more likely to want to see coverage like MSNBC’s Morning Joe provided for years.

The biggest online podcast network in the progressive side of the spectrum has been The Young Turks, aka TYT. But, ironically and sadly, just as the awareness among progressives for the need for a much larger, high-quality online media network has been sharped by the 2024 US elections, TYT is in the middle of rebranding itself as a MAGA-friendly, anti-left brand. This summary from Benjamin Dixon tells the story well:

In market terms, TYT is trying to position itself as MAGA-oriented source will some left-populist rhetoric of the sort that J.D. Vance used to build his brand as a salt-of-the-earth man of the people before he decided being a full-on Peter Thiel disciple and Trum lapdog was preferable for his goals. As Benjamin Dixon makes clear in his podcast above, other left-leaning programs are eager to pick up on that left market that TYT spent so many years establishing. As Dixon’s report also notes, there are a number of TYT contributors who like John Iadarola and Francesca Fiorentini who haven’t pivoted to the MAGA position yet. Presumably they and others who don’t want to go that direction will be looking for alternative outlets.

I have been following Sam Seder’s Majority Report for years and they are not making any MAGA pivot.

Here are ten other examples of online media with a left-leaning or at least left-open perspectives. It’s always important to take a critical-minded approach to all news media, even (and maybe especially!) the most trusted ones, and pay attention to factual claims and their basis.

Al Franken: https://www.youtube.com/@AlFrankenYouTube

Amanpour and Company: https://youtu.be/RKRuvKtFvqo?si=DWkYDHgjjw3Brpcj

Breaking Points: https://www.youtube.com/@breakingpoints This channel features a left-and-right dialogue, with Krystal Ball on the left and Saagar Enjeti on the right.

Current Affairs: https://www.youtube.com/@CurrentAffairsMag YouTube channel of the British progressive magazine Current Affairs, with editor Nathan Robinson normally hosting the YouTube interviews.

Novara Media (UK): https://youtu.be/ig-ARHqXVxw?si=54NL-nMvk9xaKgkd A recent report featured Matt kennard who reports for Declassified UK.

There are a number of podcasters who focus on foreign affairs with particular attention to experts with a “restrainer” perspective.

Judge Napolitano-Judging Freedom (Andrew Napolitano): https://www.youtube.com/@judgingfreedom

Napolitano is a genuine rightwinger. But he leans strongly toward a brand of actual isolationist thinking, which in his case seems to be mainly a concern for a foreign policy of restraint. He does a regular weekly interview with Über-Realist John Mearsheimer that I make a point to watch.

Old Right isolationism in the US is a tricky viewpoint, because its main manifestation has usually been hardcore militarist and narrowly nationalist. That’s not the approach he usually takes on his podcast. But he has been known to promote conspiracist thinking. He also promotes gold sales on the podcast, which for me is itself a reason to be cautious about him. But when he hosts actual foreign policy experts like Mearsheimer, they are typically able to get their points across, despite the reasons he has given us to be cautious about his perspective.

Just Security: https://www.youtube.com/@JustSecurityForum

Owen Jones: https://www.youtube.com/@OwenJonesTalks

Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft: https://youtu.be/8NQz-LpTkIQ?si=yxbSMsxUihmxPveP

Zeteo: https://youtu.be/7OCcolbZgis?si=5d-GiUkxuavIZw5r Mehdi Hasan’s outlet.

Notes:

(1) Why You Should Leave TYT: The Case Against Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian. The Benjamin Dixon Show 12/14/2024. <https://youtu.be/btHYSIH-weA?si=V6WrMRhYjXhvfJo9> (Accessed: 2024-14-12).

The fate of Syria, still being fought out

Anne Applebaum boosted this post by Mikhail Zygar, “Putin’s Son of a Bitch,” about Putin’s support of now-deposed Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad, and about Putin’s view of the context of that relationship.

Applebaum is a hawk on all things Russia. She has also been married for decades to Radosław Sikorski, the current Polish foreign minister. Zygar was the founder of the independent Russian news channel, Dozhd (TV Rain) and is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council. He provides a lot of historical context:

During the Soviet years, the Middle East was always considered Moscow's zone of special interest. No other region received as much attention from Soviet central television's international correspondents. No foreign leader (outside the socialist bloc) visited the USSR as often as the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat. And no country (including the U.S.) was vilified by Soviet propaganda as fiercely as the "Israeli military machine."

If the Middle East was the Soviet Union's "backyard," this approach was abandoned almost overnight with the USSR’s collapse. The new Russian state immediately established relations with Israel, which were eagerly developed thanks to the efforts of the emerging Jewish oligarchs.

Putin never took the Arab states seriously. He personally delved into some international affairs, but never the Arab world. In essence, the Arab East was left to adventurers. Shady deals were made there, having little to do with politics—after all, corruption in the Arab states was always at least as rampant as in Russia.

Everything changed with the Arab Spring. Vladimir Putin viewed the uprisings against Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 as if he had seen himself in them. What happened next with Bashar al-Assad struck an even deeper nerve. [my emphasis] (1)

Zygar writes that “Syria truly became significant for Putin only after Russia annexed Crimea and began its military intervention in Donbas.” Putin was leery in the extreme of the various “color revolutions” in eastern Europe and of the similar phenomenon during the Arab Spring, which began in Tunesia in December 2010 with what was labeled the Jasmine Revolution there. Similar mass protests soon began in Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and Syria.

The Libyan revolt resulted in the lynch-murder of former Libyan strongman Muammar al-Qaddafi. After he was sodomized with a bayonet. Qaddafi had given up his “weapons of mass destruction” programs. As had Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. As had Ukraine after the fall of the USSR. Subsequent events surely have not reassured so-called “rogue states” like Iran and North Korea that they can safely relinquish their “WMD” programs.

In a real sense, the current conflicts in the Middle East and nearby are a continuing process that began with the neoconservative crusade in Iraq.

Peter Van Buren recently described how much of the current war and chaos is part of a process that began then:

[M]uch of it had to do with the United States and its invasion of Iraq in 2003 — the destruction of a comparatively stable (but "evil"; they're all evil) regime that turned out to be the linchpin holding most of the whole Sykes-Picot world together.

That invasion began a process of inviting all comers to take hold of a piece of Iraq and see how far they might get with it. Many of the same ISIS and former al-Qaeda elements that now stand athwart Syria (and will no doubt soon be fighting each other for control there) almost grabbed the entire country of Iraq after the U.S.-trained and equipped post-Saddam Iraqi army ran from the field. The country was left for the Iranians to then take the reins, fashioning it into a client state after the U.S. cut its losses by cooperating with Iran to wipe out most of ISIS (which was created amid the remnants of Al Qaeda, destroyed by U.S.) in Iraq and abandoning the Kurds who had foolishly believed the U.S. owed them a nation-state after all this.

American hubris then led to the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011. But the much ballyhooed NATO bombing and Western-backed revolt of sorts ended up doing little more than creating a failed state in the fragile region. Pundits saw it, as they will wrongly see the fall of Syria, as a blow to Russian ambitions in the region, not calculating the negative value of unleashing chaos in a region consumed by the Iranian-U.S./Israeli proxy war and middle power politics in the Horn of Africa. Russia, by the way, is still fussing around there, to the consternation of the West.

As a side note, watching Qaddafi being sodomized on TV after he gave up his nuclear weapons assured the world North Korea would never do the same. But that's another world away… [my emphasis] (2)

Israel is continuing that same kind of policy in Syria right now. Dror Ze’evi reviews some of the hopeful possibilities that the fall of the Assad regime presents:

The rebels who took over Syria include Salafists, jihadists, moderates, supporters of Turkey, members of the Kurdish organizations, Druze and Sunni Muslims. But all of them have declared their loyalty to Syria in its current borders. Right now, they are trying to chart a future for the Syrian people without former dictator Bashar Assad and his collaborators. Everyone is talking about democracy, and even the radical organizations are showing openness. [my emphasis] (3)

But instead of trying to facilitate the formation of a stable government with which it could cooperate, Netanyahu’s government is basically waging war on Syria directly and actually trying to repeat the create-a-failed-state approach that Van Buren describes in previous Western adventures in Iraq and Libya which it continued in Syria and now Israel is pursuing even further. With full support from the Biden Administration, of course.

Ze’evi continues by noting favorable opportunities that Israel could be pursuing that could make its military and political situation more secure. Obviously, the current Israeli consensus is behind continued ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Palestinians. For Netanyahu’sd government, making Israel’s position more secured means seizing the occupied territories and maintaining permanent apartheid for the Palestinians under Israel’s control.

