RUTHFULLY YOURS

Next week’s G-20 meeting in Hamburg promises to be more interesting than usual. The expected unhinged leftist crowds are already much in evidence and could be counted on for a dose of violence and turmoil. More seriously, this time the fireworks are more likely to come from inside the conference rooms than outside. In preparation for the event, the German chancellor Angela Merkel has already accused Trump of “Abshottung” (door closure or foreclosure) and promised to challenge him directly on a number of issues. Whether she already feels like the leader of the free world (as many pundits are trying to convince her that she actually is), or not is unclear, but she obviously has Trump in mind when she argues that “abshottung” from “climate change, terrorism and migration” is a huge mistake, or when she promises to conduct negotiations “so that they serve the Paris Agreements.” No wonder her party’s election platform for the first time does not mention America as Germany’s key ally and friend.

If there was any surprise in this, it came earlier when the German chancellor openly sided with a blatantly pro-Russian project called Nord Stream 2 that could seriously damage the European Union. Like Nord Stream 1, Nord Stream 2 is a Russian diversionary pipeline designed to bypass Ukraine and Eastern Europe, damage them financially, and enhance Putin’s political clout and the dependence of Western Europe on Gazprom. This was clearly seen as a provocation by the U.S. Senate, which voted 97 to 2 to impose sanctions on any company participating in this scheme. Yet, Angela Merkel and her socialist coalition partners, whose former party boss and current Putin lackey, Gerhard Schroeder, is the president of Nord Stream 2, promptly warned the U.S. to mind its own business. In doing that, Merkel, disregarded the vigorous protests of 13 Eastern European countries and those of the European Energy Union, which clearly cannot coexist with Nord Stream 2. This is yet another disturbing case where the dominant power in the EU has disregarded the interests of its EU partners to curry favor with Putin. Perhaps, somebody should have told Mrs. Merkel that blatantly disregarding the bipartisan will of the American Senate is never a smart idea on the part of somebody who still depends on the United States for its security.

Whatever the case, President Trump needs to be prepared for a hostile reception. It will help him to know a bit more about who Frau Merkel is as a politician and what exactly she stands for. So far, he has challenged her on Germany’s huge trade surplus with the United States, which is not smart and makes him look like a petty mercantilist. The reason for that is that while Germany does have a huge trade surplus with us, it is a relatively underdeveloped country in information technology, high tech, and financial services, where the U.S. can and does run circles around it. It could easily be proven, for instance, that when digital and financial services, licensing revenues, and investment returns are emphasized, the U.S. runs a much bigger surplus than the Germans do in trade.

The fact is that while Trump may not be quite right on the German trade surplus and its causes, Merkel’s 12-year rule in Germany has, for the most part, been unsuccessful, not to say disastrous. To start with, it was under Merkel’s leadership that Germany abruptly decided to ban nuclear power on the absurd assumption that the Fukushima disaster could repeat itself in Germany, a country that has never had a tsunami or an earthquake larger than 5 on the Richter scale. This irrational decision by the chancellor to do away with a legitimate industry that produced 25% of the country’s clean and inexpensive energy, apart from its dubious legality and lack of scientific and economic rationale, led to greater dependence on Russian gas and made inevitable the ‘energy transition’ (Energiewende) to renewable energy, whose disastrous consequences are only now coming into focus. Suffice it to say that the Germans already pay three times more than Americans (twice as much as the French) for their electricity, including a surcharge that is twice the market price of a kilowatt hour.

On Tuesday, North Korea launched what it called a Hwasong-14.

The missile flew only a little more than 550 miles downrange but reached an altitude of 1,740 miles. Fired on a normal trajectory, the Hwasong-14 would have traveled at least 4,100 miles.

The missile was not, as Pyongyang claimed, “capable of hitting any part of the world,” but it was an intercontinental ballistic missile and able to reach the fringes of the American homeland, all of Alaska and the approaches to the main islands of Hawaii.

The ICBM test sets up a confrontation, not just between the U.S. and North Korea but also between the U.S. and China.

In his televised New Year’s Day message this year, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un suggested his regime would soon conduct an “intercontinental ballistic rocket launch,” in other words, a missile test.

