Effective and constructive foreign policy requires actual diplomacy

Paul Krugman during the post-2008 period promoted a comment from the economist Rudiger Dohrnbush about the 1994 Mexican debt crisis: “It took forever and then it took a night.”

Something similar might be said of the year 2026 in American foreign policy.

Anatol Lieven spoke to Tom Switzer about the protracted war of attrition in the Russia-Ukraine War: (2)

Über-Realist John Mearsheimer talks about the current situation of the war and comments he heard on a recent visit to Russia: (3)

Trita Parsi also discusses the disaster of the US-Israel War on Iran: (4)

A couple of things stand out in these videos. One is how drastically the previous US status has declined. Some of that was more-or-less inevitable as China became relatively more powerful and as countries like India and Brazil became more influential. But we can hardly say it has been a smoothly managed decline over the last six decades or so.

But there are longer trends, and there are the specifics of diplomacy and military policy. There is an old saying: It’s easier to get into a war than to get out of one. In the case of the Russia-Ukraine War and the current Iran War, the US could declare it’s just stopping its participation in both. In practice, though, any half-stable peace settlement in both cases would require complicated diplomacy conducted by competent diplomats. And, as the discussions above indicate, the Trump Administration has been incapable of that in both cases.

The current diplomatic gambit of Canada becoming a possible “associate member” of the EU is only one illustration of the tailspin in which basic US diplomacy finds itself. Currently there is no such thing as an EU “associate member,” by the way, though the EU does have elaborate diplomatic networks, including official “partnerships.” The EU is more flexible and creative than American pundits tend to think. So associate membership could become A Thing. It’s worth noting that becoming a full member of the EU includes an explicit mutual defense commitment. So Canada joining such an alliance would inevitably been seen as a negative thing by the US, and not just by Trumpistas.

Sometimes, plain incompetence plays a bigger role in statecraft than we would like to think.

A further comment on the status of the war in Ukraine. It’s a stalemate. Since mid-2023, it’s become a protracted version of the trench warfare of the First World War, only this time with efficient drones instead of rudimentary air forces. There are still respectable media evaluations claiming that Russia is on the ropes and if Western nations keep pouring aid into Ukraine and cheering for the home team (Ukraine), then Ukraine will somehow someday win and Russia will be humiliated and revert to the internal mess of the early 1990s. Or something like that.

This is where serious diplomacy by the US in conjunction with the EU countries and Britain could be useful in coming up with a Korea-style settlement, which seems to be the most optimistic prospect for Ukraine and Europe in the immediately foreseeable future. No European country is going to commit forces to direct combat with Russia inside Ukraine in the current situation. And by most accounts, it certainly appears that Russia is able and willing to continue the war of attrition indefinitely. The Russia-hawk crew in the foreign policy establishment still seems to be committed to the fantasy that the US-backed mujahedeen “freedom fighters” in Afghanistan were what brought down the USSR. And if the Ukrainians will stay willing to continue the war, that will weaken Russia.

But actual stable settlements for Ukraine and the Middle East requires competent diplomacy. And the Trump 2.0 regime seems incapable of that in either region.

Notes:

(1) Interviews-Dr. Rudi Dornbusch. Frontline website, n/d. <https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/mexico/interviews/dornbusch.html> (Accessed: 2026-17-09).

(2) Is Ukraine winning the war? Lieven. Switzerland with Tom Switzer YouTube channel 09/16/2026. <https://www.youtube.com/live/2HIs-InkolM?si=Byx44T32dXKOQXR9> (Accessed: 2026-17-09).

(3) John Mearsheimer-Offensive Realism YouTube channel 09/16/2026. <https://youtu.be/M0MpV8RdDlk?si=08IrJSPiv3AkMXjJ> (Accessed: 2026-17-09).

(4) Why some US allies are quietly rooting for Iran. Middle East Eye YouTube channel 09/16/2026. <https://youtu.be/42IQjld0on0?si=d9PIG4tpn4D9L2-6> (Accessed: 2026-17-09).

The latest round of hand-wringing over not pandering to the radical right (Saxony-Anhalt edition)

The first-place finish of the far-right German party Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland, AfD) in the federal state (Bundesland) of Saxony-Anhalt (Sachsen-Anhalt) has set off a new round of discussion about what would happen if another Nazi-like government should come to power in Germany.

Some sample headlines:

Le Monde English: France stunned by the far-right's victory in Germany's Saxony-Anhalt regional elections

Reuters: Far-right win leaves Germany's Merz shaken as AfD plots path to power

New York Times: This Tiny Anti-Establishment Party May Put Germany’s Far Right in Power

Der Spiegel Substack: Germany’s Political Tailspin

Here is a good discussion by two scholars, Jackson Janes and Zsuzsanna Vegh, on the implications of the Saxony-Anhalt vote via the Krasno Global Events Series at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: (1)

The question of the AfD’s vote percentage in this smaller Bundesland is tied up with larger international disputes over whether democratic parties should maintain a “firewall” against far-right, antidemocratic parties. The “firewall” is a Germany-wide and EU-wide issue. But each election has its own peculiarities. This is an attempt to put the news and the post-election discussion into a broader context.

It’s worth noting that the Trump 2.0 Administration supports the AfD as one of their favored European parties:

U.S. President Donald Trump has congratulated Alternative for Germany (AfD) Tuesday for its landslide victory in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, where the far-right party won nearly 44 percent of the votes on Sunday.

“Wow! The Populist Party in Germany just had a really big night,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “They finally got tired of the absolutely horrible Immigration rules and regulations which have hurt Germany so badly.” He concluded his message with a German variant of his Make America Great Again acronym, “MGGA!!!” [Of course, Trump and/or his Truth Social assistant Natalie Harp got the AfD's name wrong!]

It is unusual for a sitting U.S. president to comment on German state elections, however the Trump administration has cultivated close ties with the AfD. U.S. Vice President JD Vance met the party’s co-leader Alice Weidel at the Munich Security Conference in February 2025 and criticized Germany’s “firewall” against the party. AfD officials visited the White House later that year, and senior Trump allies and administration figures have repeatedly backed the party. (2)

At that now-infamous appearance at the Munich Security Conference in 2025, our Opus Dei Vice President J.D. Vance lectured the European democracies about how they shouldn’t have a “firewall” against specific parties because it is undemocratic to do so.

His argument, of course, was nonsense. In parliamentary systems, it is part of the system that any party that does not win a majority of seats will form a coalition with one or more parties to form a government. The fact that they choose some party over the others to form a government doesn’t mean they are being undemocratic to the parties that are not included in the coalition. It’s just how parliamentary systems work.

Saxony-Anhalt has a population of 2.2 million, making it one of the smaller German federal states. For comparison, it has a smaller population than the US State of Mississippi (3.0 million) but bigger than Wyoming (a little less than 600 thousand). Sachsen-Anhalt was part of the former East Germany, the German Democratic Republic (GDR). It was an important industrial state in the GDR but industry has declined in a major way since German unification in 1990.

This is a map showing Saxony-Anhalt in the north of Germany (Wikipedia):

Saxony-Anhalt rarely makes worldwide news unless there is some kind of political or physical disaster. (The same is true for Mississippi and Wyoming in the US.)

The states in Germany all have parliamentary governments, as does Germany at the national level.

The six parties that won seats in the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament (Landtag) were the following. The parties are seated in their order in the left-to-right ranking, as follows:

The Left (Die Linke)
Social Democratic Party (SPD)
Greens Social Democratic Party (SPD)
Christian Democratic Union (CDU)
Bundnis Sarah Wageknecht (BSW)
Alternative für Deutschland (Afd)

This table shows them in that right-to-left configuration with their party colors (Wikipedia, 08/15/2026):

What would an AfD-headed government look like in Sachsen-Anhalt?

The Saxony-Anhalt Landtag has 83 seats, so it would take parties representing at least 42 seats to form a government. The AfD has 39 seats. And if we go by the ranking, it could form a majority with the BSW. But a two-seat majority is pretty thin. And the BSW takes it name from its leader Sarah Wageknecht who, to put it generously, has played a quirky political role since 1990, from a Communist hardliner to a xenophobic populist.

This means that the likelihood is the AfD would either have to form a government with CDU participation. They could also form a minority government that would be “tolerated” by the CDU or the BSW. The best chance the AfD has for a Landtag government that could survive for more than a few weeks would be a coalition government with the CDU as junior partner.

The “firewall” against the far right

There has been much discussion in the press about what in German politics is called a “firewall.” Since the German Federal Republic (West Germany) was founded in 1949, the pro-democracy parties have pursued a policy of not making coalitions with parties that show signs of not being pro-democracy. For decades, German politics had basically three parties: the SPD, the CDU/CSU (Christian Democratic conservative), and the Free Democratic Party (FDP). The FDP is a liberal party in the sense that “liberal” is used basically everywhere in the world but the US and Canada, i.e.: business-friendly, deregulation, civil liberties, austerity economics, limited government.

