“Many young Saudis support MBS’ Vision 2030 for its promises of employment, prosperity, and less stringent gender regulations, which are especially welcome to the generation of Saudi millennials who spent their college years abroad and are eager for their country to be “normal.” Americans should remember that the people of Saudi Arabia are not responsible for MBS’ crimes, so the economic and social transitions that MBS has accelerated should be encouraged, however offensive they consider the crown prince’s other actions.
Oil and the U.S. military are what keep Arab dictators in power. The global economy is slowly scaling back its addiction to the fossil fuels that are killing the planet. The U.S. can and should stop propping up Arab dictators with weapons sales and instead help wean their economies off of oil. While many rightly consider engagement with MBS distasteful, for the sake of Saudi and American citizens as well as the global climate, Biden should help MBS achieve his more admirable goals while constraining his malignant inclinations.”
“As the Democratic candidate, Biden promised a swift return to the Iran nuclear deal. He then aimed to leverage that negotiation to curb other aspects of Tehran’s aggressive behavior — like its growing ballistic missile program — in follow-on chats.
But in the Oval Office, the president has found the Islamic Republic resistant to diplomacy — but willing to have proxies launch rockets at Americans in the Middle East. That led Biden to authorize a retaliatory strike in Syria against those militants, hoping that would deter future attacks while keeping the door open for talks.
And on the campaign trail, Biden called Saudi Arabia a “pariah” state, vowing to make it “pay the price” for human rights violations, including the grisly 2018 murder of dissident, US resident, and columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Though he released an unclassified intelligence report on Friday directly blaming Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the killing, Biden declined to punish the nation’s de facto ruler outright. Instead of authorizing sanctions, a travel ban, or an asset freeze, the president created the “Khashoggi ban,” which imposes visa restrictions on people who try to silence dissidents abroad. It’s unclear if that includes heads of state, however.
That action — combined with the end of US support for Saudi offensive operations in Yemen and a freeze on weapons sales — was meant to “recalibrate,” not “rupture” US-Saudi relations, Biden administration officials say. A major consideration was that MBS, as the crown prince is known, may soon officially run the country, so targeting him personally could doom future relations between Washington and Riyadh.”
“The attacks and retaliatory strike marked the first major military action of the Biden administration. The strike was calculated to signal to Iran that such attacks through proxies in the region would not be tolerated, the officials said, while avoiding escalation into a wider conflict as Biden seeks a diplomatic breakthrough with Tehran on the Iran nuclear deal.
The “proportionate” military response was conducted along with diplomatic measures, including consulting with coalition partners, the Pentagon said.
“The operation sends an unambiguous message: President Biden will act to protect American and coalition personnel,” said Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby. “At the same time, we have acted in a deliberate manner that aims to de-escalate the overall situation in both Eastern Syria and Iraq.””
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“”The targets were chosen to correspond to the recent attacks — the facilities are utilized by KSS and KH — and to deter the risk of additional attacks over the coming weeks,” the spokesperson said. “The strikes were necessary to address the threat and proportionate to the prior attacks.”
At around 6 p.m. EST on Thursday night, U.S. fighter jets dropped seven 500-pound precision bombs on seven targets in eastern Syria, the official said. All bombs hit their targets, a crossing used by several Iran-backed militia groups to move weapons and other goods across the border. Initial reports suggest there were no casualties, militant or civilian.
Biden made the strategic decision to conduct the strike in Syria, rather than on Iraqi soil, in order to avoid pressure on the Iraqi government, the official said.
Conducting an airstrike in Syria is also less politically complicated for the Biden administration than an operation in Iraq, said Becca Wasser, an analyst with the RAND Corp. The U.S. does not need to request the permission of the Syrian government as it does not recognize Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, she said.
The airstrike came after Biden spoke Tuesday with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi. The White House readout of the call hinted at the coming action. The men “discussed the recent rocket attacks against Iraqi and Coalition personnel and agreed that those responsible for such attacks must be held fully to account.””
“even if Trump’s authoritarian bluster rarely cashed out into any real-world seizure of new powers for the president, it was far from harmless. Four years of 100-proof strongman rhetoric may have the effect of building up our tolerance if and when the real thing comes around in a smoother blend. When (at least) half of the political class feels driven by partisan loyalty to defend or downplay open contempt for constitutional limits, it’s likely to make well-planned assaults on those limits that much easier to execute. Donald Trump may yet end up being a “transformational” president, not because of the abuses he managed to carry out but thanks to the dangerous possibilities he revealed.”
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“By excusing or ignoring the 45th president’s disgraceful assaults on democratic norms, Republicans have largely abandoned any principled objection to such moves in the future. If and when an actually competent authoritarian comes along, what will their argument be? “Yeah, but our guy wasn’t any good at it”?”
Global Climate Agreements: Successes and Failures Lindsay Maizland. 1 25 2021. Council on Foreign Relations. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/paris-global-climate-change-agreements The Climate Change Performance Index 2021 Jan Burck et al. 2021. New Climate Institute. The Climate Change Performance IndexResults 2016 Jan Burck et al. 2016. GermanWatch.
“Today, the insurgents control more territory in Afghanistan than they did in 2001 when the US invaded”
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“President Joe Biden has been presented with three broad options for how to prolong or end America’s involvement in the 20-year Afghanistan War — and all three have significant drawbacks for the administration and the Afghan people.
Here’s what Biden’s military and intelligence advisers offered up in recent days, as reported by the New York Times and the Washington Post’s David Ignatius, details of which I later confirmed.
