RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2019/10/12/trumps-foreign-policy-deals-properly-with-tyrants/

Trump’s coddling of the dictatorial mind is not capitulation but a steely eyed gambit to get part—he hopes all, or a lot, but at least some—of what he and what the United States wants.

Over at PJ Media, my friend Roger L. Simon makes some sage observations about the proper conduct of foreign policy among great powers in general and, in particular, about the behavior of President Trump with respect to this important arena of human endeavor. 

Roger’s first point has two parts, a strophe, as it were, and an antistrophe. 

The strophe involves a patent moral dimension. We should not conceal—from others or from ourselves—the moral caliber of the leaders with whom we deal. Besides the United States, the world’s only other colossus is China. Not only does it preside over the second largest economy in the world, it is also eagerly and aggressively arming itself and asserting its prerogatives throughout Asia and, increasingly, throughout the world. 

Moreover, China has a dismal human rights record, a fact that is daily bruited about the Western world by reports of China’s savage treatment of the Uyghurs, for example, their efforts to create a surveillance state by imposing a system of “social credit” on its citizens, and its militant treatment of the protestors in Hong Kong. 

Last week’s flood of stories about the craven behavior of the National Basketball Association, Nike, Apple, and other American business interests that talk woke but act like hypocrites when their bottom line is threatened has simply reinforced what we all knew about those horrible people (I mean those running Apple, Nike, etc.) They wear bluejeans and eschew ties, they talk about love and “saving the environment,” but they instantly kowtow to tyrannical hegemons the moment it will aid their balance sheet. 

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/465523-us-should-support-but-also-prod-ukraine

President Donald Trump’s controversial interactions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky must not distract attention from the important question of U.S. policy toward Russia in connection with its war in Ukraine – especially as Zelensky and key European leaders send disturbing signals that they want to appease Russia’s Vladimir Putin in hopes of ending the war.

Ukraine remains a key issue of East-West contention and, at the moment, the highest profile flashpoint of Putin’s efforts to extend Russia’s influence far beyond its borders. How the United States and its allies respond will go a long way toward either containing Putin or encouraging him to push harder.

Washington should reaffirm that it won’t recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea, maintain its sanctions on Moscow, look to add more sanctions in the face of Russia’s further aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere, and seek additional ways to fortify Ukraine beyond the military aid it has already provided.

Washington also should discourage French and German calls to accommodate Putin in hopes of reducing East-West tensions – calls that are causing serious splits in Europe over how best to respond to Putin’s aggressive behavior around the world.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/turkey-and-the-kurds-its-more-complicated-than-you-think/

We are grateful for the Kurds’ help, and we should try to help them in return. But no one wants to risk war with Turkey.

O n Monday, President Trump announced that a contingent of fewer than 100 U.S. troops in Syria was being moved away from Kurdish-held territory on the border of Turkey. The move effectively green-lighted military operations by Turkey against the Kurds, which have now commenced.

Some U.S. military officials went public with complaints about being “blindsided.” The policy cannot have been a surprise, though. The president has made no secret that he wants out of Syria, where we now have about 1,000 troops (down from over 2,000 last year). More broadly, he wants our forces out of the Middle East. He ran on that position. I’ve argued against his “endless wars” tropes, but his stance is popular. As for Syria specifically, many of the president’s advisers think we should stay, but he has not been persuaded.

The president’s announcement of the redeployment of the Syrian troops came on the heels of a phone conversation with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. This, obviously, was a mistake, giving the appearance (and not for the first time) that Trump is taking cues from Ankara’s Islamist strongman. As has become rote, the inevitable criticism was followed by head-scratching tweets: The president vows to “totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey,” which “I’ve done before” (huh?), if Turkey takes any actions “that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits.” We can only sigh and say it will be interesting to see how the president backs up these haughty threats now that Erdogan has begun his invasion.

All that said, the president at least has a cogent position that is consistent with the Constitution and public opinion. He wants U.S. forces out of a conflict in which America’s interests have never been clear, and for which Congress has never approved military intervention. I find that sensible — no surprise, given that I have opposed intervention in Syria from the start (see, e.g., here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). The stridency of the counterarguments is matched only by their selectiveness in reciting relevant facts.