But, as he describes, Israel is on the warpath in Syria:

Yet despite all this, Israel is behaving brutally and shortsightedly. It has occupied territory in Syria and has positioned itself from the start as hostile to Syria. Instead, immediately after the regime fell, the country's leaders should have wished Syrians success in replacing Assad's evil regime and said they would be happy to have peaceful, brotherly relations with Syria.

Intelligent strategic thinking would embrace the new Syria and invite it to join the moderate bloc. This approach could also help in consolidating the Abraham Accords, getting closer to normalization with Saudi Arabia and maybe even moderating the world's anger at Israel.

But in a shortsighted government, policy will be set by the defense establishment. Consequently, senior defense officials must deviate from their practice of seeing every new development through their gunsights and instead start thinking strategically. [my emphasis]

But the current Israeli government does not want good relations with a new Syrian government. They just want to cripple the country. And take some of its territory.

Zvi Bar’el points to another complication, which is that Türkiye has its own ideas about how Syria should be run (Haaretz has not yet adopted the convention of using “Türkiye” as the English spelling):

Turkey, wielding the most significant leverage [on momentarily dominant HTS faction in Syria], is positioning itself to lead efforts to normalize the new Syrian regime's international relations. This stems from multiple factors: Turkey's long-standing support for militias within Ha'yat Tahrir al-Sham, its control over the Syrian National Army (formerly the Free Syrian Army), and its command of crucial border crossings that serve as Syria's economic lifeline.

Turkey now aims to fill the role previously held by Iran and Russia as Syria's primary patron. This goes beyond mere "good neighborly" relations between border-sharing nations. Turkey has a paramount strategic interest: transforming Syria into a bulwark against Kurdish forces, which Turkey has fought for decades. While Turkey condemned Israel's incursion into Syrian territory, it has itself occupied parts of northwest Syria by force. Last week, its allied militias captured the city of Manbij west of the Euphrates, a Kurdish stronghold, and Turkey makes no secret of its plans to expand operations east of the Euphrates.

The Kurdish question is expected to dominate upcoming Turkish-Syrian discussions, as its resolution is crucial for Al-Golani's ability to establish a unified state. A successful agreement would help prevent internal conflicts from escalating into armed clashes between the regime and the Kurdish minority, facilitate the withdrawal of Turkish forces from Syria, and ease tensions among the country's other religious and ethnic minorities. …

With Syrian and Russian air forces absent, Turkey may become the de facto controller of Syrian airspace and, in partnership with the Syrian government, could end Israel's operational freedom. [my emphasis] (4)

Türkiye, of course, is a NATO member.

Nima Alkorshid is a Brazilian podcaster who strikes a rather somber pose in his video interviews. He recently talked to former US security officials, Larry Wilkerson and Larry Johnson addressing the current situation is the Middle East. (4) They both take a pretty jaded tone. They are worth listening to on this particular set of issues. But the need to be listened to critically. Johnson, for instance, states here that the jihadist al-Nusra Front staged chemical attacks in Syria in 2013 and 2017, a highly dubious claim, at best. (See below.) (5)

About those chemical weapons attacks in Syria

There doesn’t seem to have been any final, definitive determination about exactly who staged those chemical weapons attacks. But the most likely culprit in most of them was the Assad regime. Maybe more specifics will come out of the current situation if it doesn’t descend into a new complete mess. A 2023 UN report explained the findings of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW):

Fernando Arias, Director-General of the OPCW, then reported that, based on the analysis conducted by the OPCW investigation and identification team and presented in that report, “there are reasonable grounds to believe” that, on 7 April 2018, between 19:10 and 19:40 local time, at least one Syrian air force helicopter departed from Dumayr air base. Operating under the control of the Government’s “Tiger Forces”, it dropped two yellow cylinders, which hit two residential buildings in a civilian-populated area in Douma, located on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus, releasing highly concentrated chlorine gas that killed 43 named individuals and affected dozens more. …

Echoing much of the OPCW Director-General’s briefing was Santiago Oñate-Laborde, Coordinator of the OPCW Investigation and Identification Team, who added that the Team engaged in several good-faith efforts to allow Syria to discharge its obligations under the Convention and Council resolution 2118 (2013). Pointing out that the country decided not to reply to such requests, he added that the team took note of the positions expressed by Syria and the Russian Federation regarding the Douma incident, including their view that the incident was staged by terrorists with the support of Western States. He then provided a detailed description of the investigation and affirmed that, based on the chemical and analytical data, it is possible to rule out the hypothesis that the incident was staged. (6) [my emphasis]

A new report partially based on current interviews with Syrian residents in one of the areas where chemical weapons were used:

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), a global watchdog, said in a report last year that it believed a Syrian air force helicopter departed from the nearby Dumayr air base shortly after 19:00 [April 7, 2018] that day and dropped two yellow cylinders which hit two apartment buildings, releasing highly concentrated chlorine gas. …

On more than one occasion in Eastern Ghouta, chemical weapons - banned by the Geneva protocol and the Chemical Weapons Convention - were used to attack Douma.

Bashar al-Assad's forces captured Douma shortly after the chlorine attack, and the stories of the victims were never fully heard. …

In 2013, rockets containing the nerve agent sarin were fired at several rebel-held suburbs in Eastern and Western Ghouta, killing hundreds of people. UN experts confirmed the use of sarin but they were not asked to ascribe any blame.

Assad denied his forces fired the rockets, but he did agree to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention and destroy Syria's declared chemical arsenal.

Between 2013 to 2018, Human Rights Watch documented at least 85 chemical weapons attacks in Syria, accusing the Syrian government of being responsible for a majority of them.

In addition to Douma in 2018, the OPCW's Investigation and Identification Team has identified the Syrian military as the perpetrator of four other cases of chemical weapons use in 2017 and 2018. An earlier fact-finding mission, which was not mandated to identify perpetrators, found chemical weapons were used in 20 instances. [my emphasis] (7)

In a September 2015 attack, the OPCW did identify Daesh/ISIS [ISIL] as the likely perpetrator of that particular attack:

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Investigation and Identification Team (IIT)’s fourth report concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that units of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) were the perpetrators of the chemical weapons attack on 1 September 2015 in Marea, Syria. The IIT’s comprehensive investigation was conducted from January 2023 to February 2024. [my emphasis] (8)

Notes:

(1) Zygar, Mikhail (2024): Putin's Son of a Bitch. The Last Pioneer 12/11/2024. <https://zygaro.substack.com/p/putins-son-of-a-bitch> (Accessed: 2024-12-12).

(2) Van Buren, Peter (2024): Set it off: How US invasion of Iraq led to chaos in Syria today. Responsible Statecraft 12/12/2024. (Accessed: 2024-12-12).

(3) Ze’evi, Dror (2024): Israel's Security-led Strategy Is Missing an Opportunity in Syria. Haaretz 12/12/2024. (Accessed: 2024-12-12).

(4) Bar’el, Zvi (2024): Syria Could Become a Turkish Protectorate, Limiting Israel's Freedom of Action Haaretz 12/15/2024. <https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/syria/2024-12-15/ty-article/.premium/syria-could-become-a-turkish-protectorate-limiting-israels-freedom-of-action/00000193-c934-d967-a5df-fbfee53f0000?gift=78d23024e11748849c2fc87499b8d4f7> (Accessed: 2024-15-12).

(5) The Chaos in Syria: How It Will Backfire on Its Creators! Dialogue Works YouTube channel 12/14/2024. <https://youtu.be/zEs_xMsCU9o?si=koU0AyTGcgMO-0sY> (Accessed: 2024-15-12).

(6) ‘Reasonable Grounds to Believe’ Syrian Government Used Chlorine Gas on Douma Residents in 2018 … Meetings Coverage-UN Security Council 02/07/2023. <https://press.un.org/en/2023/sc15194.doc.htm> (Accessed: 2024-12-12).

(7) Limaye, Yogita (2024): 'I want justice': Victims of Syria chemical attacks speak freely for first time, BBC News 12/11/2024. <https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4xyd1yx0go> (Accessed: 2024-12-12).

(8) OPCW identifies ISIL as perpetrators of 2015 chemical attack in Marea, Syria. OPCW 02/22/2024. <https://www.opcw.org/media-centre/news/2024/02/opcw-identifies-isil-perpetrators-2015-chemical-attack-marea-syria> (Accessed: 2024-15-12).

Ukrainian drones aiding Syrian jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)?

This is a weird story.

The Syrian rebels' stunning offensive and capture of Aleppo has sparked rumours that Ukraine played a role in helping plan the operation against the Russian-allied Damascus government.