(The CDU and the CSU (Christian Social Union) operate as a cooperative bloc in national elections. The CSU is essentially a Bavarian party, which is generally more conservative than the CDU.)

The German Green Party – officially Bündnis 90/Die Grünen – was founded in 1980 and has played a “kingmaker” role in national policy by winning enough votes to be a junior partner to the SPD and the CDU.

The Left Party is historically an organizational descendant of the former East German Communist Party (more-or-less).

Although smaller parties were active, from 1949 to 1989 (Fall of the Berlin Wall) Germany’s politics was basically a three-party system. The laws in Germany and Austria and in various other European democracies allow for banning parties that don’t support the basic democratic and constitutional governments. While that can sound ham-fisted to Americans alert to civil-liberties violations, in practice the American legal system does the same thing. There are legal definitions of what legally constitutes a political party.

So when we hear about the AfD in Germany or its model party the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) being far-right and anti-democracy parties, that is a political judgment, and a scholarly one for professional researchers and political scientists. And politics is about, well, making political judgments.

It has been the practice in Germany and Austria and various other countries since the Second World War has been to avoid coalition governments at the national or state level with far-right parties. This was based in particular on how both Mussolini and Hitler came to power with the endorsement and support of conservative, non-fascist parties.

But 1922 and 1932 were a long time ago. So, the argument goes, why not let them into a coalition government and see if that “tames” them? The record with the FPÖ in Austria is clear. After decades in which the FPÖ took place in state governments and had two stints as a coalition partner with the Austrian Christian-conservative ÖVP at the national level –which went really badly both times – the FPÖ is basically as extremist and irresponsible as it ever was. (And that’s putting it generously!)

Another line of argument, also plausible on its surface, is that the far-right parties are responding to voters’ feeling of “economic discontent” (to use a favorite phrase of lazy US legacy media commentators) or vague alienation or social-status jitters when people look at immigrants all over the place. It’s not that these kinds of commentaries are completely wrong. But those who use them often try to avoid more specific and relevant observations. Usually this is accompanied by advice to the more mainstream and pro-democracy parties to try to make constructive compromises with far-right critics and cooperate on constructive policies.

In the European context, xenophobia has been a remains central focus for far-right parties, certainly including the AfD and the FPÖ. Experience from France, Britain, Italy, Germany, Austria and the US and other places as well has shown remarkably consistently that when the conservative parties try to attract voters by aping the xenophobic politics of the far right, it weakens support for the conservative parties and increases support for the far-right parties.

Harry Truman addressing the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), a left-liberal activist group, told them in 1952:

I've seen it happen time after time. When the Democratic candidate allows himself to be put on the defensive and starts apologizing for the New Deal and the fair Deal, and says he really doesn't believe in them, he is sure to lose. The people don't want a phony Democrat. If it's a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time; that is, they will take a Republican before they will a phony Democrat, and I don't want any phony Democratic candidates in this campaign. [emphasis added] (3)

Something similar happens in European elections, as well. It’s just that with parliamentary systems, there are typically several significant parties from which to choose, not just two.

Notes:

(1) The Rise of the Far-Right AfD Party in Germany with Dr. Jackson Janes & Zsuzsanna Vegh. DrasnoUNC YouTube channel 09/14/2026. https://youtu.be/cPZzwjoZQO4?si=ovcklsLrqKvUWZon (Accessed: 2026-16-09).

(2) Zakharova, Daria (2026): Trump hails AfD win in Saxony-Anhalt. Politico EU 09/09/2026. <https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-congratulates-afd-saxony-anhalt-election-win/> (Accessed: 2026-16-09).

(3) LibQuotes. <https://libquotes.com/harry-s-truman/quote/lbx4f8m> (Accessed: 2026-16-09).

The Carter Doctrine and the US role in the Middle East today

The Carter Doctrine isn't much mentioned today. But it represented a major step toward the involvements the US has more recently undertaken in the Greater Middle East, including Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran.

Nikolas Gvosdev mentions it in The Carter Doctrine Conundrum: Has Trump Repudiated a Foundational Element of U.S. National Security Strategy? The National Interest 01/10/2020:

Forty years ago, President Jimmy Carter made a commitment that the United States would guarantee the free flow of energy from the Persian Gulf region to the rest of the world. In his State of the Union address [01/23/1980], he declared that instability in the region “demands collective efforts to meet this new threat to security in the Persian Gulf and in Southwest Asia. It demands the participation of all those who rely on oil from the Middle East and who are concerned with global peace and stability. And it demands consultation and close cooperation with countries in the area which might be threatened. Meeting this challenge will take national will, diplomatic and political wisdom, economic sacrifice, and, of course, military capability. We must call on the best that is in us to preserve the security of this crucial region. Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.” His successor as president, Ronald Reagan, issued a “corollary” to the so-called Carter Doctrine in October 1981, whereby the internal stability of the governments of the region, as well as defending them from external attack, became a prime national interest of the United States. [emphasis added]

George McGovern addressed the Carter Doctrine a few months after it was promulgated in How to Avert a New 'Cold War' The Atlantic June 1980. The title of the article is a reminder that while today the Cold War is conventionally dated from 1945-1948 to 1989, definitions have varied. Global Security's entry on Cold War reads:

By one reckoning, the Cold War began in the 1945-1948 timeframe, and ended in 1989, having been a dispute over the division of Europe. By another account, the Cold War began in 1917 with the Bolshevik Revolution, and ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, having been a conflict between Bolshevism and Democracy.

The latter definition is a quirky and very ideological (i.e., hard right) one and is much more rare.

The term "Cold War" was first used in 1947 by Bernard Baruch, senior advisor to Harry Truman, the 33rd president of the United States, in reference to the frequently occurring and exacerbating crises between the United States and the former Soviet Union, despite having fought side-by-side against Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

The ultra-respectable Encyclopædia Britannica expands on the origin of the term:

The term was first used by the English writer George Orwell in an article published in 1945 to refer to what he predicted would be a nuclear stalemate between “two or three monstrous super-states, each possessed of a weapon by which millions of people can be wiped out in a few seconds.” It was first used in the United States by the American financier and presidential adviser Bernard Baruch in a speech at the State House in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1947.

Britannica leans toward the later beginning date: "The Cold War had solidified by 1947–48, when U.S. aid provided under the Marshall Plan to western Europe had brought those countries under American influence and the Soviets had installed openly communist regimes in eastern Europe." (emphasis added) They also use 1991 as the end date, but focus on the ebbs and flows of its intensity:

The 1970s saw an easing of Cold War tensions as evinced in the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) that led to the SALT I and II agreements of 1972 and 1979, respectively, in which the two superpowers set limits on their antiballistic missiles and on their strategic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons. That was followed by a period of renewed Cold War tensions in the early 1980s as the two superpowers continued their massive arms buildup and competed for influence in the Third World. But the Cold War began to break down in the late 1980s during the administration of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. ...

On December 31, 1991, the Soviet Union formally ceased to exist, and 15 Soviet republics became independent countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. The Cold War had come to an end.

It was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 that presented the opportunity to announce the Carter Doctrine.

Given my admiration for Carter's post-Presidential career and his important and substantive contributions to world peace, I'm almost tempted to apologize for discussing the problematic nature of his signature foreign policy doctrine as President. But the reality is, it was an unncessary surrender to the hawks in his administration led by National Securit Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. And we now know that it had some grim implications. Not the least of them was the contribution that the US support for the mujahadeen Islamic fighters opposing the pro-Soviet government played in generating the brand of Muslim fundamentalist terrorism with which we have more recently become familiar. Osama bin Laden got his start as a jihadist in Afghanistan.

Robert Hunter, a National Security Council staffer at the time, writes that he "conceived the Carter Doctrine and, except for the 'action clause' cited above, added by National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, I wrote virtually all the State of the Union Address" that announced it. (The Persian Gulf Crisis: Beyond The Carter Doctrine LobeLog 09/23/2019) He also argues that the original version was focused very much on the Soviet Union: "the purpose was both clear and limited: to make sure that Moscow did not miscalculate". He elaborates:

Consider the circumstances in January 1980. To Western surprise, the Soviet Union had just invaded Afghanistan. It had forces capable of pushing into Iran, perhaps all the way to the Persian Gulf. Iran was in the throes of a revolution. The United States seemed paralyzed regarding what to do about the U.S. hostages held by the new Iranian government under Ayatollah Khomeini. Thus, the Carter Doctrine had only one purpose, other than to state the obvious (that the flow of oil was important): to deter the Soviet Union.