One day later, President-elect Trump tweeted this: “It won’t happen!”

It just did. And to add insult to injury, it happened on July 4.

So now that the Norks have unmistakably defied Trump, there are two things in particular to watch in the coming days. First, analysts will be seeing how the White House handles the Chinese.

The U.S. is trying to rally the international community and, as part of this effort, has called for a closed-door UN Security Council session, now scheduled for Wednesday.

If the past is any guide, China, along with junior partner Russia, will try to stall and water down measures proposed by the U.S. In the past, Chinese rearguard actions helped North Korea because Washington, although insisting it had the right to act beyond UN measures, rarely did so.

Trump, however, has made it clear that the U.S. will act alone to defend itself. And this missile test, much more than the others this year, is perceived as putting Americans at risk.

If Beijing resorts to its old playbook, it risks Trump imposing severe costs. This week, after all, follows a series of decisive actions against a China that disappointed Trump over not doing more to defang North Korea.

From Monday to Thursday, Trump hammered Beijing. On Monday, the American president welcomed the leader of China’s adversary, India, to the White House in an unmistakable signal to the Chinese. On Tuesday, the State Department dropped China to the worst ranking—Tier 3—in its annual Trafficking in Persons report. On Thursday, the Treasury Department sawed off the Bank of Dandong, a shady Chinese bank, from the global financial system and sanctioned a Chinese shipping company and two Chinese individuals. That same day, the administration notified Congress of a proposed sale of arms to Taiwan, which Beijing considers a breakaway province.

And on Sunday Trump iced the cake when a U.S. Navy destroyer, the Stethem, passed close by a Chinese-held island in the South China Sea in a “freedom of navigation” exercise that enraged Beijing.

If the Chinese do not come around fast at the Security Council, they could find themselves the target of more Trump actions. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s statement on the missile launch looks as if the administration is targeting North Korea’s enablers as much as the North itself. A renewed campaign against Beijing will signal that last week’s actions were indeed the beginning of a tougher approach toward China.

Donald Trump thinks of himself as a great judge of character and master deal-maker, and that could be a dangerous combination when the President meets with Vladimir Putin for the first time Friday during the G-20 meeting in Germany. The Russian strongman respects only strength, not charm, which is what Mr. Trump will have to show if he wants to help U.S. interests abroad and his own at home.

The meeting comes amid the various probes of Russian meddling into the 2016 election, and Mr. Trump’s curious refusal to denounce it. There’s no evidence of Trump-Russia campaign collusion, nor that Russian interference influenced the result. But the Kremlin’s attempt was a deliberate affront to democracy and it has done considerable harm to Mr. Trump’s Presidency. Mr. Trump should be angry at Mr. Putin on America’s behalf, and his apparent insouciance has played into Democratic hands.

The irony is that on policy Mr. Trump has been tougher on Mr. Putin than either of his two predecessors. Over Kremlin objections, the U.S. President has endorsed Montenegro’s entry into NATO and new NATO combat deployments in Eastern Europe. He has approved military action against Russian ally Bashar Assad in Syria even after Russian threats of retaliation.

The White House was also wise to visit Poland a day before he meets Mr. Putin. In Warsaw on Thursday he can reinforce traditional American support for Polish freedom and assert his personal and public support for NATO’s Article 5 that an attack on one alliance member is an attack on all.

Perhaps most important, Mr. Trump has unleashed U.S. oil and gas production that has the potential to weaken Mr. Putin at home and in Europe. The Russian strongman needs high oil prices and wields the leverage of natural-gas supplies over Europe, and U.S. production undermines both.

Yet Mr. Putin will be looking to see if he can leverage Mr. Trump’s desire for better U.S.-Russia relations to gain unilateral concessions. One Kremlin priority is easing Western sanctions for the invasion of Ukraine and President Obama’s December 2016 sanctions for its election interference. The Russian foreign ministry is in particular demanding that the U.S. let Russia reopen compounds in Maryland and New York that Mr. Obama shut down.