Over the years, Ukrainian intelligence has leaked videos allegedly showing sabotage and attacks targeting Russians based in northern Syria.

These attacks often involved first-person-view (FPV) "kamikaze" drones, a technology Ukraine has excelled in using since the 2022 Russian invasion.

Many observers in Turkey believe the use of FPV drones has given Syrian opposition fighters a significant advantage against Bashar al-Assad's forces over recent days.

These drones allowed rebels to target beyond the firing line, rendering armoured vehicles ineffective through coordinated assaults and causing frontlines to collapse. (1)

Ukraine has had considerable need for its own supply of weapons these last three years. Why they would be sending them to Syria isn’t clear at first glance.

The story also cites Russian sources citing collaboration between Ukrainian officials and Ukrainian rebels.

Since Russia was providing aid to the Syrian government against rebel forces, it’s makes sense that some Ukrainians may have been sent there to at least observe Russian tactics.

Reuters reports:

Syrian fighters received about 150 drones as well as other covert support from Ukrainian intelligence operatives last month, weeks ahead of the rebels' advance that toppled Bashar al-Assad over the weekend, according to the Washington Post.

Citing unnamed sources familiar with Ukrainian military activities, the Post late on Tuesday said Ukrainian intelligence sent about 20 drone operators and about 150 first-person-view drones about four to five weeks ago to aid Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

Russia's foreign ministry had earlier said, without providing evidence, that the rebels had received drones from Ukraine and training in how to operate them, an accusation that Ukraine's foreign ministry at the time said it "categorically" rejected. (2)

It’s probably no more than an interesting footnote in the larger picture. It’s worth remembering that Russia generally takes a dim view of jihadist insurgents. And the HTS group that took Damascus is one of those. So Russia may be happy to associate Ukraine with jihadists. But this could very well be just another “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” story.

Notes:

(1) Soylu, Ragip (2024): Has Ukraine helped the Syrian rebel offensive in Aleppo? Middle East Eye 12/02/2024. <https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/has-ukraine-helped-syrian-rebel-offensive-aleppo> (Accessed: 2024-12-12).

(2) Ukrainian operatives aided Syrian rebels with drones, Washington Post reports. Reuters 12/11/2024. <https://www.reuters.com/world/ukrainian-operatives-aided-syrian-rebels-with-drones-washington-post-reports-2024-12-11/> (Accessed: 2024-12-12).

The state of play in the post-Assad Middle East

The US public is very acquainted with religious beliefs that associate chaos and conflict in the Middle East, and especially around Israel, as signs of impending apocalypse.

Since the Trump II foreign policy – whatever it may be - is getting closer, this podcast analysis by Kyle Kulinski is a helpful reminder of how chaotic and vague Trump’s ideas about foreign policy really are. As shown by his actions in his 2017-2021 term. (1)

This is an example from Zvi Bar'el of the kind of description that can send the adrenalin of apocalyptic Christian nationalists into overdrive:

The deployment of Israeli forces in the Golan Heights demilitarized zone, its seizing control of the Syria side of Mount Hermon and its strikes on Syrian military targets are perhaps the first changes to the Syrian map due to occur over the next several days and weeks.

And Israel isn't the only one beginning to reposition itself vis-a-vis Syria to its own military advantage. On Sunday, pro-Turkish militias affiliated with the Syrian National Army (originally the Free Syria Army, the first and biggest of the militias that were formed at the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011) reported that they had seized control of Manbij, a city west of the Euphrates River.

The city hosts a large concentration of Kurdish forces belonging to the Syrian Democratic Forces and constitutes the heart of Turkey's plan to take over the Kurdish-controlled regions of Syria and establish a security zone inside Syrian territory. (2)

So, yes, things in that area are messy and probably about to get even messier. So it’s worth trying to keep a focus key issues for US foreign policy.

How does the US justify a military presence in Syria?

The legal basis for the US direct military intervention in Syria that began under the Obama Administration was always dubious. (3)

Türkiye’s paper-thin justification for its intervention in Syria – which has basically been aimed at suppressing Syrian Kurds: “The Turkish government has used the question of Syrian refugees to justify Turkey’s military involvement in Syria.” (4) The EU states, many of whom of NATO allies of Türkiye, have taken a dim view of Türkiye’s actions there. (5) The Turkish intervention is also against the aims of the US intervention there, where the US has been allied to the Kurdish forces in Rojava (northeast Syria). However, Türkiye has also backed the Syrian National Army (SNA) against Assad’s government.

In the broader context, US intervention, however dubious its legal basis, was primarily directed against Islamic State (IS) jihadist forces that also opposed the now-deposed Assad government. The US was also very aware that Israel regarded Syria as an enemy and even now lays claim to the Golan Heights, which it occupies now in violation of international law – with the approval of the first Trump Administration.

As Kyle’s podcast above reminds us, the Obama Administration did show more restraint than the chronic hawks wanted him to in relation to the outbreak of civil war in Syria. One of Obama’s claimed guidelines for foreign policy was, “Don’t do stupid stuff.” And restraint in Syria was one example where he resisted blundering in to a bigger and more dubious commitment.

What is Israel doing in Syria?

Netanyahu’s government since attacks October 7, 2023 has been in war mode and seems to be in no hurry to get out of it. And it apparently saw Saddam’s fall as an opportunity to batter Syria’s armed forces.

The Israeli military has launched a major airstrike campaign in Syria in recent days, following the collapse of Bashar Assad's regime, targeting hundreds of military installations and destroying a substantial portion of the Syrian Air Force. It denied a report that forces had reached an area 25 kilometers (15 miles) away from Damascus, saying troops had not gone outside the demilitarized zone.

On Monday, the navy attacked a large number of ships in a bid to keep Syria's naval assets from falling into hostile hands. Missile boats destroyed vessels bearing dozens of anti-ship missiles.

Israel has carried out more than 250 strikes in Syrian territory in recent days, mostly from the air. The strikes have aimed at destroying infrastructure and military assets used by the Syrian military, including major bases, tanks, naval vessels and aircraft. The Lebanese Al-Mayadeen network, associated with Hezbollah, reported Tuesday that Israeli forces were only a couple of dozen kilometers away from Damascus.

According to reports, the military is deploying near Druze villages on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights to prevent attacks on them. [my emphasis] (6)

The Iranian “Axis of Resistance”

By all accounts, the fall of the Syrian government, along with the military costs Israel has inflicted on Hezbollah and Hamas with full US backing, has definitely been weakened strategically over the last year. Iranian leadership will surely see the setback as further incentive to develop nuclear weapons. And they are not far away from that goal at all. (7)

Biden’s triumphalist, Cold-War-fixated statement just after the news of the Syrian government’s fall was simplistic and self-serving called attention to the role of Russia as a supporter of Iran and Syria, a role which Russia’s Ukraine war has complicated:

Addressing the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, U.S. President Joe Biden said the development "is a direct result of the blows that Ukraine and Israel have delivered" against Russia, Hamas and Hezbollah "with unflagging support from the United States."

"The main backers of Assad have been Iran, Hezbollah and Russia. Over the last week, their support collapsed. All three of them are far weaker today than when I took office. And let's remember why – after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, when much of the world responded with horror, Iran and its proxies decided to launch a multifront war against Israel. That was a historic mistake on Iran's part," Biden said. [my emphasis] (8)

The big danger for the US of this approach is that it emphasizes Biden’s apparently obsessive commitment to the idea that unquestionably backing Israeli military actions is always the right policy for the US.

It’s also the case that Russia’s efforts in Syria were largely in support of the now-defunct Assad government. Now that the regime is gone, it’s not immediately clear how Russia will be able to play a major role in Syria in the immediate future. But it also doesn’t mean the Russians will be completely passive in Syria:

Russia has two military bases in Syria: the Tartus naval base on the Mediterranean coast and the Khmeimim Air Base near the port city of Latakia. They are considered among the Kremlin’s most strategically important military outposts.

The Tartus site is particularly critical, providing Russia with its only direct access to the Mediterranean sea and a base to conduct naval exercises, station warships and even host nuclear submarines.

But according to Russian news agency TASS, Syrian rebel fighters have already taken full control of Latakia province where both bases are based. (9)

The US Responsibility

The US remains in a strong position to push for permanent peace arrangements in the Middle East. But it can’t do so by continuing the effectively unconditional support the Biden Administration showed for even acts of genocide on the part of the Israeli government. But the incoming Trump Administration shows no signs of departing from that approach.