McGovern argued in 1980 - very plausibly - that the Carter Administration had overrated the nature of the kind of Soviet threat the Afghanistan intervention represented. And he explained his concern that the Carter Doctrine played to the advantage of Cold War hardliners:

To all these possible factors--local, regional, and internal to the Soviet Union--the Carter Administration was indifferent, caught up as it was in the excitement of unveiling its new doctrine. It was almost as if, when the Soviets moved into Afghanistan, we were relieved to find ourselves freed from the complexities of ird World nationalism and the Islamic revival and back on the comfortably familiar turf of a bipolar Cold War world. Once they heard the call of the Carter Doctrine, the Iranians would naturally forget about the shah, the Arabs would forget their differences with Israel, our allies in Western Europe and Japan would gratefully follow our lead, and all would join with us in a grand alliance against Soviet aggression. Now the unwelcome "lesson of Vietnam"--as Daniel Yergin put it, "that 'fundamental designs' may be illusory and that global implications may be secondary to local issues"--could also be cast aside. Americans could be patriots again, without bothering to make the troublesome distinction between patriotism and jingoism.

In this altered environment our "hawks" joyfully trumpet the coming of the "second Cold War." They are also proclaiming their own vindication: have they not warned us all along that detente would fail? They have indeed, but the question remains whether they merely foresaw the breakdown, or helped to contrive it.

McGovern made a point of the kind I dearly wish we heard more often from Democratic leaders today:

Preventing nuclear war has become a national interest second to no other, as well as an interest we share with the Soviet Union and with all other nations. It cannot be too often emphasized that a third world war would in no sense be comparable with the ërst and second world wars, which, destructive though they were, left the world physically intact. Although projections differ as to which side might emerge from a nuclear war with the larger fraction of its industry intact and of its people still alive, no one contests that the losses would be in the hundreds of millions and that our society and economy, even were we to emerge as the "winner" of the conìict, would be grievously crippled. [my emphasis]

McGovern's long essay covers a lot of other ground relating to the Cold War. It's an impressive piece, one showing that there were alternative contemporary possibilities that could have steered developments in a very different direction.

One comment he made in this article is the one that most stuck with me for years: "In the last resort we must be prepared to use military force to assist friendly governments in the [Persian Gulf] region against external or internal threats." (my emphasis) McGovern was well aware of the ugly imperatives imposed on US foreign policy by the country's (then) direct dependence on foreign oil. These days, , that direct dependence has disappared. And yet our Trump even in his first Presidency was babbling about seizing Middle East oil. (Tim Wyatt, 'Maybe we will, maybe we won't’: Trump doubles down on threat to take oil from Syria Independent 01/11/2020)

McGovern made it clear what kind of solution to the dilemma of that time he preferred: "Strengthening our capacity to defend the Arabian peninsula, coupled with an effective and convincing energy program at home, is the real 'message' we need to send to the Soviets, and for that matter to OPEC and the rest of the world."

Lobe argues on the later development of the Carter Doctrine:

Only later did the Carter Doctrine get morphed into something broader, at least in the view of promoters of a wider set of engagements in the region. This wider set of engagements included, but was not limited to, protecting the flow of oil - the long-standing implicit U.S. interest. Indeed, protecting oil shipments in the Persian Gulf has, along with the U.S. commitment to Israel’s security, been an “evergreen” Middle Eastern interest of all U.S. administrations since the late 1940s, when Britain and France withdrew from the region.

What I have written here may sound Jesuitical, but it is not. It shows that the United States in 1980 was responding to the circumstances of the time - a palpable Soviet military and geopolitical threat - which circumstances collapsed with the end of the Cold War. The evergreen U.S. interests have continued, but without the overarching geopolitical implication - namely, that if the U.S. does not act, a major external competitor for power will fill the vacuum. [my emphasis]

US-Israel War on Iran – until 2029?

I shocked myself listening to a PBS segment a few weeks ago in which David “Bobo” Brooks said he wouldn’t be surprised if the current war with Iran is still going on in January 2029. (1) I’m so used to rolling my eyes at what Bobo has to say about wars, I was surprised that my immediate reaction was, well, he could be right about that!

Given the negative effects of a continuing war on the world economy, that seems hard to imagine. But we could be looking at just that. Scott Lucas recently commented on how the war is continuing and spreading: (2)

The problem is that the only way of avoiding a years-long war is for the US to pull out of the war. Robert Pape in the podcasts below talks about why that turns out to be a difficult decision for leaders to make.

But Trump did make a decision to do just that in Afghanistan in the withdrawal agreement he negotiated with the Taliban in 2020, during his first term. Sylvie Kauffmann reported for Le Monde English:

To begin with, Trump negotiated his withdrawal agreement with the Taliban on his own. Alone, meaning not only were Western partners not consulted, but even the Afghan government was excluded from the talks, a Taliban condition that the US president accepted.

The main concern for the Republican president was to succeed where Barack Obama had failed. He wanted to boast in his 2020 campaign for re-election that he was bringing the boys home. The details of the deal mattered little. [my emphasis] (3)

It was a sloppy deal, which didn’t even involve the US client government in Afghanistan, only the US and the Taliban. But it was left to the Biden Administration to implement the withdrawal in 2021. And Trump is still trashing Biden for the withdrawal from Afghanistan on terms Trump himself agreed to. Would the actual withdrawal itself have been better executed if Trump had been re-elected? Theoretically it’s possible, though it’s hard to imagine. Impossible to imagine, actually.

Biden’s National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan described the withdrawal as follows:

The president [Biden] had deep conviction on this issue. He thought we had to end the era of forever wars. Whenever he posed the question, how and when does this end, other than with the US just deciding we are calling it, he did not get a satisfactory answer. The answer tended to be one more year and then one more year, and then, finally, President Trump signed a deal with the Taliban that set the date of May 1 2021, for all American troops to be out of Afghanistan. And that was the situation president Biden confronted when he came in. So he had a choice: he could either let May pass and go back to war with the Taliban, at which point he would have had to add troops because Trump had drawn us down to 2,500. So send more forces to fight and die in Afghanistan in the war’s 20th year. Or choose to follow through on a withdrawal, which we then executed over the next four months.

And for President Biden, part of this overall story of renewing the sources of American strength was also taking the massive strategic liability of an endless war in which America was spending blood and treasure and bringing it to a close. And you said it all went wrong. What I would say is that the withdrawal had significant challenges and tragedy, the loss of 13 American service members. But, sitting here today in 2025, I would be happy to debate people who say, no, no no, we should still be in Afghanistan. [my emphasis] (4)

That was a case where just deciding to leave was the only real way from keeping on with an indefinite war that was doing nothing for American interests. Obama as President could have and should have pulled US forces out – but that’s another story. So just pulling out of a forever war is something that Trump knows about.

The huge difference between that war and the current one against Iran is that Afghanistan did not have the ability to bring on a worldwide depression. And the Iran War has involved numerous countries in the Middle in direct combat operations, including Israel. A US exit from the war on terms that will fully restore traffic in the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait being blocked by Iran’s Houthi allies in Yemen will have to involve the US putting some substantive restraints on Israel. Iran has been demanding that an agreement would have to include Israeli withdrawal from territory it is illegally occupying in Lebanon and Syria.

And one weakness that the US, Israel, and their allies have is the present shortage of missile interceptors. Mark Cancian of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recently observed recently:

[T]he U.S. arsenal is depleted. Some elements are quite depleted. We looked at seven munitions that have been heavily used in the war against Iran. Half of them, we've used a quarter to a third, and about half of them, we've used half of the available inventories, and that creates a what we call a window of vulnerability. There are alternatives, but the alternatives involve greater risk. So it will take several years - one to five - to replace these and then another several years after that to get to where the war planners want to be. …

There are the air and missile defense munitions, Patriot is probably the one most people have heard about. And then there are long-range attack munitions. Tomahawk is probably the one that people have heard of. [my emphasis] (5)

In other words, it would require some complex diplomacy by the Trump 2.0 regime. And we haven’t seen much evidence that they are capable of such a thing. So, we really could be looking at Hormuz and Bab-el-Mandeb Straits still closed in January of 2029. And much, much more regional damage in between. Having a US Administration with no actual strategic concepts for foreign policy and no evident ability to conduct normal, competent diplomacy is really a problem.

Israel, of course, remains a major factor and influence on US policy in the Middle East. Given that the Israeli goal for years has been to weaken all potentially rival government in the area while annexing more and more territory contingent to Israel, the current Israeli government is presumably happy about the level of destruction and disruption the US-Israel War on Iran has brought about.

Another legacy from Trump 1.0 is, of course, the cancellation of the JCPOA, the solid nuclear agreement that the Obama Administration negotiated with Iran. Trump in his first term, acting in concert with the demands of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, pulled out of the agreement which acted as an effective guarantee that Iran would not acquire a nuclear weapon.