The first option is to adhere to former President Donald Trump’s deal with the Taliban, which would require Biden to withdraw all remaining 2,500 US troops in Afghanistan by May 1. The second is to negotiate an extension with the insurgent group, allowing American forces to remain in the country beyond early May. And third is to defy the Trump-Taliban pact altogether and keep fighting in Afghanistan with no stated end date.
Each plan has serious pitfalls”
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“If the US leaves in the next three months, it’s likely the Taliban will overrun the US-backed Afghan government and once again make life worse for millions of Afghans, especially women and children.
Staying in Afghanistan just a little bit longer would likely delay that takeover, but would also expend any diplomatic capital the US has left with the Taliban and keep US troops in harm’s way.
Finally, violating the terms of the agreement and remaining indefinitely will almost certainly lead the Taliban to restart its campaign, put on hold ahead of the May 1 deadline, to kill American service members in the country.”
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“Multiple US officials told me in recent days that the administration’s Afghanistan policy review is nearing its end, with one telling me they expect Biden to make a decision “very soon.””
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“There’s just no guarantee that the Afghan government and the Taliban will actually make a deal. After months or even years of talking, it’s possible neither side will make concessions to the other to hash out a comprehensive peace pact. If that’s the case, US troops will have remained in danger for little to no progress.”
“Like many historians, Kupchan repeats the standard claim that George Washington’s famous warning against “foreign entanglements” represented the views of the Founders and was followed by American leaders until the mid–20th century. In fact, the Founding Fathers were aggressive, unapologetic imperialists who fantasized about the creation of a global America.
Long before he entered politics, John Adams developed a theory of historical change that predicted America would become the next Rome. He wrote to a friend in 1755 that “the great seat of Empire” had been transferred from Rome to Britain and would likely move “into America.” The new country would “obtain the mastery of the seas, and the united force of all Europe will not be able to subdue us.”
Like Adams, Benjamin Franklin dreamed of an infinitely expansive America empire. In 1751, he provided a rationale, derived from John Locke’s theory that property belongs to those who mix their labor with nature, for conquering and occupying all the land held by indigenous people in North America. Industrious Anglo-Saxons, who Franklin expressly preferred as the inhabitants of the new republic, were to replace the Indians with a new empire: “Hence the Prince that acquires new Territory, if he finds it vacant, or removes the Natives to give his own People Room; the Legislator that makes effectual Laws for promoting of Trade, increasing Employment, improving Land by more or better Tillage; providing more Food by Fisheries; securing Property, &c. and the Man that invents new Trades, Arts or Manufactures, or new Improvements in Husbandry, may be properly called Fathers of their Nation.”
As president, George Washington, whose heroes included Caesar and Alexander the Great, allowed Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson to push for a buildup of the Navy and the creation of a Marine Corps, as well as for continued expansion westward across North America. Jefferson called for sending troops and warships to attack pirate ships operating from the northern African Barbary states that had captured and plundered American commercial vessels. Jefferson’s rival, Alexander Hamilton, agreed that the United States was “the embryo of a great empire,” even predicting that the U.S. would one day hold overseas colonies.
Within days of Jefferson’s inauguration in 1801, four U.S. warships set sail for Tripoli. Throughout his first term, American ships patrolled the Mediterranean, blockading the ports of several north African states and sinking or capturing Barbary pirate corsairs and Tripolitan ships. By the summer of 1804, virtually the entire U.S. Navy was deployed to the region—23 war vessels in all—including a squadron of gunships that remained anchored in the harbor of Tripoli, bombarding the city with impunity. The next year, Jefferson sent ashore a fighting force of Marines and mercenaries who besieged the pasha’s palace and replaced him with his brother, who had sworn to cooperate with the U.S.
In 1801, Jefferson told James Monroe of his vision for a totalizing and universal Americanism, calling it “impossible not to look forward to distant times, when our rapid multiplication will expand itself beyond those limits, & cover the whole Northern, if not the Southern continent with a people speaking the same language, governed in similar forms, & by similar laws.” The United States established an extensive network of formal representatives in the Mediterranean, with American consuls and Navy personnel stationed in more than a dozen cities. Jefferson also negotiated the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, which brought a swath of 828,000 square miles of land, with all the diverse peoples living on it, into the United States. In an instant, the country’s territory had doubled.
“as many as 24 rockets were fired at a U.S. military base at Erbil International Airport, in the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The attacked, almost certainly launched by an Iran-backed militia, wounded an American soldier, killed one non-U.S. contractor and wounded five others. Three local civilians were also wounded.”
“For the first time in the history of the United States, a defeated president attempted to overturn the election’s outcome to keep himself in office.
Trump’s effort to try to steal the election was multifaceted. He spent months lying that there was massive voter fraud. He pressured state officials and state legislators not to certify President Joe Biden’s win. He filed dozens of frivolous lawsuits. He urged members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence to throw out valid electoral votes on January 6. And, that same day, he encouraged supporters to gather in Washington and egged them on. The violence at the Capitol ensued.
It was stunning conduct that flew in the face of the US tradition of peaceful transition of power. And Congress did have an opportunity by which they could make Trump face a very real consequence for this: impeachment and prohibition from holding federal office again in the future (preventing him from running again in 2024). An impeachment of a US president has never ended with conviction, but surely, if one ever would, one would think that Trump’s conduct would merit it.
But instead, partisanship triumphed, Republicans mostly closed ranks around Trump, and the vote fell well short of the two-thirds threshold needed for conviction. The result is that Trump will face no consequences — from Congress, at least — for his effort to defy the will of the voters and stay in power. That has ominous implications for the political system’s future stability, and seems to invite Trump or someone similar to try something like it again.”