The two-state solution is still an official diplomatic talking point for framing a comprehensive negotiation to the core Israel-Palestine conflict. But it also seems clear that the real choice is between an apartheid state in Israel-Palestine – the de facto condition today – or a secular and democratic state in the area. A more radical version of the apartheid state would include massive ethnic cleansing, which Israel is currently carrying out in Gaza and the West Bank.

This is a long way away from where the US and its European allies are today. Jimmy Carter’s description of the situation is 2006 is still relevant almost 20 years later:

The overriding problem is that, for more than a quarter century, the actions of some Israeli leaders have been in direct conflict with the official policies of the United States, the international community, and their own negotiated agreements. Regardless of whether Palestinians had no formalized government, one headed by Yasir Arafat or Mahmoud Abbas, or one with Abbas as president and Hamas controlling the parliament and cabinet, Israel's continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land. In order to perpetuate the occupation, Israeli forces have deprived their unwilling subjects of basic human rights. No objective person could personally observe existing conditions in the West Bank and dispute these statements.

Two other interrelated factors have contributed to the perpetuation of violence and regional upheaval: the condoning of illegal Israeli actions from a submissive White House and U.S. Congress during recent years, and the deference with which other international leaders permit this unofficial U.S. policy in the Middle East to prevail. There are constant and vehement political and media debates in Israel concerning its policies in the West Bank, but because of powerful political, economic, and religious forces in the United States, Israeli government decisions are rarely questioned or condemned, voices from Jerusalem dominate in our media, and most American citizens are unaware of circumstances in the occupied territories. At the same time, political leaders and news media in Europe are highly critical of Israeli policies, affecting public attitudes. Americans were surprised and angered by an opinion poll, published by the International Herald Tribune in October 2003, of 7,500 citizens in fifteen European nations, indicating that Israel was considered to be the top threat to world ahead of North Korea, Iran, or Afghanistan.

The United States has used its U.N. Security Council veto more than forty times to block resolutions critical of Israel. Some of these vetoes have brought international discredit on the United States, and there is little doubt that the lack of a persistent effort to resolve the Palestinian issue is a major source of anti-American sentiment and terrorist activity throughout the Middle East and the Islamic world. [my emphasis] (10)

Paul Pillar looks at the lengthening history of the US failures to advance a sustainable diplomatic solution and observes:

Israel, in its vain effort to “destroy Hamas” and strike down adversaries on its northern border, is more committed than ever to increasing death and destruction as its default approach toward any security problem. The United States has abetted this approach by gifting $18 billion in munitions to Israel since October 2023.

The collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria does nothing to discourage these tendencies and may instead encourage them. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the events in Syria with celebration and self-congratulations, claiming that Assad’s fall was due to earlier Israeli airstrikes on Hezbollah and Iran. The change of regime was an occasion for Israel increasing rather than decreasing its offensive military activity in Syria, including seizure of a previously demilitarized buffer zone along the Golan frontier and airstrikes in and around Damascus on the very weekend that rebels were entering the capital.

During the intervening years since the 1973 war, a couple of U.S. presidents did make genuine efforts to advance an Israeli-Palestinian peace. But the necessary follow-up — largely the responsibility of subsequent administrations — did not occur. [my emphasis] (11)

And he also states the obvious: “The current impending change in U.S. administrations offers little or no hope for positive change on this subject.”

But Pillar reminds us that reaching an actual settlement to the Israel-Palestine conflict will require a distinctly different approach:

Correct understanding of diplomacy also speaks to what a foreign policy of restraint means. It does not mean isolationism. In areas such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it can mean an increase in diplomatic involvement and in the priority that policymakers give to the goal being sought. As the restraint-minded Quincy Institute puts it in its statement of principles, the United States “should engage with the world” and pursue peace “through the vigorous practice of diplomacy.”

Much damage from [short-term-focused] policies … has been done and cannot easily be reversed. The Israeli settlement enterprise in the occupied territories, which tsk-tsks from the United States have done nothing to stop, have led many observers … to believe that a two-state solution is no longer possible.

But even if the requirement of Palestinian self-determination could be achieved only through a one-state solution that provides equal rights for all, the same principle — that peace can be achieved only through vigorous diplomacy and not military escalation — applies. [my emphasis]

Notes:

(1) Trump POPS OFF On Syrian Government COLLAPSE - The Kyle Kulinski Show. Secular Talk You Tube channel 12/09/2024. <https://youtu.be/ut3avj0h9rw?si=-Xjfm9LhxoqUrt4M> (Accessed: 2024-11-12). [my emphasis]

(2) In the Rubble Left Behind by Assad, Anyone With Weapons Will Try to Decide Syria's Future. Haaretz 12/08/2024. <https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/syria/2024-12-08/ty-article/.premium/in-the-rubble-left-behind-by-assad-anyone-with-weapons-will-try-to-decide-syrias-future/00000193-a7ef-d6c1-a5fb-f7ef49250000> (Accessed: 2024-11-12).

(3) Posner, Eric (2013): The U.S. Has No Legal Basis to Intervene in Syria. Slate 08/28/2023. <https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/08/the-u-s-has-no-legal-basis-for-its-action-in-syria-but-that-wont-stop-us-from-going-in-anyhow.html> (Accessed: 2024-10-12). In the last paragraph, Posner dismisses the idea of putting legal restrictions on the US Executive’s war power, and even suggest the whole idea of international laws of war are completely unrealistic. This not a position I share.

(4) Siccardi, Francesco (2021): How Syria Changed Turkey’s Foreign Policy. Carnegie Europe 09/14/2021. <https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2021/09/how-syria-changed-turkeys-foreign-policy?lang=en&center=europe> (Accessed: 2024-10-12).

(5) Stanicek, Branislav (2019): Turkey's military operation in Syria and its impact on relations with the EU. European Parliament Briefing Nov. 2019. <chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.europarl.europa.eu/EPRS/EPRS-Briefing-642284-Turkeys-military-operation-Syria-FINAL.pdf> (Accessed: 2024-10-12).

(6) Kubovich, Yaniv & DPA (2024): IDF Destroys Syrian Aircraft and Ships, Denies Reports of Israeli Tanks Moving Closer to Damascus. Haaretz 12/10/2024. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-12-10/ty-article/.premium/idf-destroys-syrian-aircraft-and-ships-denies-reports-of-tanks-moving-closer-to-damascus/00000193-af8c-d901-af9b-afdecc1e0000> (Accessed: 2024-11-12).

(7) December 2024 Monthly Forecast. Security Council Report 12/01/2024. <https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/about-security-council-report#mission> (Accessed: 2024-11-12). The Security Council Report is an independent nonprofit sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation and Open Society Foundations and several governments including Canada and Germany.

(8) Samuels, Ben/Reuters (2024): Biden: Fall of Assad regime 'direct result of Israeli blows' against Iran, Hezbollah. Haaretz 12/08/2024. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-12-08/ty-article-live/idf-names-officer-killed-in-southern-gaza-combat/00000193-a3b2-ddde-addb-f3b64ca90000?liveBlogItemId=440194054#440194054> (Accessed: 2024-08-12).

(9) Jones, Mared Gwyn (2024): What do we know about the fate of Russia's military bases in Syria? Euronews 10/12/2024. <https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/12/10/what-do-we-know-about-the-fate-of-russias-military-bases-in-syria> (Accessed: 2024-11-12).

(10 Carter, Jimmy (2006): Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, 208-210. New York: Simon & Schuster.

(11) Pillar, Paul (2024): Why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has endured. Responsible Statecraft [Quincy Institute] 12/10/2024. <https://responsiblestatecraft.org/israel-palestine/> (Accessed: 2024-11-12).

Syria’s Sednaya prison, the “human slaughterhouse” that everyone seems to be condemning at the moment

The Islamist version of storming the Bastille in Syria freeing prison from Sednaya prison, which apparently was known as a “human slaughterhouse.”

So far, I haven’t seen any war-on-terror commentary on how the Assad regime was a secular authoritarian government and therefore it’s a great thing that they tortured prisoners, some of whom were presumably Islamists.

Because the Cheney-Bush Administration made a practice of sending terrorism suspects to Syria to be tortured. Called the “extraordinary rendition” program. It was an important step among many that led to extremists capture of the Supreme Court and the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol. Because the American government held none of the participants in that program legally responsible for their criminal acts. Kamala Harris’ campaign was thrilled to have the endorsement of Liz and Dick Cheney for her 2024 Presidential bid.