Robert Pape has been doing a lot of interviews this year on the Iran War, which he has been wargaming for years and consulting for the US military on the topic. He presents a sobering picture of the present stance of the Trump 2.0 regime on the war. (6)

In the second podcast at the same YouTube channel, Pape addresses the ways in which Russia has also been affected by an escalation trap in the Russia-Ukraine War, another conflict which Trump 2.0’s lack of strategy and competent diplomacy hasn’t been able to stop. (7) Despite Trump’s infamous campaign promise to stop that war on his first day in office.

Notes:

(1) Brooks and Marcus on the Iran conflict becoming a 'forever war'. PBS NewsHour YouTube channel 07/25/2026. <https://youtu.be/PfqRRLcWFRQ?si=EOu5wMWAnbzxHH8t> (Accessed: 2026-27-07).

(2) US War on Iran Becomes An "Uncontained War" Across Region. Scott Lucas Worldview YouTube channel 09/12/20206. <https://youtu.be/ZLZts79_egU?si=EUIN1PsoYD6ZYcCG> (Accessed: 2026-12-09).

(3) Kauffmann, Sylvie (2025): The 2021 US withdrawal from Afghanistan, a solo decision. Le Monde English 06/19/2025. <https://www.lemonde.fr/en/history/article/2025/06/19/the-2021-us-withdrawal-from-afghanistan-a-solo-decision_6742489_157.html ?srsltid=AfmBOoqoZzZqKT2R4Qagmuopae2deEzfszOHkMvfDtK0r6ILSRpMI008> (Accessed: 2026-27-07).

(4) Rachman, Gideon (2025): Transcript: A foreign policy debrief with Jake Sullivan. Financial Times 05/29/2025. <https://www.ft.com/content/515f4d78-be95-4e09-9be2-8663d0f6d2ec?syn-25a6b1a6=1> (Accessed: 2026-27-07).

(5) Defense strategy expert reviews how the Iran War drains vital U.S. missile inventories. NPR 07/25/2026. <https://www.npr.org/2026/07/25/nx-s1-5904597/defense-strategy-expert-reviews-how-the-iran-war-drains-vital-u-s-missile-inventories> (Accessed: 2026-27-07).

(6) Iran War Expert EXPOSES Trump ESCALATION TRAP!!! (1 of 2). Legal AF YouTube channel 07/26/2026. (Accessed: 2026-26-07).

(7) Iran War Expert REVEALS Trump's CATASTROPHIC FAILURE (2 of 2). Legal AF YouTube channel 07/26/2026. <https://youtu.be/oU_urdNNJJE?si=VFX4iTZc63W9GLV2> (Accessed: 2026-27-07).

25 Years Since the 9/11 Attack

Deutsche Welle English has this new retrospective of nearly and hour and a half on the 9/11 attack. (1)

That documentary describes the event as “the day the world changed forever.”

It’s the sort of platitude that such retrospectives often use. The standard where-we-you-on-that-day anecdotes are featured in the DW documentary, as well. It’s understandable that media retrospectives would use those freely, because it engages personal memories among those who were old enough to remember where they were that day. (I was also somewhere. I won’t bore anyone with the story here.)

Osama bin Laden’s grandiose plan didn’t play out exactly as he hoped: to the extent we know what he was actually hoping. It seems clear that he expected the US to overreact and do a lot of damage to itself and its position in the world. And that did happen. From today’s perspective, he could have done much more to achieve that goal by pouring lots of Saudi oil money into making Donald Trump a Presidential candidate. But it was difficult in 2001 to know what the self-destruction of a unipolar superpower might look like. We have a much better idea now.

As the documentary notes, a huge increase in Western hostility toward Islam in general was one of the subsequent results, with the enthusiastic encouragement of US neoconservatives and the US’ close ally Israel. Now, 25 years later we’re in yet another Forever War with Iran. Which almost certainly will to even much more damage to the US and the Middle East than it already has.

I’m tempted to use the phrase “chickens coming home to roost,” just because it drives rightwingers crazy. But the term “blowback” popularized by Chalmers Johnson seems more useful. As Johnson himself wrote the month after the 9/11 attacks:

The suicidal assassins of September 11, 2001, did not “attack America,” as our political leaders and the news media like to maintain; they attacked American foreign policy. Employing the strategy of the weak, they killed innocent bystanders who then became enemies only because they had already become victims. Terrorism by definition strikes at the innocent in order to draw attention to the sins of the invulnerable. The United States deploys such overwhelming military force globally that for its militarized opponents only an “asymmetric strategy,” in the jargon of the Pentagon, has any chance of success. When it does succeed, as it did spectacularly on September 11, it renders our massive military machine worthless: The terrorists offer it no targets. On the day of the disaster, President George W. Bush told the American people that we were attacked because we are “a beacon for freedom” and because the attackers were “evil.” In his address to Congress on September 20, he said, “This is civilization’s fight.” This attempt to define difficult-to-grasp events as only a conflict over abstract values–as a “clash of civilizations,” in current post-cold war American jargon–is not only disingenuous but also a way of evading responsibility for the “blowback” that America’s imperial projects have generated.

“Blowback” is a CIA term first used in March 1954 in a recently declassified report on the 1953 operation to overthrow the government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran. It is a metaphor for the unintended consequences of the US government’s international activities that have been kept secret from the American people. The CIA’s fears that there might ultimately be some blowback from its egregious interference in the affairs of Iran were well founded. Installing the Shah in power brought twenty-five years of tyranny and repression to the Iranian people and elicited the Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution. The staff of the American embassy in Teheran was held hostage for more than a year. This misguided “covert operation” of the US government helped convince many capable people throughout the Islamic world that the United States was an implacable enemy. [emphasis added] (2)

Johnson’s concept of blowback was not about karma or morality. It was about taking a practical understanding of possible negative consequences of foreign policy action. It’s about be realistic about cause-and-effect much more so than it is about passing legal or moral judgments on particular actions taken – though such judgements also need to be made.

Important related event sequences

Johnson relates that a big part of this sequence of events was the installation of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in Iraq in 1953 by supporting the overthrown of the more democratic government headed by Mohammad Mossadeq (1882-1967). Operationally that coup was a success that benefitted US and British foreign policy at the time and made international oil corporations very happy – particularly the American ones. (3)

That worked out well from Washington’s official point of view for 27 years, until the Islamic Revolution of 1979. In the 47 years since then, the US has been dealing with the blowback. The 1979 Revolution and the taking of American hostages became a turning point for the view of Islam in general which many policymakers adopted, and which led them to think that actively supporting the Muslim rebels against the Soviet Union and the government in Afghanistan that it backed was a splendid idea. Neocons to this day still cherish the idea that US support for the “brave mujahedeen freedom fighters,” as they were described by the American press was the fatal blow to the existence of the Soviet Union.

Juan Cole wrote in 2018 (during the Trump 1.0 Presidency):

It’s hard today even to imagine that, in the late 1980s, the rightwing Christian Voice Magazine published a “candidate’s biblical scoreboard,” urging its readers (and potential voters) to rate their politicians by how “biblically” they cast their ballots in Congress. One key measure of this: Did that legislator support the anti-Communist Muslim jihadis in Afghanistan, a cause warmly supported by evangelist Pat Robertson in his 1988 presidential campaign? Now, attempting to appeal to twenty-first-century evangelicals, President Trump has announced that “Islam hates us.”

The kaleidoscope of geopolitics and Islamophobia is now spinning so fast that it should make our heads spin, too. At times, it seems as if Donald Trump is the anti-Ronald Reagan of the twenty-first century, idolizing former KGB operative Vladimir Putin, but seeing former U.S. allies in the Muslim world like Pakistan as purveyors of “nothing but lies and deceit” — until, that is, with bewildering rapidity, he suddenly gives us the “good” (that is, oil-rich) Muslims again, willingly performing a sword dance with the Saudi royals, seemingly entirely comfortable with the scimitar of the Saracen. [empjasis added] (4)

The most famous of those brave mujahedeen freedom fighters was the son of a wealthy Saudi businessman, a guy named Osama bin Laden, who was to become America’s Enemy Number One after “Nine Eleven.”

The ties of the US intelligence agencies and in particular those of one-time CIA Director George H.W. Bush and his two-generation Presidential family to the Sunni fundamentalist Saudi monarch were a key element in the process that gave rise to US support of the brave mujahedeen freedom fighters in Afghanistan. (5)

In the 1980s while the US was gleefully assistance the anti-Soviet brave mujahedeen freedom fighters, it didn’t forget Iran in the meantime. St. Ronald Reagan as President managed to do friendly arms-for-hostages deals with Iran to help covertly the pro-dictatorship Contra guerrillas in Nicaragua. But from 1980 to 1988, the US was also actively helping our loyal Iraqi ally Saddam Hussein wage war against Iran, including providing him with chemical weapons and nerve gas for that remarkably bloody war.