I thus respectfully dissent from our National Review editorial.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-jacksonian-syria-withdrawal-11570487847

Under investigation for impeachment he may be, but President Trump can still shake the world with his tweets. Explaining his decision to pull U.S. troops away from the Turkish-Syrian border at the cost of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, and open the way for Turkish forces to create what Ankara calls a “safety zone,” President Trump tweeted early Monday that “it is time for us to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars, many of them tribal, and bring our soldiers home.”

Hitting the caps-lock button, Mr. Trump went on to restate one of his bedrock beliefs, and a cornerstone of Jacksonian foreign-policy thinking: “WE WILL ONLY FIGHT WHERE IT IS TO OUR BENEFIT, AND ONLY FIGHT TO WIN.” As for concerns that a U.S. withdrawal would allow Islamic State to re-form, Mr. Trump was dismissive. “We are 7000 miles away and will crush ISIS again if they come anywhere near us!”

Criticism of Mr. Trump’s withdrawal decision has been intense, with prominent supporters like Sen. Lindsey Graham and former officials like Nikki Haley joining longtime opponents of the White House. Much of that criticism is justified, and the erratic nature of Trump-era policy making, as well as the often-unpredictable policy mix that results, are undercutting American prestige and influence in much of the world. But not all of the problems dogging the Trump administration Middle East policy are caused by Mr. Trump’s sometimes idiosyncratic views or policy-making style. As two other news stories from the Middle East last week make clear, the American position in the region is an odd mix of dominance and impotence that makes good policy making hard—and that makes the task of building domestic support for smart policy even harder.

The first development is a success story that underlines how dominant the U.S. has become: Fearing U.S. sanctions, China National Petroleum Corp. has abandoned plans for a multibillion-dollar investment in Iran’s South Pars gas field. This is part of a broader Chinese retreat from Iran in the face of American pressure; the Middle Kingdom isn’t yet ready to challenge the U.S. in the Middle East.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/10/why-syria-pullout-makes-sense-kenneth-r-timmerman/

Washington is awash with dire predictions following President Trump’s “surprise” announcement late Sunday night to pull out the remaining 500 or so U.S. advisors currently in northern Syria.

But as the President tweeted on Monday morning, he was elected to end our “ridiculous endless wars,” which are costing us huge amounts in blood and treasure. Continued U.S. entanglement, according to Trump, can only make Russia and China happy.

So which is it: is the President endangering the United States and our allies by pulling out of Syria? Betraying our allies, the Kurds? Or is he defending America’s national interest?

I have spent a lot of time with the Kurds on the ground, especially in northern Iraq, along the Iranian border. I have also met with Kurdish peshmerga generals in Iraq, as well as the overall Iraqi commander, in charge of the fight against ISIS in Mosul.

That battle is over. And contrary to how MSNBC has been misquoting Sen. Lindsay Graham all day, the United States has indeed utterly defeated the ISIS caliphate.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/us-foreign-policy-iran-keep-it-steady-and-cool/

And keep pumping that American oil and gas.

Expect more desperate Iranian efforts to prompt a U.S. military response in the Persian Gulf. Trump’s sanctions have cut off 90 percent of Iran’s oil revenues. Soon Tehran’s shattered economy will be followed by more pent-up domestic unrest of the sort that Barack Obama ignored in 2009, when he felt that the continued viability of the murderous theocracy fed his bizarre dreams of enhancing a new Shiite, Persian hegemony to counterbalance the Sunni Arabs.

In contrast, America’s newfound role as the largest gas and oil producer in the world has not only lessened the importance of imported oil, whether from enemies such as Iran and Venezuela, or purported friends like Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies. In a weird way, it has also turned the last half-century of oil politics upside down.

Tensions in the Gulf now help as much as hurt the United States. America is soon slated also to become the world’s largest exporter of gas and oil. Any increased costs for importing overseas oil will be offset by greater profits from American exports.

There are five general principles that should guide Trump in isolating Iran.

First, Iran desperately needs a military confrontation of some sort — preferably short of an all-out war. Their rationale behind missile and drone attacks is to get Trump out of office by 2021, to unite a factionalizing Iranian public around heroic resistance to the Great Satan or a lesser Satan in Tel Aviv, and to create enough chaos that some outside party might step in to save Iran from what otherwise would probably be an inevitable death spiral. They yearn for a return of Kerry-ism, or the chance that America’s naïve coastal elites will return to power and virtue-signal away whatever Tehran wants.

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.