Al Jazeera ran this report on the current prison story. The facts it reports are gross. (1)



The Supreme Court in 2004 validated the acts of extraordinary rendition in the case of Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain “found that government agents are generally immune from civil or criminal liability for their official conduct abroad, even if that conduct originates in the United States. The practice of extraordinary rendition then accelerated to unprecedented levels.” (2)

Mehdi Hasan commented in 2012 on the Assad regime’s involvement in the program. He describes the fate of a young Canadian citizen, Maher Arar:

On 26 September 2002, he was arrested at JFK airport in New York, where he had been in transit, on his way home to Canada after a family holiday abroad. Following 13 days of questioning, the US authorities, suspecting Arar of ties to al-Qaida based on flawed Canadian police intelligence, "rendered" him not to Canada, where he lived, but to his native Syria, from where his family had fled 15 years earlier.

For the next 10 months, he was detained without charge in a three-foot by six-foot Syrian prison cell where, according to the findings of an official Canadian commission of inquiry, he was tortured. Arar says he was punched, kicked and whipped with an electrical cable during 18-hour interrogation sessions. He received C$10.5m in compensation from the Canadian government and a formal apology from prime minister Stephen Harper for the country's role in his ordeal. …

Arar claims his Syrian torturers were supplied with specific questions by the US government; he was asked the exact same questions in Damascus he had been asked in New York.

After his release, in October 2003, both Syria and Canada publicly cleared Arar of any links to terrorism. But the US government – first under Bush, and now under Obama – refuses to discuss the matter, let alone apologise. The Arar case wasn't a one-off. According to the New Yorker's Jane Mayer, who has spent much of the past decade investigating what she calls "the dark side" of the war on terror, Syria was one of the "most common" destinations for rendered suspects. Or, in the chilling words of former CIA agent Robert Baer, in 2004: "If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria." [my emphasis] (3)

The Obama Administration effectively granted participants in this criminal program impunity, following in the approach. And, in any case, the SCOTUS decision in the Sosa case on wide-ranging immunity.

Dan Froomkin in 2018 commented on Obama’s position:

Obama has renounced torture. He has issued a new executive order defining acceptable interrogation techniques. He has reasserted the illegality of many of the techniques used in American prisons around the world during the first few years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

But he has also repeatedly expressed his desire to “look forward instead of looking backward.” As a result, there has yet to be any accountability for the actions of the Bush/Cheney administration. And none appears forthcoming.

And without accountability — without either criminal prosecutions or some sort of official national reckoning of what took place — there’s no reason to think that the next time a perceived emergency comes up, some other president or vice president will not decide to torture again. (4)

He also quotes legal scholar Karen Greenberg:

“We’re not a nation you can rely on not to torture,” she said. “We’re not as much of an outlaw nation as we used to be, but we are wiling to be an outlaw nation when it suits our

Many expected Obama would take more definitive action to prevent what the last administration wrought from ever happening again. Obama, however, “has refused to clamp down on [torture] in a way that would make it hard for people in the future to do it,” Greenberg said.

Notes:

(1) Assad's prisons are 'human slaughterhouses' with daily torture and executions: Syrian White Helmets. Al Jazeera English YouTube channel 12/09/2024. <https://youtu.be/w_sbcR4vbOY?si=SVch3-bV-su7hm5p> (Accessed: 2024-10-12).

(2) Ryan, Kenneth (2023); "extraordinary rendition". Encyclopedia Britannica 06/21/2023. <https://www.britannica.com/topic/extraordinary-rendition> (Accessed: 2024-10-12).

(3) Hasan, Mehdi (2012): Syria has made a curious transition from US ally to violator of human rights. The Guardian 02/19/2012. <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/feb/19/syria-us-ally-human-rights> (Accessed: 2024-10-12).

(4) Froomkin, Dan (2018): Obama Wanted to ‘Look Forward, Not Backward’ on Torture, But He Failed to Look Either Way. Medium 05/13/2018. <https://medium.com/@DanFroomkin/obama-wanted-to-look-forward-not-backward-on-torture-but-he-failed-to-look-either-way-c1b258ac3258> (Accessed: 2024-10-12).

Syria: Moving on from the Saddam’s-statue-is-falling moment

The famous toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad two decades ago (2003) became an instant media iconic moment. It was staged by the US forces with an allied local group. It’s a moment worth remembering – as a caution against triumphalism.

It was a successful moment for US information operations. A moment that lasted approximately one day. The very next day, mass looting in Baghdad started, which compounded the problem the Cheney-Bush Administration set themselves up for by not preparing adequately for situation just like that.

Zvi Bar’el recalls that event in the context of the immediate aftermath of Bashar al-Assad’s hasty departure to Russia:

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham leader Abu Mohammad al-Julani, who on Sunday abandoned his nom de guerre and returned to his real name, Ahmed Hussein al-Shar'a, has ordered his fighters [grouped in the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham {HTS}] not to harm government buildings and to protect public property. He also said they should refrain from taking revenge against the Assad regime's security forces and the civilians who collaborated with him, mainly members of the Alawite community. However, it appears that his control over his fighters' rage and the desire to settle scores is limited.

Historical analogies are dangerous to make and are prone to error. But it is impossible not to recall the difficult images accompanying the early days of the 2003 assault on Iraq. Masses of people broke into government ministries, hundreds of Ba'ath party members were killed in revenge by gangs and ordinary civilians, the national museum was looted and a crime wave exploded even before the establishment of al-Qaida in Iraq.

Libya produced atrocities of its own with the ouster and murder of Muammar Gadhafi. Murderous power struggles broke out between tribes and families that developed into political and military conflicts that have continued to thwart the establishment of a unified and functioning state. In Syria, all the ingredients for a similar recipe exist. [my emphasis] (1)

Bar’el explains that Assad throwing in the towel in this situation is not a case of a widely-based opposition movement fighting the government to a stalemate or ousting them in a military campaign. Assad’s government basically just fell apart, from what we can see now. Al-Julani/Al-Shar'a headed a collection of opposition forces in the northwestern province of Idlib and functioned as a governing entity there.

Nevertheless, ruling over a province is not the same as running a complex and divided country weighed down by heavy baggage from the past.

That baggage is not only that of a regime that slaughtered more than half a million of its own citizens and turned around 11 million people into refugees and displaced persons, but also conflicts between different population groups – Alawites versus Sunnis, Kurds versus Alawites, and elites versus the masses and city dwellers who were stripped of their property. Severe rivalries also developed between civilian opposition groups, such as that between al-Julani's government and the "interim government" of the coalition of opposition forces. Another rivalry exists between them and the autonomous Kurdish government established in the northern part of the country. [my emphasis]

And external actors play a big role, as well. The US has provided backing and protection for Kurdish forces, which in practice have offered a more democratic-leaning option than the Islamist groups have. Agence France-Presse reports:

In 2012, government forces withdrew from Kurdish-majority areas in Syria’s north and east, paving the way for Kurds to consolidate control.

They established a semi-autonomous administration there and have gradually expanded territorial control as US-backed Kurdish-led fighters battled IS, dislodging the extremists from their last scraps of Syrian territory in 2019.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), formed in 2015, are considered the Kurds’ de facto army. The forces are an alliance of fighters including Kurds, Syriac Christians and Arab Muslim factions.

The SDF holds around a quarter of Syrian territory, and is considered the second most powerful military force after the army. It controls most of Raqqa province including the city, a former IS [Islamic State] stronghold, half of neighbouring Deir ez-Zur, and part of Aleppo province. It also controls Hasakeh province in the north-east, though Syrian government forces are also present there including in the cities of Hasakeh and Qamishli.

US-led coalition forces, which entered Syria in 2014 to fight IS, have set up bases in the Al-Omar oilfield, the country’s largest, as well as the Conoco gas field – both in Kurdish-controlled territory. US personnel are also stationed in Kurdish-controlled Hasakeh and Raqqa provinces. (2)

The US also has a distinct record of betraying the Kurds, particularly those in Iraq. But pragmatic interest has also resulted in cooperation and support, as well. The Kurds, largely situated in Syria, Iraq, and NATO member Türkiye, and also in Iran, have never been able to establish an actual state of their own, although in both Iraq and Syria in recent years, they have enjoyed some degree of autonomy.