But then our solid ally Saddam decided to seize some of the territory of Kuwait, an oil-rich company friendly to Saudi Arabia, so President Bush Sr. invaded in 1991 to push Iraq out of Kuwait. This was an intervention sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council, a conventional war to push out the forces of an illegal invader. But what the generals call “war termination” has often proved to be very tricky for the US. And so it was with this war.

Having accomplished its main mission, Bush Sr. and his Defense Secretary, Dark Lord Dick Cheney, decided to go for regime change in Baghdad. They encouraged Iraqi Kurds to stage an uprising, which Saddam’s government crushed without the US doing much to support our Kurdish allies. So the US imposed a drastic economic sanctions regime against Iraq that basically led to the Iraq War of 2003-on, whose results are now well known.

And when the collapse of Yugoslavia led to a round of Balkan Wars, the Clinton Administration engaged in the Kosovo War, whose ambiguous results are still a major headache for the foreign policies of European countries. The Clinton Administration also engaged in the intensive four-day bombing campaign against Iraq that was bizarrely designated Operation Desert Fox. (Desert Fox was the nickname of the German general Erwin Rommel of World War II renown.)

In retrospect, the Forever Wars were already underway.

The US invaded Afghanistan after the 9/11 attack and quickly dispersed the Al Quida forces there, although the Bush II Administration held back from a concentrated strike against their forces when they had withdrawn into the Tora Bora mountains. The Shrub Bush Administration was addicted to a neocon obsession that terrorism was always some form of state-sponsored terrorism, and so continued a war against the Taliban government that lasted until 2021, when the US left with the Taliban once again in control of Afghanistan. (6)

And now we’re in the current Forever War with Iraq. Led by a chowder-headed President who has no idea how to get out of it.

Notes:

(1) 9/11 - The day that changed the world. DW Documentary YouTube channel 09/10/2026. <https://youtu.be/ppUSZlntc7M?si=SfD5nlvQcjFwBUh4> (Accessed: 2026-11-09).

(2) Johnson, Chalmers (2001): Blowback: US actions abroad have repeatedly led to unintended, indefensible consequences. The Nation 09/27/2026/2001. <https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/blowback/> (Accessed: 2026-11-09).

(3) Lindsay, James (2026): The 1953 Overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq. Council on Foreign Relations 08/19/2026. <https://www.cfr.org/articles/the-1953-overthrow-of-iranian-prime-minister-mohammad-mosaddeq> (Accessed: 2026-11-09).

(4) Cole, Juan (2018): Hating Muslims in the age of Trump: The new Islamophobia looks like the old McCarthyism. Le Monde diplomatique English 10/10/2018. <https://mondediplo.com/openpage/hating-muslims-in-the-age-of-trump> (Accessed: 2026-11-09).

(5) See Craig Unger’s books House of Bush, House of Saud (2004) and The Fall of the House of Bush (2007).

(6) The U.S. War in Afghanistan. Council on Foreign Relations 09/27/2022. <https://www.cfr.org/articles/us-war-afghanistan> (Accessed: 2026-11-09).

Haaretz has a new report about Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of warning about the October 7 attack in 2023

Another report about the generally disgraceful career of Benjamin Netahnyahu. (1)

These were the final days of September 2023. Terrorist attacks inflamed the West Bank, masses of Gazans regularly protested at the border fence, and the country was reeling from internal conflict over the judicial coup laws. Anyone watching the events with clear eyes could sense that an escalation was lurking around every corner.

UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed – known as MBZ – was particularly concerned. "He spoke with me about this often in the months leading up to the war," recounts President Isaac Herzog, who maintains friendly relations with bin Zayed. "He constantly conveyed messages that the situation needed to be defused. He even sent a special envoy to Israel who met with the prime minister. The emir seemed to sense that the area was on the verge of explosion."

If you thought Netanyahu’s reputation couldn’t get any worse …

Breaking Points reports on the story: (2)

Sam and Emma also commented about it on The Majority Report: (3)

Notes:

(1) Eldar, Shlomi & Yuval, Ruth (2026): Revealed: Netanyahu Received an Explicit Warning Days Before Oct. 7. He Didn't Brief Israel's Security Chiefs. Haaretz 09/08/2026. Gift link: <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-security/2026-09-08/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/netanyahu-got-an-explicit-warning-before-oct-7-he-didnt-brief-security-chiefs/000001a0-7a3b-d7d5-a9fc-7eff3d0f0000?gift=40c25aefb3a54c5bb14053500d89ac52&fbclid=IwY2xjawUOiYJwZG9mBWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR7IPWPvq7xAlGosnSBAn5ejnOMlth0uDtwS5HeOtz43lfZYWotReLCHAPtNJQ_aem_chOhwIO9scxZD1G-z74jHg> (Accessed: 2026-09-09).

(2) Bibi Warned Of 10/7 Attack & Did Nothing. Breaking Points YouTube channel 09/09/2026. <https://youtu.be/Nk1m1RvFESA?si=WgoQWmcMFdj2cF_u> (Accessed: 2026-09-09).

(3) Report: Netanyahu Was Warned About Oct 7 Attacks And Did Nothing. The Majority Report YouTube channel 09/09/2026. <https://youtu.be/d5W0a3VOc9Q?si=d7zXk4wzCMlGo3RL> (Accessed: 2026-09-09).

“Meanwhile, Republicans are a mess.”

Two recent commentaries offer evaluations of the streagth and shortcomings of some of the major anti-Trump themes.

One is from Ben Rhodes, who was a speechwriter in Obama’s 2008 campaign, a Deputy National Security Adviser in the Obama Administration, and the brother of David Rhodes, a former president of CBS News. He now co-chairs the National Security Action NGO with Jake Sullivan. (1)

He distinguishes three trends among what quickly became known during Trump 1.0 as Resistance Liberals, or even just the Resistance. He is not impressed by the impact of “Never Trumpers,” usually conservatives and even hardline conservatives, who at least had sense enough to see that Trump was a serious mess:

[A]lmost all this energy existed online or in cable news segments. There was no wave of Republicans away from Trump in the physical world. The attention generated could juice follower counts, sell books, and raise money, but it was inherently preaching to the hyper-political converted. Still, Democrats continued to celebrate Never Trumpers through 2024 – Liz Cheney was even enlisted as a leading surrogate for Kamala Harris – ignoring the fact that there was little evidence of a non-elite Never Trump coalition (and much evidence that people of all political persuasions weren’t nostalgic for the pre-Trump Republican Party). [emphasis added]

Now during Trump 2.0, Trump’s approval among Republicans has sunk to what looks suspiciously like the lowest point imaginable that it can reach. (After all, some non-trivial part of the Republican Party are just plain authoritarians.)

Rhodes argues that criticisms of Trump that stayed stuck on high-minded criticisms of how he was eroding important norms – while not constantly reminding concrete examples of how that hurt normal people’s lives – to some extent “played into Trump’s narrative of a Deep State hellbent on sabotaging him.” Looking at Alex Vindman’s Senate primary race in Florida this year in which he outspent his opponent Angie Nixon by several times over, Rhodes observes, “Democratic Socialist Angie Nixon’s message was grittier, more in tune with the anger and hurt people are feeling at the community level with both Trump and a Democratic Party that failed them. She beat him by double digits.”

It would be difficult to argue with this conclusion of Rhodes’:

As painful as it has been to learn, … Trump wasn’t an aberration. At minimum, he’s symbiotic with what has happened to the Republican Party and American conservatism in the polarized age of social media and right-wing media. More alarmingly, he reflects deeply embedded aspects of the American psyche (xenophobia, anti-immigrant sentiment and racialized backlash; a cult of success and celebrity and an odd affinity for con men), a ferocious backlash to globalization and the elites who trumpeted it, and a uniquely stubborn brand of nationalist strongman politics that is ascendent around the globe.

As appealing as Barack Obama’s message of no-red-America/no-blue-America sounded at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 may have sounded, the reality is that the Republican Party is now dominated by people who celebrate having masked, armed ICE agents prowling American cities looking for anyone who they think is Latino or Haitian – some of whom have been committing acts of state terror. When it comes to using our votes to defend democracy and the basic rule of law: today there unfortunately is a “red” American political party that supports ICE violence and levels of corruption in the federal government unparalleled in US history.

Meanwhile, everyone who is serious about defending the democratic system and having a government that is both decent and effective for ordinary people and not just for TechBro oligarchs, are on a very different side than the Trumpists. And those people really are a resistance to the Trumpists authoritarian project.