Mr. Trump will be tempted to oblige because the compounds are ultimately of no great consequence, but the political symbolism of reopening them would still be damaging if the President gets nothing in return. Mr. Putin still denies any Russian election hacking, and to adapt Michael Corleone’s line to Carlo in “The Godfather Part II,” he should stop lying because it insults our intelligence. Mr. Trump should at least follow French President Emmanuel Macron’s precedent and issue a face-to-face public rebuke unless Mr. Putin apologizes.

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis claimed Wednesday that the Syrian regime has drawn back from plans to conduct another chemical attack, following a warning by the Trump administration of serious consequences if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces followed through with their plans.

U.S. intelligence detected “active preparations for chemical weapons use” at the same air base from which the regime allegedly had launched its prior chemical attack last April that caused mass casualties. President Trump had responded to the April chemical attack with a barrage of cruise missiles targeting that air base. The White House issued its public warning to the Assad regime on Monday in unambiguous terms, declaring that Assad and his military would pay a “heavy price” if his regime conducted another chemical attack.

“It appears that they took the warning seriously. They didn’t do it,” Mattis told reporters.

Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, went even further in crediting the Trump administration for stopping Assad at least for now. “I can tell you that due to the President’s actions, we did not see an incident,” Ambassador Haley claimed at a House of Representatives foreign affairs committee hearing. “I would like to think that the President saved many innocent men, women and children.”

It is difficult to prove what may have actually motivated Assad. In any case, whether Assad holds back for good remains to be seen. But we do know the Trump administration is watching constantly for any moves by the Assad regime that could signal an imminent chemical attack and has military assets in place to swiftly respond to such an attack, if not prevent one in the first place.

President Trump not only demonstrated last April that he would follow through on his threats if certain red lines of his were crossed, unlike our previous president. In addition to its warning, the Trump administration may have sent some concrete signals to the Assad regime that it means business this time as well. According to Debkafile, “Signs were gathering in Washington and the Middle East Tuesday, June 26 that the Trump administration was preparing a substantial military operation against the Syrian army and Bashar Assad’s allies, such as the foreign pro-Iranian Shiite militias and Hizballah. Some US military sources suggested that an American preemptive strike was in store in the coming hours to prevent Assad’s army from again resorting to chemical warfare against his people.”

Assad may still decide to launch another chemical attack, figuring that his key allies, particularly Russia, will continue to back him. No doubt, he took note of Russia’s stern response to the U.S.’s downing of a Syrian warplane earlier this month, including a warning from the Russian Defense Ministry that “All kinds of airborne vehicles, including aircraft and UAVs of the international coalition detected to the west of the Euphrates River will be tracked by the Russian SAM systems as air targets.” The Syrian regime had also already taken some precautions by moving most of its operational aircraft to a Russian airbase in Syria after the April missile strike. The Russian airbase is protected by fairly advanced air defense systems. An American missile strike on Syrian aircraft located at a Russian air base would in all likelihood be seen as a major escalation of the war by the Russian government, risking a direct military confrontation between U.S. and Russia that the Trump administration may be loath to risk. As if to thumb his nose at the Trump administration’s latest threats by demonstrating the strength of his military alliance with Russia, Assad was seen strutting around a Russian air baseinspecting its aircraft and defense systems. He was even photographed sitting in the cockpit of a Russian fighter jet.

In Germany today to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Marshall Plan, Defense Secretary James Mattis said Russia needs to understand what the United States “will not tolerate” when it comes to engagement with Washington.

Mattis spoke at the Marshall Center in Garmisch-Partenkirchen of his “surprise of being assigned to this job” and of his “deep respect” for Germany and “this country’s troops for their professionalism, for their courage and for their sacrifices on shared battlefields against Afghanistan and against ISIS or any other agents of terror and all the world …your ethical performance is a model for all others and we in the United States Department of Defense are grateful for our strong alliance with the German military.”

He declared the U.S. commitment to NATO’s Article V security guarantee to be “ironclad.”

“Western values, respect for a rules based order and for national sovereignty, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the dignity of the human person — these are values worth defending,” he said.

Mattis wrapped up his remarks, which largely focused on the history and results of the Marshall Plan, “with a message to the nation choosing to challenge this secure and peaceful order.”