It's worth noting that some of the democratic left have celebrated the Kurdish enclave from which the SDF operation as a model of a successful democratic movement, the “Rohava revolution.” (3)

But the Turkish government is highly suspicious of anything that looks like a potential base for a Kurdish national state to develop. Since Türkiye is an important NATO member, that significantly constrains the available options for the US in relation to the Kurds in Syria and elsewhere. There are also like three million or more Syrian refugees in Türkiye, so the Turkish government is likely to be eager to declare “mission accomplished” in northeastern Syria so that they can convince or compel many of those refugees to return to Syria. The UN Refugee Agency reported in March that although only around 5% of those refugees live in refugee camps, “living outside refugee camps does not necessarily mean success or stability. More than 70 percent of Syrian refugees are living in poverty, with limited access to basic services, education or job opportunities and few prospects of returning home.” (4)

The same article notes the huge toll the chronic civil unrest since 2011 has taken on Syrians: “Thirteen years later, the conflict is ongoing with Syrians continuing to pay the price—more than 16.7 million people in Syria are in need of humanitarian assistance, accounting for 70 percent of the population.”

Türkiye has been actively backing the Syrian rebel group calling itself the Syrian National Army (SNA). The SNA has cooperated at times with the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). But that cooperation was scarcely a marriage made in Heaven:

The HTS has its origins in al-Qaida and is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the United Nations. But the group said in recent years it cut ties with al-Qaida, and experts say HTS has sought to remake itself in recent years by focusing on promoting civilian government in their territory as well as military action. (5)

Politico EU lists the Kurds as likely losers from the current situation, although its direction at this point is not at all clear:

Bashar Assad largely left Syria’s Kurds to their own devices in northeast Syria, where they enjoyed semi-autonomy. Whether a new regime in Damascus, if it is Islamist-dominated, will give the Kurds the same leeway is doubtful — especially as it will owe Erdoğan. It largely depends, of course, on how Syria develops politically. But the Syrian rebel offensive has also seen territorial gains by Turkish-backed Islamists against the U.S.-backed Kurdish militant group, YPG, which has lost control of some towns and villages in the eastern Aleppo countryside.

Syria’s Kurds will hardly be reassured by a Donald Trump social media post on Sunday to the effect that Syria is a mess. “THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!” the post said. During his first term as U.S. president, Trump wanted to withdraw all U.S. special forces troops in northeastern Syria, where they have been fighting Islamic State jihadists alongside the Kurds. The Pentagon persuaded him to keep some deployed in the area; there are an estimated 900 still in the country. [my emphasis] (6)

Joe Biden should actually tell Trump to shut the hell up with pronouncements like until he actually becomes President. But Biden won’t tell him that, and Trump will blunder ahead in his usual fashion, unable to distinguish diplomatic strategy from publicity stunts.

And, yes, you read that correctly: the US actually fought in alliance with a genuinely leftwing movement in that instance. Politics is politics.

FRANCE 24 has this current report on the Syrian situation. (7)

At one point, it features a professional speaker and “geopolitical expert” Marco Vincenzino, playing rhetorical footsie with Trump’s isolationist perspective, which Vincenzino prefers to describe as “greater self-interest” or Realpolitik. Using the German “Realpolitik” in English is generally meant to indicate a deep and sophisticated understanding of international relations. How it came to have that connotation is anybody’s guess. Geopolitical Expert Vincenzino even uses the favorite isolationist trope of George Washington’s Farewell Address.

Notes:

(1) Bar’el, Zvi (2024): In the Rubble Left Behind by Assad, Anyone With Weapons Will Try to Decide Syria's Future. Haaretz 12/08/2024. <https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/syria/2024-12-08/ty-article/.premium/in-the-rubble-left-behind-by-assad-anyone-with-weapons-will-try-to-decide-syrias-future/00000193-a7ef-d6c1-a5fb-f7ef49250000?gift=d56db1e366934082bc8ff450ab0dfebb> (Accessed: 2024-09-12).

(2) Agence France-Presse (2024): Who controls what territory in Syria? The Guardian 12/03/2024. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/03/who-controls-what-territory-in-syria> (Accessed: 2024-09-12).

(3) Broomfield, Matt (2023): Rojava’s Improvised Revolution. Truthdig 10/09/2023. <https://www.truthdig.com/articles/rojavas-improvised-revolution/> (Accessed: 2024-09-12).

De Jong, Alex (2016): The Rojava Project. Jacobin 11/30/2016. <https://jacobin.com/2016/11/rojava-syria-kurds-ypg-pkk-ocalan-turkey> (Accessed: 2024-09-12).

(4) Syria Refugee Crisis Explained. UNHCR 03/13/2024. <https://www.unrefugees.org/news/syria-refugee-crisis-explained/#WheredoSyrianrefugeeslive?DoallSyrianrefugeesliveinrefugeecamps?> (Accessed: 2024-09-12).

(5) Euronews/AP (2024).Syrian opposition fighters overthrow Assad: What comes next? Euronews 08/12/2024. <https://www.euronews.com/2024/12/08/opposition-fighters-drive-syrian-leader-from-the-country-who-are-they-and-what-comes-next> (Accessed: 2024-09-12).

(6) Dettmer, Jamie (2024): Assad’s downfall — the winners and losers. Politico EU 12/08/2024. <https://www.politico.eu/article/bashar-assad-syria-downfall-the-winners-and-losers/> (Accessed: 2024-09-12).

(7) 'International community must be very careful: Events on ground being driven by Syrians themselves'. FRANCE 24 English 12/08/2024. <https://youtu.be/Vic4utJ1jzg?si=FSSInIfxUHO4mN34> (Accessed: 2024-09-12).

Assad’s fall: good news? Bad news? Both?

At this early date, it’s hard to know:

Across the Middle East and beyond, the fall of Syria’s authoritarian government at the hands of jihadi militants set off waves of jubilation, trepidation and alarm.

Expatriate Syrians and many residents across the Middle East exulted at the overthrow of a leader who led his country through 14 years of civil strife that left half a million Syrians dead and displaced millions to countries around the world.

Others worried about still more instability rocking a region in turmoil. Governments — whether allies or opponents of Assad — scrambled to absorb the sudden, stunning development and assess the implications for the Middle East and the world. (1)

Everyone seems to have been taken surprise about how quickly Assad’s dictatorial government fell during the recent offensive by jihadist rebels. But it happens. Gary Sick, who worked as national security advisor for President Jimmy Carter on Iran affairs during the Iranian Revolution of 1979, recently gave an account of how surprised the Administration was at how seemingly passive the Shah was in response to the revolutionary movement.

As he puts it:

Basically, a lot of people were hurt badly by the Shah’s departure and the revolution. They lost money, property, their lands, their culture and history. You have a lot of very important people living in Los Angeles. Are they going to be happy about this? Of course not. When I speak to some of these groups, I say: “Did you stay there and fight for the Shah?” No. They all ran. (2)

Sometimes a challenge to a government just gets lucky.

Whether a new government in Syria is likely to be better or worse than Assad’s remains to be seen. Even though things there were really bad:

While the volatile geopolitical environment influenced the timing and scale of the offensive, the resurgence of the Syrian conflict was inevitable. The country remained fragmented and mired in a political deadlock, with no prospects for reconstruction and 90 percent of the population living below the poverty line. Even in territories under regime control, the government had failed to restore order, allowing instead militias and criminal gangs to operate freely. Assad had consistently refused to make even the slightest concessions, both domestically and with its neighbors, perceiving compromise as a sign of weakness. Instead of addressing the dire living conditions or engaging in a political process to end the war, he doubled down on his repressive tactics and turned Syria into the world’s largest narco-state. [my emphasis] (3)

Joe Biden, hopelessly stuck in a simplistic Cold War mentality until the end offered this assessment:

Addressing the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, U.S. President Joe Biden said the development "is a direct result of the blows that Ukraine and Israel have delivered" against Russia, Hamas and Hezbollah "with unflagging support from the United States."

"The main backers of Assad have been Iran, Hezbollah and Russia. Over the last week, their support collapsed. All three of them are far weaker today than when I took office. And let's remember why – after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, when much of the world responded with horror, Iran and its proxies decided to launch a multifront war against Israel. That was a historic mistake on Iran's part," Biden said. (4)

I won’t be surprised if before he leaves office, he announces, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

And, yes, Trump will be worse on foreign policy. Just in a different way. He has commented on the situation already; “’Assad is gone. He has fled his country. His protector, Russia, Russia, Russia, led by (President) Vladimir Putin, was not interested in protecting him any longer,’ Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.” (5)

“Russia, Russia, Russia”?!

Al Jazeera has this early take: (6)

Notes:

(1) Associated Press (2024): Global reaction to Assad’s sudden ouster from Syria ranges from jubilation to alarm. AP News 12/08/2024. <https://apnews.com/article/syria-assad-overthrow-world-reaction-7caf6eca9a5f3af01e0801d434076232> (Accessed: 2024-08-12).