Noah Berlatsky also takes a look at the (lazy) media narrative of “Democrats in disarray” in a piece called “Democrats in array,” in which he focuses on how the party base and unsuccessful primary candidates pulled together in the post-primary period. (2)

Berlatsky doesn’t put much stock in the suggestion of New York Times reporter and commentator Michelle Cottle that Trump was able to come into power due to “the excesses of woke.” But if the virtues of Republican Asleepism are new epidemics of preventable diseases, tainted food, and even a military that can’t afford to pay its soldiers but keeps demanding more money for weapons manufacturers – it’s rather hard to see where there are huge constituencies for such things.

He also was not impressed with an argument in The Hill that “Democrats’ progressive surge could complicate [House Democratic Leader Hakeem] Jeffries’s path to unity.” This could be true – if the Democrats were to go back to a 1992-like concept of a Party “big tent” that would include hardline opponents of abortion rights but exclude anyone who thought that the wealthiest TechLords should pay something closer to a fair share of taxes.

The old Big Tent was happy to have a conservative like Joe Lieberman, even after he campaigned for Republican John McCain for President in 2008. (It was a historically strange and even sad moment when John Kerry after that election welcomed Lieberman back into the Democratic Caucus without even demanding he lose his seniority.) And that was decades after the time when the liberal/conservative ideological split in Congress crossed both parties. Today, the notion of a “liberal Republican” in the US seems like a completely oxymoron. Even Never Trumpers who would adore having Liz Cheney as President are leery about calling themselves something so leftie as “liberal Republican.”

In 2026 so far, we haven’t heard many progressive winners of Democratic primaries demanding the immediate nationalization of Amazon and Google. Although those polluting, energy-sucking AI data centers that drive up everyone’s heating and cooling bills don’t exactly seem to be as popular as championship football games or Taylor Swift.

Berlatsky is also singularly unimpressed with the Republican and press obsession with the Republicans “Hasan Piker” bogeyman. He also notes, “a conversation in which [Piker] argued that Zionist propaganda can increase antisemitism has been presented (duplicitously) as an antisemitic diatribe, though this is a point also made by many progressive Jews (including me).” He also notes of Michigan Democratic Senate candidate, Abdul El-Sayed, “A big part of the reason for El-Sayed’s lead is a factor that national media hardly ever mentions: [his Republican opponent] Mike Rogers is a Trump lackey who is very unpopular. A recent poll puts his favorability at 11 points underwater, while El-Sayed’s favorability is at plus 1.”

Centrists and pundits stuck in 40-year-old stereotypes and media clichés might want to take a moment to reflect on the fact that the Democratic Party that elected Jack Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson as Presidents included inveterate white racists like Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, and James Eastland. The splits in the Democratic Party in 2026 look like friendly tennis matches compared to those days. (Which does not mean that there are no real disagreements over serious matters.)

And for anyone who actually thinks currently nominated Democratic candidates like El-Sayed and Angie Nixon are some kind of left-of-center versions of the Thurmonds and Wallaces of not so long ago, there’s bad news for you: You’ve become a Trumpist Republican.

But the YouTube channel called “The Resistance” does produce some inspired protest songs! (The short intro in an imitation Merle Haggard voice is a nice touch.) (3)





This essay was first posted at the ProDA-Progressive Democrats Abroad Substack.

Notes:

(1) Rhodes, Ben (2026): Where the Resistance Went Wrong. Notes on the Stories We Tell 08/20/2026. <https://benrhodes1.substack.com/p/where-the-resistance-went-wrong> (Accessed: 2026-02-09).

(2) Berlatsky, Noah (2026): Democrats in array. Public Notice 09/01/2026. <https://www.publicnotice.co/p/democrats-in-array> (Accessed: 2026-01-09).

(3) Don’t You Wish He Was More Like Dolly? The Resistance YouTube channel 08/26/2026. <https://youtu.be/oI8j3xsmYJk?si=LkdrP4C232sUcrr8&t=212> (Accessed: 2026-01-09).

The European far right’s demagoguery over immigration

Le Monde English has been reporting on how the far-right has been surviving and sometimes improving their position by demagoguing the immigration issue:

It is an illusion to believe that once the far right gets what it wants, it might pause its demands. In Brussels, pressure from Italian leader Giorgia Meloni, allied with Danish Social Democrat Mette Frederiksen, has not abated. Together, they led 22 out of 27 member states to condemn what they saw as Spain's negligence during the Ceuta crisis in July, when 50,000 Moroccans entered the Spanish enclave. As negotiations resume on the common EU budget, the two leaders are demanding that the Union finance return hubs for migrants. The European Commission has consistently stated it will not foot the bill. (1)

The sudden influx of over 70 thousand immigrants/refugees/asylum seekers into the Spanish city of Ceuta from neighboring Morocco in late July gave European xenophobes a new opportunity to promote fear and hatred against foreigners – because that’s what xenophobes do.

As of the end of August, Spain’s Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez took an interesting diplomatic position:

The prime minister carefully avoided blaming Morocco for the crisis, instead attributing the surge to human-smuggling mafias, as well as to online campaigns orchestrated by Russia, Israel and “an international far-right group that always uses migration not only to attack Spain but also Europe, and divide it.”

“Continuing to spread defamatory lies will not distract from Sánchez’s disgraceful failure to manage his country’s affairs,” Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said on X in response to Sánchez’s interview. (2)

The Guardian reports:

As many as 141 people are thought to have died trying to enter the Spanish enclave at the end of July. The influx of about 70,000 men, women and children unleashed a political crisis, a humanitarian emergency and reignited tensions within the EU over immigration.

Despite speculation that Rabat may have engineered the mass crossing as a means of showing its displeasure at Spain’s rapprochement with Algeria, Sánchez said there was nothing to indicate the involvement of the Moroccan authorities.

“There’s no information from any intelligence agency that raises doubts over the involvement of Moroccan authorities,” he told Cadena Ser radio on Monday. “Cooperation with Morocco is frankly positive. I’d like to stress that we need to be aware that this crisis can be resolved only through cooperation – and not through a lack of trust in Morocco, which would only further aggravate the already complex situation we have in Ceuta.”

Sánchez said fake news had been pumped out on social media accounts “associated with Russia, Israel and the international far right that always use migration to attack not just Spain but also Europe”. (3)

That last point is extremely important. He’s warning fellow Europeans that pandering to xenophobic agitators plays nicely into the hands of unfriendly actors like Russia. With the German government as of September 1 directly blaming Russia for the strange incident of armed drones showing up at the Leipzig airport, that’s a not-so-subtle reminder that they have good reason not to boost the far right’s propaganda against immigrants.

Israel and the US are angry with Spain because it banned the use of Spanish airspace for military flights taking part in the illegal war of aggression the US and Israel launched against Iran in February. So that is at least plausible, as is the (unspecific) reference to a far right group. But it is also hard to ignore that the governments of the US, Russia, and Israel all in various ways currently encourage and defend far-right xenophobic parties and groups in Europe. And, yes, those xenophobic parties include a lot of supporters with antisemitic sentiments, to put it mildly.

But it’s also doesn’t seem plausible that the Moroccan government played no significant role because of the large numbers of people crossing the border in such a short time. And surely it was very aware of the massive social media campaign targeting Moroccan’s leading up to that situation. Spain opposes Morocco’s demand to take over Western Sahara. And Morocco is also part of the US-backed Abraham Accords with Israel.

There certainly are lots of provocative incidents that seem to be emanating from Putin’s Russia, including attempts to interfere in European elections. That kind of interference is tricky to define. But there are national and international laws and established diplomatic practices to define which of those are legitimate and which not.

Le Monde recently reported:

France has also faced highly targeted political destabilization operations. In early August, the Paris public prosecutor's office opened an investigation into suspected Russian interference targeting two of Emmanuel Macron's former prime ministers, Gabriel Attal (Renaissance, the centrist party founded by Macron) and Edouard Philippe (center-right Horizons), as well as the Member of the European Parliament Raphaël Glucksmann (center-left Place Publique). All three, who are candidates in the 2027 presidential election, filed complaints after the circulation of deepfakes and fake news reports produced by media outlets alleging they had health problems or had committed acts of corruption. Viginum, the government agency responsible for combating foreign digital interference, lamented the publicity surrounding these operations, which, according to the agency, provides "greater visibility to content that is seen by very few citizens." (4)

Overblown fears of immigration are often more like mass panic or mass delusion than any kind of practical approach to or understanding of immigration issues. So a carefully orchestrated campaign that some countries or group of countries like that over the Ceuta incident in July can have damaging political effects if the pro-democracy parties are willing and able to direct discredit the scare narratives.

