RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/proceed-with-caution-on-a-defense-pact-with-israel-11569538318

For all their longstanding defense ties, Israel and the U.S. have no mutual defense treaty. In the weeks before Israel’s Sept. 17 elections President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu both spoke favorably of negotiating one. Whether they were serious or simply wanted to bolster Mr. Netanyahu’s political support is unclear. In any case, a few observations are in order.

The U.S. is party to various kinds of defense treaties. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is the most far-reaching. The treaty states that “an armed attack against one [ally] . . . shall be considered an attack against them all.” Other bilateral U.S. defense treaties create lesser obligations—to consult about threats, to recognize that an attack on one would endanger peace and safety of the other, to meet common dangers in accordance with one’s own constitutional processes.

American and Israeli officials have long refrained from negotiating a mutual defense treaty because it was judged unnecessary and potentially harmful to both countries. Israelis worried mainly about their own freedom of action; they didn’t want to have to ask U.S. permission before taking steps to defend their state. U.S. officials didn’t want to have to grant or deny such permission—or to “own” Israeli military operations.

Sometimes U.S. officials have been pleased when Israel took tough and risky military actions—against Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981, against terrorist leaders or operatives during the Second Intifada, and against Syria’s nuclear reactor in 2007. The U.S. could disavow any responsibility but, if the actions succeeded, benefit nonetheless.

In a crisis, the help the U.S. would give Israel (or Israel would give the U.S.) wouldn’t likely increase as a result of a mutual defense treaty. Historically, such assistance has been provided out of national interest, not legal obligation.

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/463077-will-us-iranian-miscalculation-bring-war

In the escalating, multi-dimensional conflict between Washington and Tehran, the growing risk of armed conflict centers around the same danger that plagues international relations in general: miscalculation.

President Donald Trump may believe that in sanctioning Iran’s central bank and sending more U.S. troops to the region in response to the recent suspected Iranian attack on Saudi oil facilities, he’s sending a clear message to Tehran.

But Iran’s leaders may not hear it. Instead, they may think that they can push the envelope of military action further – in light of Trump’s insistence that he doesn’t want war, his failure to respond militarily to Iran’s attack on a U.S. drone in June, his earlier empty threats of military action against Iran and North Korea, and decades of U.S. reluctance to respond forcefully to Iranian and other provocations.

The danger, of course, is that Tehran will push too far, and Trump will feel compelled to take military action, which could escalate quickly into a tit-for-tat of exchanges that lead to all-out war.

Miscalculation. It’s the danger that JFK sought to avoid as he exchanged messages with Nikita Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and that George H.W. Bush sought to avoid when he signaled Saddam Hussein during the Persian Gulf War that Saddam’s use of chemical or biological weapons would mean the end of his regime.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2019

The dismissal of John Bolton as US National Security Adviser brings back to the surface my continuing doubts about Donald Trump. Not that he is infinitely preferable to any likely Democrat challenger. Indeed, I am relieved that he won the presidency against the truly appalling Hillary Clinton.

The Mueller witch hunt was truly a long running farce, based on entirely false premise. The collusion with Putin narrative was always absurd and easily refuted by actions, pursued with vigour, by the Trump administration. We only have to cite missile defence for Poland, the supply of anti-tank weaponry to Ukraine for use against Russian-backed forces, the accelerated facilitation of oil and gas exploration in the United States, the large increase in the defence budget and the Trump Administration’s withdrawal from a nuclear arms limitation treaty with Russia,  to expose the absurdity of the notion that Trump is in Putin’s pocket.

In practical terms, Trump has been more robust in his dealings with our adversaries. He understands the use of power and has shown more willingness to confront both Iran and China. By and large, he has been more steadfast in the defence of allies. His use of the term, “America First” is sometimes seen as a throwback to the old isolationism of the 1930’s. But apart from his reluctance to become or stay involved in civil wars, for example Afghanistan, which short of outright colonial rule, is an unwinnable mess, alliance security is an integral element of what he sees as America’s national interest.

There are those who will contrast Trump’s reluctance to go to war with Bolton supposedly itching to go to war at the drop of a hat. This is nonsense. Both men are alike in understanding that, in this day and age, the main purpose of military power is to deter aggression and minimise miscalculation by potential adversaries. But I suspect that Bolton’s resignation underlines an essential difference between Ronald “Peace Through Strength” Reagan and Donald Trump.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14902/us-adversaries-nothing-to-fear-from-the-white

This [shooting down a US Navy drone] was a clear-cut act of provocation against the US in violation of international law, one that required a firm and decisive response from the White House.