(2) Why is Iran so Central to US Policy? An Interview with Doyen of US Iran Experts, Gary Sick (Pt. 1): Interview by Fariba Amini. Informed Comment 12/02/2024. <https://www.juancole.com/2024/12/central-interview-experts.html> (Accessed: 2024-08-12).

(3) Kassis, Kelly (2024): The Fall of the House of Assad. The National Interest 12/07/2024. <https://nationalinterest.org/feature/fall-house-assad-214015> (Accessed: 2024-08-12).

(4) Samuels, Ben/Reuters (2024): Biden: Fall of Assad regime 'direct result of Israeli blows' against Iran, Hezbollah. Haaretz 12/08/2024. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-12-08/ty-article-live/idf-names-officer-killed-in-southern-gaza-combat/00000193-a3b2-ddde-addb-f3b64ca90000?liveBlogItemId=440194054#440194054> (Accessed: 2024-08-12).

(5) Reuters, Trump says Russia abandoned Assad. Reuters 12/08/2024. <https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-says-russia-abandoned-syrias-assad-never-should-have-been-involved-2024-12-08/> (Accessed: 2024-08-12).

(6) What's next for Syria after Assad? Inside Story. Al Jazeera English 12/08/2024. <https://youtu.be/o5t4AoMuBiE?si=57bR46wX3aI6tTVE> (Accessed: 2024-08-12).

US foreign policy ghoul happy with Trump’s new Israel team (Yes, I’m talking about Elliot Abrams)

The Menachem Begin Heritage Center has just published this podcast featuring an interview with Elliot Abrams, a member in good standing of the foreign policy establishment and one of the most ghoulish figures in the history of American foreign policy. (1)

Why does he enjoy that distinction? Charlie Pierce explains in his signature style how Abrams earned that title during the Reagan Administration:

Abrams fronted for murderous regimes up and down Central America. At the time, our old friend, Roberto D'Aubuisson, the [El Salvador] death squad jefe, was being feted as a celebrity by the American conservative movement. (Later, he would be invited to a private dinner with the D.C. conservative power elite not long after he reportedly tried to kill a U.S. ambassador with a car bomb. One of the sponsors of the dinner was...wait for it...the National Pro-Life PAC.) Abrams and D'Aubuisson were a match made several degrees south of heaven.

From there, Abrams kept popping up every time there was a Republican administration in need of a proven public liar willing to support the death squads du jour. He fronted for Efrain Rios Montt, the genocidal leader of Guatemala. ...

At roughly the same time, Abrams got in up to his eyeballs in the Central American half of the Iran Contra scandal. This required his special skills. In 1986, he appeared before a congressional inquiry and, of course, he dealt in his own special kind of non-fact. He did it so well that Lawrence Walsh, the independent counsel investigating this fiasco, was prepared to indict him for several felonies. Abrams copped a plea and the charges were reduced to misdemeanors. Then, in December of 1992, in an obvious attempt to cover his own...er..involvement, President George H. W. Bush pardoned everyone except Shoeless Joe Jackson on his way out of town. This included Elliot Abrams, who, ever since, has been gum on the shoe of American foreign policy. [my emphasis] (2)

Under President Joe Biden, Abrams served as the State Department Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela.

This guy, the death squad enabler in some of the most infamous US meddling in Latin America – and that’s saying a lot – thinks Donald Trump’s announced Israel policy team is awesome. In this interview, he refers at least twice to the occupied West Bank as “Judea and Samaria,” the term the Zionist settler movement uses to refer to the area. That is part of the Eretz Israel, Greater Israel aka, from the river to the sea - which Netanyahu’s governing coalition has endorsed as its goal.

As a Haaretz editorial described it in 2023:

Israel has been carrying out de facto annexation in the West Bank for many years, with Israeli civilian authorities dictating the policy of the Civil Administration. All previous Israeli governments, however, have been cautious about interfering with the formal governing structure in the occupied West Bank and have been careful to keep the occupation as a military government.

The concentration of powers in an occupying military force, temporarily until an agreed solution is reached on the status of the occupied territory, is a principle of international law – an expression of the important prohibition against obtaining sovereignty that was introduced in the wake of World War II. The prohibition against annexing occupied territory is one of the foundations of the new world order that was built on the ruins of the world wars, and its goal is to eliminate one of the incentives for going to war. [my emphasis] (3)

In an article earlier this year, Abrams sneered at the idea of a “two-state solution.” This is now clearly an unrealistic option. But it still is the official negotiating position of the US and other Western countries, as Abrams knows very well. In fact, the practical choice is between an apartheid state “from the river to the sea” with Jewish citizens and disenfranchised Palestinians., or a one-state solution in which the current Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza become a secular and democratic state. This is a version of what has really always been the Israeli position: no Palestinian state and no place for the Palestinians in the occupied territories. Ever. (4)

How helpful Abrams has been as a Biden official is illustrated by this fact:

Just weeks before the [October 7, 2023] attack [on Israel by Hamas from Gaza], Elliott Abrams, a longtime U.S. operative who is now a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, exemplified this kind of intelligence failure when he advised a congressional committee that Hamas was focusing its operations in the West Bank, not Gaza.

Hamas “wants to restrain attacks from Gaza,” Abrams told Congress. This is because “it wants to avoid Israeli strikes on Gaza, where it is governing. It wants a level of calm there. It wants the border crossings open.”

Despite these analytical errors, U.S. officials have maintained accurate intelligence on Gaza. Since the May 2021 war, the highest-level U.S. officials have understood that the cycle of violence would likely recur unless conditions in Gaza improved. (5)

Heckuva job, Elliott, heckuva job!

Notes:

(1) What Trump’s return will mean for Israel - Elliott Abrams. Begin Center YouTube channel 12/04/2024. <https://youtu.be/TKxYGxdZrRw?si=eUmz6VhHNXSHsw3W> (Accessed: 2024-07-12).

(2) Pierce, Charles (2023): Congratulations to Elliott Abrams, Hype Man for Murderous Regimes Past, On His New Job. Esquire 07/05/2023. <https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a44444388/elliott-abrams-biden-appointment/> (Accessed: 2024-07-12).

(3) Israel's Cabinet Just Advanced Full-fledged Apartheid in the West Bank. Haaretz 02/26/2023. <https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/2023-02-26/ty-article/.premium/israels-cabinet-just-advanced-full-fledged-apartheid-in-the-west-bank/00000186-8a7e-d525-a9ef-9efe63060000> (Accessed: 2024-07-12). Note: This was seven months before the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023.

(4) Abrams, Elliott (2024): The Two-State Delusion. Tablet 02/01/2024. <https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/two-state-delusion> (Accessed: 2024-07-12).

(5) Hunt, Edward (2023): The Real U.S. Intelligence Failure in Gaza. Foreign Policy in Focus 10/12/2023. <https://fpif.org/the-real-u-s-intelligence-failure-in-gaza/> (Accessed: 2024-07-12).

Trump’s incoming Israel/Middle East team: they don’t look all that dovish

“This administration [Biden’s] has done less to restrain Israel than pretty much any administration, except perhaps the previous one, the Trump administration.” – Rashid Khalidi (1)

Peter Beinart has a helpful essay on what he might expect from Trump on the current Middle East wars, based on his first term in office. Beinart describes the …

... dynamic that will likely play out again in Trump’s second term: The president will criticize Israeli behavior in ways that surprise the media and rattle his allies on the pro-Israel right. But it won’t matter, because he is again surrounding himself with passionate supporters of the Jewish state. And given Trump’s ignorance, laziness, and incompetence, his pro-Israel advisers will maneuver around him to ensure that Israel enjoys a free hand. [my emphasis] (2)

He quotes John Bolton speculating “that Trump’s support for Israel in the first term is not guaranteed in the second term, because Trump’s positions are made on the basis of what’s good for Donald Trump, not on some coherent theory of national security.”

But Nasim Ahmed reminds us of the general orientation of Trump’s first-term Israel policy:

If Donald Trump and his fervent supporters are to be believed, the President-elect’s promise to revive the “America First” agenda during his second term will be anchored in the principle of “peace through strength”. In the context of Israel-Palestine, such a vision is highly likely to empower Jewish supremacy and facilitate the most extreme territorial ambitions of Israel’s far-right government. ...

In his first term, Trump employed the doctrine of peace through strength in advancing Israeli interests in several ways. In a move that was in clear defiance of international law, Trump used US power to unilaterally recognise Israel’s claim to sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights and relocated the US embassy to Jerusalem. These illegal moves reshaped the political landscape and have set the stage for what looks to be an even more assertive pro-Israel stance during Trump’s second term.