Eric Albert reports on an important report on a 2026 study published by the European Central Bank (ECB), Shaping Europe’s future: innovation, growth and stability by Giovanni Peri. (5) That report says in its opening Abstract:

OECD countries experienced declining native population growth and rising net immigration over 1990-2024. [I.e., a quarter of a century] We compile a new dataset of net immigration rates to OECD countries from all origins and show that most of the increase came from non-OECD countries and was predominantly high-skilled. Push factors, network effects, and policy indices explain little of the large cross-country heterogeneity in immigration dynamics; unexpected shocks and surges were common. Using local projections and several sources of identifying variation, we then estimate the relationship between immigration and growth in GDP per capita, labor productivity, capital investment, and total factor productivity (TFP). Immigration from non-OECD countries was a significant predictor of GDP per worker growth, primarily through higher investment. High-skilled immigration, in particular, was associated with stronger human capital accumulation, faster TFP growth, and greater capital deepening. Native population growth, by contrast, had no or weakly negative effects on GDP per capita and productivity. These results are consistent with a large literature documenting the positive productivity and growth effects of immigration, especially high-skilled immigration. [emphasis added]

None of that is novel or surprising to people who actually take some time to understand that issue. Every country has its own particular challenges with immigration, of course. But do European countries want to continue to have growing GDPs? (Assuming that there is no immediate breakthrough to establishing no-growth abundance economies.)

Albert writes:

[Peri] is well aware, however, that his research – even with supporting evidence – struggles to compete with populist rhetoric: "The problem is that people like me have not managed to find a slogan as effective as 'immigrants take your jobs,'" he noted. "It is false, no data shows it, but it works."

Democratic parties in Europe need to get much more serious about pushing back on that narrative. They should certainly not be encouraging xenophobic politics!

Notes:

(1) Le Monde Editorial (2026): The far right's immigration trap closes in on Europe. Le Monde English 08/27/2026. <https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2026/08/27/the-far-right-s-immigration-trap-closes-in-on-europe_6756902_23.html> (Accessed: 2026-27-08).

(2) Hernández, Aitor (2026): Sánchez takes rare swipe at Spain’s king over Ceuta crisis. Politico EU 08/31/2026. <https://www.politico.eu/article/pedro-sanchez-takes-rare-swipe-at-spains-king-felipe-vi-over-ceuta-crisis/> (Accessed: 2026-01-09).

(3) Jones, Sam (2026): Morocco not to blame for Ceuta border breach, says Spanish PM. Guardian 08/31/2026. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/31/morocco-ceuta-border-breach-spanish-pm-migration-pedro-sanchez> (Accessed: 2026-01-09).

(4) Conesa, Elsa et al (2026): How Russia is trying to influence Europe's upcoming elections. Le Monde English 08/27/2026. <https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2026/08/27/how-russia-is-trying-to-influence-europe-s-upcoming-elections_6756901_4.html> (Accessed: 2026-27-08).

(5) Albert, Eric (2026): 'Immigration is beneficial for the economy as a whole. Why is it so unpopular?' Le Monde English 07/14/2026. <https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2026/07/14/immigration-is-beneficial-for-the-economy-as-a-whole-why-is-it-so-unpopular_6755467_23.html> (Accessed: 2026-27-08).

Peri, Giovanni (2026): Shaping Europe’s future: innovation, growth and stability. European Central Bank website. <https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/sintra/ecb.forumcentbankpub2026_Peri_paper.en.pdf> (Accessed: 2026-27-08).

Narrative and messaging, 90 years ago and now

Political polling continues to advance and to produce finer and finer details about political preferences, propensity to vote, and demographic details that political strategists and campaign consultants churn into campaign strategies and advertising themes.

More is better, up to a point. But already in the 1990s, Jerry Brown – four-time California Governor, California Attorney General, Mayor of Oakland and three-time Democratic Presidential candidate – was warning that the ability to define multiple segments of voters and to target advertising to those various groups carried a new risk. A candidate can put together a majority of votes to get elected but without having a majority consensus among those cobbled-together segments to form an effective governing coalition.

For anyone in the mood to nerd out over this topic, the Boston Review earlier this year offered various informed ideas on the topic under the rubric, "How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism." (1) Adam Bonica and Jake Grumbach introduce it by reminding us that while centrist Moderation “remains the conventional political wisdom” among consultants and many pundits, in the current situation it “is more conventional than wise, and the most prominent cases for it badly misunderstand how politics works.”

Of course, not all the voters who coalesce around a candidate will share the same opinion on every issue. This increases the importance of establishing a broader narrative to define candidates, campaigns and parties. A classic example of such a narrative was a central part of Franklin Roosevelt’s acceptance speech at the 1936 Democratic convention, known as the Rendezvous With Destiny speech.

Political tyranny was wiped out at Philadelphia on July 4, 1776.

Since that struggle, however, man's inventive genius released new forces in our land which reordered the lives of our people. ...

For out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital - all undreamed of by the Fathers - the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service. ...

The savings of the average family, the capital of the small business man, the investments set aside for old age - other people's money - these were tools which the new economic royalty used to dig itself in.

For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor - other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness. (3) [emphasis added]

In a later speech that year at Madison Square Garden, he said:

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me - and I welcome their hatred. (3)

Now that is a narrative!! And FDR and the Democrats had 3 ½ years of fighting for New Deal relief and economic-stimulus programs behind them at the time so they could point to things they had delivered.

Political narratives and messaging 90 years later (i.e., now)

Of course, times change. But we still have economic royalists. And today’s January Sixers, masked ICE goons, and “patriot militias” are far better financed that their predecessors in Liberty League and the Ku Klux Klan (and the German-American Bund!) of the 1930s.

But we have seen some excellent examples of successful political narratives. For large-D Democrats and for all supporters of democracy it’s of course an negative example, but Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” has been a durable narrative theme for his supporters to rally around. Of course, narratives have to be spread by messaging. And the Trumpist messaging around the MAGA theme involved immigrants as invaders, MS-13 gang sadists, drug cartels, white-supremacist fantasies about Haitian immigrants eating dogs and cats, litter boxes for school children who identify as cats, and so on. The specific messaging may be and often is despicable and/or insane. But it’s a narrative that Trump and his supporters sound like they are willing to fight for it.

The Democrats can also have narratives bolstered by specific messages. The scale of corruption in the Trump Administration is off the scale of anything we’ve seen in American history. The iconic Teapot Dome during Warren Harding’s Republican Administration scandal in today’s dollars looks like a normal week in Trumpland today.

Stopping corruption is a useful narrative because even Republican voters at least claim to be concerned about it. But it also has to be messaged with specifics. And there is (to put it ironically) an embarrassment of riches for the Democrats to use: The Trump family’s crypto business. Jared Kushner’s business dealings with foreign governments as he allegedly does diplomacy on the side. Trump’s “Board of Peace.” The shady slush fund Venezuela set up to be controlled by the White House after Trump’s military intervention. Republican Supreme Court Justices taking valuable gifts from private donors. The end-of-the-week announcements about trouble in the Iran War followed up by Monday morning good news on which some investors always seem to profit when the stock market opens. Selling pardons to some awful people.

These aren’t obscure issues. They are in the news constantly. And most people think those kinds of things are sleazy conduct and theft of public money. Or “taxpayer money” as it is so often called (although the money belongs to the public’s government, not to the original individual payer of the taxes).

This probably isn’t what most commentators and campaign consultants mean when they talk about “kitchen-table” issues. Still: Narrative: Trump and his cronies are as corrupt as any government we’ve ever had! Messaging: Trump and his family made X million dollars last week on their crooked crypto business!! And so on. Delivered in a tone of We Democrats are going to stop this! (Erasing the word “bipartisan” from the campaign vocabulary is also something Democrats should seriously consider!)

And media is different than it was 90 years ago. Fireside chats over the radio and speaking in booming cadences so that everyone in a large hall can hear without the benefit of loudspeakers don’t resonate so well today. Now we live in a time where a Democratic Senate candidate in Georgia saying the words “and travel with Natalie” can send the entire national GOP into a hissy-fit of fake outrage!

In the era of AI and podcasts, messaging for one’s own side in the context of a broader narrative requires different presentations and more snark than was common in the 1930s. And maybe even a little international solidarity, like this new one from the British Marsh Family to a familiar ABBA tune. (4)

This post was first published at the ProDA-Progressive Caucus of Democrats Abroad Substack.

Notes:

(1) How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism. Boston Review 02/03/2026. <https://www.bostonreview.net/forum/how-not-to-defeat-authoritarianism/> (Accessed 2026-31-08).

(2) Roosevelt, Franklin (1936): Acceptance Speech for the Renomination for the Presidency, Philadelphia, Pa. The American Presidency Project. <https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/acceptance-speech-for-the-renomination-for-the-presidency-philadelphia-pa> (Accessed 2026-31-08).

(3) Roosevelt, Franklin (1936): Acceptance Speech for the Renomination for the Presidency, Philadelphia, Pa. The American Presidency Project. <https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-madison-square-garden-new-york-city-1> (Accessed 2026-31-08).