Yet, having initially threatened to respond militarily, Mr Trump then changed his mind, thereby allowing the Iranians off the hook.

With Mr Trump’s focus firmly fixed on winning re-election in next year’s presidential election contest, the Iranian regime has probably concluded that the White House is determined to avoid all forms of overseas military intervention at any cost.

The result is that Iran — and other adversaries of the US, such as China, North Korea, Russia, Venezuela, Cuba and the Taliban — now may feel even more emboldened to continue their provocative actions in the Gulf and elsewhere, knowing that, so long as Mr Trump is in the White House, they do not have to fear they will be subjected to military retribution from Washington.

For all US President Donald Trump’s bluster that the US military is “locked and loaded”, the reality is that the White House has absolutely no interest in launching military action against Iran in retaliation for its involvement in the devastating attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure. It is a decision doubtless not lost on Iran.

On the contrary, for all Mr. Trump’s machismo posturing, the most the President can be expected to do is intensify the sanctions regime against Tehran, a move that is unlikely to strike fear into the hearts of Iran’s battle-hardened veterans of its Revolutionary Guard.

Indeed, the President’s disinclination to confront Iran over its increasingly aggressive conduct towards the US and its allies in the region appears only to have emboldened the ayatollahs to even greater acts of provocation, such as last weekend’s attacks on Saudi Arabia’s Khurais oil field and the Abqaiq oil processing facility, which resulted in the Saudis losing nearly 50 per cent of the country’s oil processing capacity and for a while sparked a sharp jump in oil prices.

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/09/20/iran-believes-trump-is-a-dove-and-that-spells-trouble/

Donald Trump is not a dove. The president is also not a neocon, and will not allow the U.S. to become entangled in a protracted ground war with Iran or anyone else. But the departure of John Bolton as national security adviser is one of a number of signs to Iran that this president is shy on the trigger — one of the worst messages America can send to its adversaries.

It might even be the case that the attack on Saudi oil facilities last week by an Iranian regime keenly feeling the pinch of economic “maximum pressure” from the U.S. was spurred by both Bolton’s exit and Trump’s change of mind in June about military strikes on Iran after it downed of a U.S. drone. There are just too many signals of timidity coming from this White House, and for the world’s foremost terrorist state it’s the matador waving the red muleta at a charging bull.

Add to this the president’s apparent willingness to talk to any of the world’s worst actors at any time. Just this month, for instance, he nearly hosted the Taliban at Camp David on the eve of the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, refraining from doing so only after a Taliban car bomb attack killed 12, including a U.S. soldier, near the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. The stage was even set for a meeting between Trump and Iran’s sly President Hassan Rouhani at the United Nations in New York, with the president in the end rebuffed by Tehran. He has apparently even been mulling the weakening of sanctions on Iran for purposes of diplomatic overture.

This is not a critique of Trump’s prodigious, long-standing talents as a dealmaker. The president, through his personal diplomacy with Kim Jong-un, might indeed still make a breakthrough with nuclear-armed North Korea, which has eluded his three immediate predecessors. And were he to sit at a table, in a definite position of strength, across from Rouhani or the Taliban, we could expect agreements that strongly favor U.S. interests and go a long way toward reducing terrorism. Similarly, American business expects Trump to produce a favorable U.S.- China deal, and that’s a good bet.

But even the savviest players can foolishly agree to meet their opponents on a field tilted to their disadvantage. It is largely forgotten that Ronald Reagan never even met with three successive Soviet premiers spanning his entire first term as president, Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, and Konstantin Chernenko, despite the hysterics of Sen. Ted Kennedy and other liberal Democrats that he was courting nuclear war. It was only some eight months after Mikhail Gorbachev took power in Moscow that Reagan met him in Geneva — nearly five years into his presidency. Far from sparking nuclear war, it led to the demise of the Soviet Union without the firing of a shot.

It is impossible to imagine Trump being that patient.

America Cannot Be Seen Blinking, Again And Again

There are suggestions that the president thought tough sanctions alone would make Tehran cry uncle, which is not an outlandish hope considering the toll they have taken on the Iranian economy; indeed Trump this week is intensifying sanctions. But this is not a normal tyrannical regime that adheres to rational rules of behavior.