The clearest indication that the President-elect will put his administration in the service of Jewish supremacy are Trump’s recent appointments, which have sparked jubilation among Israel’s right-wing establishment, while raising eyebrows among some of his America First base. [my emphasis] (3)

Yet the lineup of staff that he’s assembling make a different expectation more likely, as Beinart observes:

Bolton is likely correct that Trump doesn’t care much about Israel. He doesn’t care much about anything except himself. But Bolton is wrong to assume that Trump’s personal preferences will determine policy in a second term. That’s because Trump operates within the contemporary Republican Party, where there are virtually no influential figures—among politicians, donors, or foreign policy experts—eager to challenge unconditional United States support for Israel. Even J.D. Vance, who is skeptical of American support for Ukraine, doesn’t apply that reticence to the Jewish state. In this environment, even a highly engaged, policy-oriented Republican president would struggle to find advisers willing to challenge Netanyahu. Trump is far too ignorant and self-absorbed for that. He instead takes the path of least resistance and surrounds himself with people deeply connected to the Jewish and Christian pro-Israel right.

In the first term, that meant [former US Ambassador to Israel David] Friedman, [Trump’s former special representative for international negotiations Jason] Greenblatt, [son-in-law] Kushner, United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. For his second, he has begun assembling even more extreme supporters of a “greater Israel” that would extend from the river to the sea: Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, UN Ambassador Elise Stefanik, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, and Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff. His nominees for secretary of state and secretary of defense, Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth, are zealously pro-Israel as well. Former Trump diplomat and extreme Iran hawk Brian Hook is running the transition team for the State Department. Even though Trump at times campaigned as a peace candidate who would end Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon, this growing team clearly signals that he’s likely to help Israel make them even more brutal. [my emphasis; paragraph break added]

One good guideline for evaluating Trump’s Israel policy as he takes office is to apply the same caution to his policies as to Biden’s: occasional nice words don’t matter unless he’s willing to actually cut arms supplies to Israel.

Jacob Kornbluh writing in the conservative Forward looks at Trump’s Israel team:

His first national security picks are die-hard Israel supporters, some of whom have denied the existence of the Palestinian people and back the annexation of the occupied West Bank. These loyalists are set to advance his “America First” and hardline populist agenda in a second term. They could signal some shifts in longstanding U.S. policy, especially regarding a possible conflict with Iran and resolving conflicts in the Middle East. (4)

Pete Hegseth, Trump’s more-than-dubious nominee for Secretary of Defense, sounds like he’ll be hot to trot on war with Iran:

Hegseth called for U.S. military action against Iran back in 2020. “I don’t want boots on the ground, I don’t want occupation, I don’t want endless war,” he said on Fox News. “But Iran has been in endless war with us for 40 years. Either we put up and shut up now and stop it, or we kind of wait, go back to the table, and let them dither while they attempt to continue to develop the capabilities to do precisely what they said they want to do.” (Kornbluh) [my emphasis]

A former college roommate of Jared Kushner’s, Adam Boehler, also sounds like he thinks war with Iran would be a great idea:

Boehler’s nomination to the role, with the rank of ambassador and requiring Senate confirmation, is a positive sign for the families of Israeli hostages, including the American hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. In past writings and interviews, Boehler said U.S. negotiations to secure the release of American citizens wrongfully detained abroad should be backed by the threat of military action. Earlier this year, he said that the Abraham Accords happened because Trump took a hard stance on Iran.

“That is how real peace is achieved in the Middle East, through strength. Now is the time to get tough on Iran and their proxies, especially Hamas.” [my emphasis] (5)

And let’s not forget, war in Syria is picking up again, a conflict in which external players like Israel, Iran, Turkey, and Iraq have particular interests:

The dramatic development in Syria, where rebels have occupied Aleppo and are threatening to move on Hama, has brought pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and perhaps even a sense of panic. He was quick to convene the heads of the defense establishment for an emergency discussion Friday night on the developments in Syria.

The concern in Israel feels like deja vu. The regime of President Bashar Assad may collapse. Iran, with remnants of Hezbollah and the Russian air force, is likely to send its forces again to help prop up the Syrian regime. Just as in the Syrian civil war that erupted in 2011, Israel once again faces the dilemma of which outcome is worse: a weakened Assad regime, fortified by a massive Iranian presence, or extremist jihadi groups that may again reach the Golan border and attack Israel from there.

All this is happening with 50 days left before Trump returns to the White House having made several controversial appointments in the military-intelligence field. This includes people who are inexperienced in dealing with international crises in general and with the Middle East in particular. (6)

It’s easy to be fatalistic about US policy on Israel going inevitably from bad to worse. But that’s exactly the point of view the Israeli right prefer other nations to take. In fact, Netanyahu is obviously a reckless character who is carrying on an actual genocide in Gaza and is engaged in a Greater Israel project – Israel from the river to the sea, we might say – that can only be accomplished by war, not by peace and stability. Netanyahu also really wants to see the US go to war against Iran and carry out regime change there. There are many ways that the situation can deteriorate in a way that Trump will find himself unwilling to take the risks that Netanyahu would like to see him take.

Lara Friedman of the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP) concurs on the hawkish nature of Trump’s Israel team:

After a year of devastating war in Gaza, aided and abetted by a Democratic administration unwilling to impose any red lines on the Israeli government, Trump made a cynical yet effective last-minute appeal to disaffected voters, pitching himself as the “anti-war” candidate who could secure a quick and lasting peace. Friedman, however, suggests that we should not look to Trump but to those around him — to figures like former ambassador David Friedman, Jason Greenblatt, and others who pledge to continue the unfinished work of Trump’s first term. These are the people who will be at the center of what Friedman calls a “Greater Israel” period in U.S. policy: supporting Israeli annexation and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, Gaza, and parts of Lebanon; lifting sanctions on settlers; and preventing any bans on weapons transfers. “They have lists of things that they are ready to do,” Friedman says, warning that we should take them at their word. [my emphasis] (Adler)

But, as David Cay Johnson often reminds us, Trump is also not a competent manager. And also that Trump “creates his own reality.” The situation Trump faces in the Middle East now is far, far more complicated than the one he confronted in 2017. So it’s possible that Trump may come to see the Christian Zionist approach to foreign policy is too messy and too damaging to his own self-image to go as far as Israel wants to push him. As Johnston recently put it, “the ingredient I think Americans don't understand, that Donald's very feral. [If] he feels like something will hurt him, he can turn on a dime.” (7)

Notes:

(1) Khalidi, Rashid (2024): In: O‘Connell, Mark. Israel’s Revenge: An Interview with Rashid Khalidi. New York Review of Books 12/19/2024 issue.

(2) Beinart, Peter (2024): Trump’s Israel Instincts Don’t Matter. Jewish Currents 11/26/2024. <https://jewishcurrents.org/trumps-israel-instincts-dont-matter> (Accessed: 2024-05-12).

(3) Ahmed, Nasim (2024): Trump’s ‘peace through strength’ doctrine will put the US in the service of Jewish supremacy. Middle East Monitor 11/14/2024. <https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241114-trumps-peace-through-strength-doctrine-will-put-the-us-in-the-service-of-jewish-supremacy/> (Accessed: 2024-05-12).

(4) Kornbluh, Jacob (2024): Your complete guide to Trump’s Jewish advisers and pro-Israel cabinet. Forward 11/13/2024. <https://forward.com/news/674101/trump-cabinet-israel-rubio-huckabee-jewish/> (Accessed: 2024-05-12).

(5) Melman, Yossi (2024): Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard Make Israel's Syrian Dilemma Harder Than Ever. Haaretz 12/02/2024. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-12-02/ty-article/.premium/pete-hegseth-and-tulsi-gabbard-make-israels-syrian-dilemma-harder-than-even/00000193-8837-dc12-a7d3-ea3f83640000?gift=517341a724b9418a9db8ffb0aa58b8da> (Accessed: 2024-05-12).

(6) Adler, Jonathan (2024): Trump’s unfinished business for ‘Greater Israel’. +972 Magazine 11/13/2024. <https://www.972mag.com/trump-greater-israel-lara-friedman/> (Accessed: 2024-05-12).

(7) South Korea.Trump. There's a Tsunami of Authoritarianism Rising Around the World, David Cay Johnston. The Mark Thompson Show YouTube channel 12/04/2024.7:20 ff. <https://youtu.be/cqPILEXO-HU?si=_ABMp3EZZnSPfOGh> (Accessed: 2024-05-12).