(4) "Thank You for the Bullsh!t" - Marsh Family parody of ABBA (on Karoline Leavitt leaving White House). Marsh Family YouTube channel 08/26/2026. <https://youtu.be/o9l1xArp2RM?si=6hle2sL8M9EMcvuj> (Accessed 2026-31-08).

Newsweek Global’s fantasy of Venezuela

The cover of Newsweek Global for Aug. 07-14 kisses up to the Trump regime with a graphic based on a famous image of late 19th-century European imperialism (also on the American edition cover):

This is the 1882 model featuring Britain’s Cecil Rhodes:

Before going deeper into the Newsweek article, there has also been a recent announcement about Venezuelan concessions to the US on oil reserves, which Ben Meiselas of Meidas Touch describes as “a Trump oil company in the Defense Department.” (1)

(1)

As we might expect from the Newsweek cover, the article bylined to Jesus Mesa and Leonardo Feldman gives us deep, uh, analysis (propaganda?) like this:

Oswaldo Ramirez [Colina], managing director and senior political consultant at ORC Consultores, has been tracking Venezuelan public opinion for years. He said the numbers in polling conducted before the earthquake told a story the street already knew. “In December, hope was at 51 percent,” he said, speaking to Newsweek from Caracas. “In February it jumped to 81. Now it is at 65, still 15 points above the average it had throughout 2025.” (2)

Miami-based ORC Consultores provides this description of itself on its LinkedIn page:

ORC Consultores was born in 2009, as a firm specializing in Environmental Analysis and Intelligence, Strategic Advice in Public Affairs and Political Communication, with experience in advising public and private organizations, as well as leaders from various sectors, who are interested in understanding the behavior of the socio-political variables with the greatest impact and the dynamics of the public sector today, in order to draw up strategic plans that allow them to conduct their organizations through the constant changes that the country is experiencing. (3)

Take what you will from that description. But it certainly doesn’t seem to be some kind of independent academic think tank! It sounds more like propagandists for hire.

But it’s worth looking a bit more closely at the figures quoted above this dodgy-sounding consulting group has provided, according to Newsweek, quoting Ramirez: “In December, hope was at 51 percent.”

That would be December 2025, the month before the American-backed coup and the kidnapping – excuse me, arrest – of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. The Trump regime had already been carrying assassination strikes on what, so far as we know even now, were Venezuelan fishing boats. The possibility of a US invasion was very much in people’s minds.

As Katie Angell notes:

The strikes [on Venezuelan fishing boats] coincided with broader U.S. military moves in the region, including large naval deployments in the southern Caribbean, as well as U.S. Pres. Donald Trump’s subsequent threats of potential land strikes and his declaration on November 29, 2025, that the airspace above and around Venezuela should be considered closed. In early December U.S. forces also seized a Venezuelan-linked oil tanker off the country’s coast, an operation that further inflamed tensions and drew sharp condemnation from Caracas. After the tanker’s seizure, the situation intensified when on December 16, Trump ordered a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers entering or departing Venezuela, a move intended to halt the country’s oil trade and deal a substantial blow to Venezuela’s oil-dependent economy. [emphasis added] (4)

In October 2025, Trump had specifically threated to stop alleged Venezuelan drug smuggling by direct intervention inside the country. “We are certainly looking at land now because we’ve got the sea under control.” (5)

With very concrete threats of war and military actions already taking place, Venezuelan public opinion was 51% hopeful, according to ORC Consultores. “In February [hope] jumped to 81. Now it is at 65, still 15 points above the average it had throughout 2025.” (Newsweek)

The same regime was still in power in February that was there on January 3, the date of the US kidnapping operation on Maduro. It was now headed by Delcy Rodriguez, who had been Maduro’s Vice President. There has been no restructuring of the regime or concrete moves to a new government with clean elections. Rodriguez’ government has made a sweetheart deal with the Trump regime that included major concessions on Venezuelan oil similar to what Maduro’s government had offered.

And the hopeful attitude toward the situation jumped to 81% and is now 65%, according to ORC Consultores.

This might lead one to think that a boost in the hopeful attitude means that Venezuelans are not nearly so worried about massive US air attacks and ground intervention as they were in January when the Trump regime was threatening an invasion, even though the regime is essentially the same. The same Newsweek article reports, “Opposition leader Machado commands 74 percent trust among the general population, according to one poll, more than five times Venezuelans’ trust in Interim President [María Corina] Rodríguez.”

Someone please tell me again, why was Venezuela under Maduro such a massive danger to the United States? Oh, yeah, they were providing oil and economic assistance to Cuba, whose massive army could launch a blitzkrieg on Florida at any moment!

But at least Newsweek’s article that kisses up to the Trumpist framing does let some important observations slip through:

Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves, a resource base that decades of forced underinvestment have left almost entirely untapped. Production, which peaked in the late 1990s at 3.5 million barrels a day, has climbed from roughly 800,000 barrels a day in January to 1.1 million by June. Investors see their opportunity in restoring that past production. [emphasis added]

For US foreign policy, especially the kind depicted on the Newsweek cover, the fact that “holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves” remains the Alpha and Omega, especially for the kind of thinking depicted on the Newsweek cover.

The reason that production has experienced “decades of forced underinvestment” is largely due to US sanctions. The fact that corporations, including oil giants, focus heavily on immediate profits also exists simultaneously with the fact that both the oil barons and the US governments that have been eager to serve them also do have a political long game in play. Despite the fact that fossil fuels are heating the atmosphere, burning up and draying out more and more of the planet all the time, they are still focused also on the usual foreign policy games to control oil. Without the sanctions on Venezuela for decades – sanctions that were based on ideological grounds rather than on actual national security issues for the US – US oil giants could have been making profitable deals for years by normalizing relations with the country.

But according to Newsweek, everything is hunky-dory now!

Given the kiss-up-to-Trump tone of this Newsweek cover story, I’m surprised they didn’t work in an anecdote about oil executives handing out chocolate candy to little kids in Caracas. The GIs-giving-candy-to-children in Europe was a favorite trope of the Second World War and the postwar occupation. Here is an example from 1944 (although: the grim-looking soldier holding a rifle makes it look a bit like a hostage photo): (6)

But if the reader makes it all the way to end, we do get something that resembles actual journalism:

Ronal Rodríguez, a researcher and spokesperson for the Venezuela Observatory at Universidad del Rosario in Bogota, one of the leading academic centers tracking Venezuelan affairs in the region, offered perhaps the most precise summary of where things stand. “Everything has changed,” he said, “and nothing has changed.”

What has changed, he argued, is who controls access to Venezuela’s wealth. What has not changed is the structure underneath. “Many believed that Nicolás Maduro’s departure would trigger a democratic transition,” Ronal Rodríguez said. “So far, however, what has emerged is an economic opening, not a transition to democracy.” [emphasis added]

Some things haven’t changed a lot since the days of overthrowing the democratic government of Guatemala in 1954 for the convenience of the United Fruit Company.

It might be worth recalling that during that successful regime-change operation by the United States, a young Argentine doctor named Ernesto Guevara – later better known as Che - was visiting in Guatemala. That experience made a big mark on his thinking. What Chalmers Johnson called “blowback” (7) is a real thing.

Notes:

(1) Trump Faces a Brutal Reality … Meidas Touch YouTube channel 08/31/2026. <https://youtu.be/s1Evy7wFJmw?si=xY3m_3MTWtcDi7ae&t=1005> (Accessed: 2026-31-08).

(2) Mesa, Jesus & Feldman, Leonardo (2026): A Wager That Worked. Newsweek Global 08/07/-14/2026, 22-31.

(3) ORC Consultores-About. LinkedIn n/d. <https://www.linkedin.com/company/orc-consultores/about/> (Accessed: 2026-08-15). My translation to English.

(4) Angell, Katie. "What Is Happening Between the United States and Venezuela?". Encyclopedia Britannica 02/, 13 Feb. 2026. <https://www.britannica.com/topic/What-Is-Happening-Between-the-United-States-and-Venezuela> (Accessed 15 August 2026).

(5) Bennett, Brian & Popli, Nik (2025): After Targeting Boats at Sea, Trump Suggests Land Strikes in Venezuela May Be Next. Time 10/15/2025. <https://time.com/7326027/trump-venezuela-land-strikes/> (Accessed: 2026-08-15).

(6) Historical Photos: Facebook 11/28/2025. <https://www.facebook.com/groups/oldhistoricalphotos/posts/827102213482813/> (Accessed: 2026-01-09).

(7) Johnson, Sheila (2011): The blowback world of Chalmers Johnson. Le Monde diplomatique 04/13/2011. (Accessed: 2026-08-15).