Iran’s supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who came to power after the death of the Ayatollah Khomeini 30 years ago, apparently believes himself to be the facilitator of the coming of the Twelfth Imam, who will lead an apocalyptic war against Israel and America, and Khamenei warns that in the meantime jihad (holy war) will continue until the U.S. is destroyed.

“This battle will only end when the society can get rid of the oppressors’ front, with America at the head of it,” the ayatollah has said.

Tehran knows only too well that the U.S. is willing to conduct economic warfare against Iran, and a good thing it is we’re doing it. But the mullahs are increasingly coming to believe that Trump is unwilling to attack Iran militarily — especially during the next 13-and-a-half months as he seeks re-election. As Slate columnist and longtime liberal defense analyst Fred Kaplan writes, “it’s possible that, given his recent behavior, the Iranians think Trump won’t strike back.”

Iran’s rulers look through a messianic lens. Pressure on Tehran, whether economic or military, will work only if it threatens their hold on power, which is why the U.S., whatever else it does, should be talking up the possibility of the popular uprising of the Iranian people. If Rouhani and Khamenei believe the U.S. commander in chief will blink, again and again, rather than return fire, it might encourage their apocalyptic strategies to advance well beyond last week’s audacious attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities.

Whether it is America or the Saudis themselves with U.S. backing, a military response seems necessary to convince Tehran it is not dealing with pusillanimous opponents.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-and-trump-are-making-japan-nervous-11568673770

People often say the center of gravity in American foreign policy has shifted to the Indo-Pacific. But what exactly does that mean for America’s alliances and priorities? Many Americans have been slow to understand the critical importance that Japan now plays in American strategy. Australia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Indonesia, Singapore and the rest all have roles to play, but without the economic, political and military assets Japan brings to the table, America’s Asia policy cannot succeed.

Fortunately for the U.S., Japan is committed. Japanese policy makers by and large understand that China’s rise is a global challenge perhaps on the scale of the Cold War—and that Japan is in the path of the storm. The country cannot defend its security and independence without a strong and effective alliance with the U.S.

The Trump presidency has in some ways fortified the relationship. The greater attention to the Indo-Pacific, the military buildup and the more aggressive approach to China on both trade and geopolitical issues are widely applauded in Japan.

Yet Mr. Trump has also caused sleepless nights in Tokyo. The president’s abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, his sometimes startling diplomacy with North Korea, his hard bargaining on trade and over Japan’s financial contributions to the U.S. military presence there have neither enhanced Japanese respect for American acumen nor convinced Tokyo that the U.S. is committed to the alliance.

If Mr. Trump is re-elected, policy makers here wonder, what would that mean for Japan? Would a second Trump term see a continuation of aggressive policies to reduce American trade deficits? Will the president withdraw U.S. troops from the country? What endgame does the administration have in mind for the meetings with Kim Jong Un ? And while broadly welcoming America’s newly hawkish approach to China, Japan also has important economic interests there. Will Mr. Trump’s decision-making on trade and China policy take Japanese concerns and priorities into account?

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/09/our-foreign-policy-muddle-bruce-thornton/

Hard upon President Trump’s misguided outreach to the Taliban, rumors are circulating of a meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the upcoming UN General Assembly meeting. Trump has also publicly stated he doesn’t want regime-change in Tehran. This “let’s make a deal” mentality, even with foes who have repeatedly declared and carried out their malign intentions against us, bespeaks more than just the president’s volatile personality and experience in Manhattan real estate.

Indeed, after the probably Iranian-engineered missile attacks on Saudi oil refineries that knocked out half its productive capacity, Trump’s gestures of outreach to the mullahs have now become even more dangerous, and made the need for long-overdue significant military action to punish and deter the mullahs more urgent,

Equally urgent is the revision of a foreign-policy paradigm many years in years in the making and mired in received wisdom. It took root after World War II ended the malign ideologies of fascism, Nazism, and Japanese racist militarism. Even though those murderous movements put the lie to the long dream of a global “harmony of interests” institutionalized in transnational treaties and supranational organizations, the West created the UN, NATO, the World Bank, and other global institutions that would help contain the Soviet Union while the global economy increased wealth and distributed it more widely. The collapse of the Soviet Union fed the illusion that the triumph of liberal democracy was assured, and that its last ideological rival was dispatched without another world war.