“The United States seeks to engage with Russia and so does the NATO alliance but Russia must know both what we stand for and equally, what we will not tolerate. We stand for freedom and we will never surrender the freedom of our people or the values of our alliance that we hold dear,” he said.

“I mentioned a moment ago that discouraged people are in need of inspiration and there are millions of people like that who live today in Russia. Their leader making mischief beyond Russian borders will not restore their fortunes or rekindle their hope. And while we will meet with any aggression with what Danish Defense Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen said was determination, deterrence and purpose, we will also watch for a Russia that honors its people enough to abide by international law and so wins for them peace the we all offer.”

The headlines out of Syria are eye-catching: There are signs the Assad government may be planning another chemical attack. American pilots have struck forces threatening our allies and shot down a Syrian plane and Iranian-made drones. The probability of direct military confrontation between the U.S. and Russia has risen. Yet the coverage of these incidents and the tactical responses that have been suggested obscure the broader story: The slow-moving campaign against Islamic State is finally nearing its conclusion—yet major, long-range strategic issues remain unresolved.

The real issue isn’t tactical. It is instead the lack of American strategic thinking about the Middle East after Islamic State. Its defeat will leave a regional political vacuum that must be filled somehow. Instead of reflexively repeating President Obama’s errors, the Trump administration should undertake an “agonizing reappraisal,” in the style of John Foster Dulles, to avoid squandering the victory on the ground.

First, the U.S. ought to abandon or substantially reduce its military support for Iraq’s current government. Despite retaining a tripartite veneer of Kurds, Sunni Arabs and Shiite Arabs, the capital is dominated by Shiites loyal to Iran. Today Iraq resembles Eastern Europe in the late 1940s, as the Soviet anaconda tightened its hold. Extending Baghdad’s political and military control into areas retaken from ISIS simply advances Tehran’s power. This cannot be in America’s interest.

Iraq’s Kurds have de facto independence and are on the verge of declaring it de jure. They fight ISIS to facilitate the creation of a greater Kurdistan. Nonetheless, the Kurds, especially in Syria and Turkey, are hardly monolithic. Not all see the U.S. favorably. In Syria, Kurdish forces fighting ISIS are linked to the Marxist PKK in Turkey. They pose a real threat to Turkey’s territorial integrity, even if it may seem less troubling now that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s plans have turned so profoundly contrary to the secular, Western-oriented vision of Kemal Atatürk.

Second, the U.S. should press Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf monarchies for more troops and material assistance in fighting ISIS. America has carried too much of the burden for too long in trying to forge Syria’s opposition into an effective force. Yet even today the opposition could charitably be called “diverse.” It includes undeniably terrorist elements that are often hard to distinguish from the “moderates” the U.S. supports. Getting fresh contributions from Arab allies would rebalance the opposition, which is especially critical if the U.S. turns away, as it should, from reliance on the Iraqi forces dominated by Tehran.

Third, the Trump administration must take a clear-eyed view of Russia’s intervention. The Syrian mixing bowl is where confrontation between American and Russian forces looms. Why is Russia active in this conflict? Because it is aiding its allies: Syria’s President Bashar Assad and Iran’s ayatollahs. Undeniably, Russia is on the wrong side. But Mr. Obama, blind to reality, believed Washington and Moscow shared a common interest in easing the Assad regime out of power. The Trump administration’s new thinking should be oriented toward a clear objective: pushing back these Iranian and Russian gains.

Start with Iran. Tehran is trying to cement an arc of control from its own territory, through Baghdad-controlled Iraq and Mr. Assad’s Syria, to Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon. This would set the stage for the region’s next potential conflict: Iran’s Shiite coalition versus a Saudi-led Sunni alliance.

The U.S.-led coalition, enhanced as suggested above, needs to thwart Iran’s ambitions as ISIS falls. Securing increased forces and financial backing from the regional Arab governments is essential. Their stakes are as high as ours—despite the contretemps between Qatar and Saudi Arabia (and others)—but their participation has lagged. The U.S. has mistakenly filled the gap with Iraqi government forces and Shiite militias. CONTINUE AT SITE