Confusion and distrust
The Trump Administration is in a remarkable period of serial failures. Denuclearization of North Korea is going nowhere. Displacement of Venezuelan President Maduro has stalled. The tariff contest with China is escalating. Even the President’s sudden shift to backing Libyan strongman Haftar’s assault on Tripoli seems to have fizzled.
The domestic front is no better: Trump is stonewalling the House of Representatives but must know that eventually the courts will order most of what the Democratic majority is requesting be done. Special Counsel Mueller himself will eventually testify and be asked whether his documentation of obstruction of justice by the President would have led to indictment for any other perpetrator. A dozen or so other investigations continue, both by prosecutors and the House. These will include counter-intelligence investigations, which Mueller did not pursue, with enormous potential to embarrass the President and his close advisers.
The result is utter confusion in US foreign policy. Secretary of State Pompeo today postponed a meeting with President Putin and is stopping instead in Brussels to crash a meeting the UK, Germany, and France had convened to talk about how to preserve the Iran nuclear deal. This is happening on the same day that President Trump is meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán, whose anti-democratic maneuvers have made him unwelcome in London, Berlin, and Paris.
Pompeo will be pitching hostility to Iran, based on the presumption that it is responsible for attacks on tankers over the weekend off the coast of Fujairah, one of the (United Arab) Emirates located outside the Gulf of Hormuz. Tehran has denounced the attacks, which may or may not indicate something. The perpetrators are unknown. While concerned about the attacks, the Europeans will want the US to tone down the hostility towards Iran, with which they want to maintain the nuclear deal from which the US has withdrawn.
Germany is likely to be particularly annoyed with the Americans, not least because Pompeo last week canceled at the last minute a scheduled meeting with Chancellor Merkel in order to go to Iraq, where he failed to convince Baghdad to join the sanctions against Iran. She has become the strongest defender of liberal democracy and the rules-based international order that President Trump has so noisily and carelessly abandoned, while at the same time displeasing the US Administration by continuing the Nord Stream 2 natural gas deal with Russia.
In diplomacy, holding on to your friends is important. Washington under Trump has elected not to accommodate the more powerful Europeans and Iraq but rather to support the would-be autocrats in Hungary and Poland, as well as the Brexiteers in the UK and the Greater Israel campaigners who also advocate war with Iran. All of this was completely unnecessary, since it would have been possible to pursue additional agreements with Iran on regional and other issues without exiting the nuclear deal.
The Administration has thrown away the friends it needs and acquired a few it does not. It has lost the key Europeans and has nothing whatsoever to show for it. It has gotten nowhere with Putin, despite the President’s obsequious fawning. Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which are both crying foul about the tanker attacks, are unreliable. They have been known to purvey fake news in the past (especially in initiating their conflict with Qatar), so might they be doing so again?
The result is monumental confusion and distrust. America’s friends are offended. Her enemies are encouraged. Elections have consequences.
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It’s all about him
Rarely has an Administration compiled a clearer record of losing than this one is doing right now:
- President Trump’s best friend Kim Jong-un is busily launching short-range missiles while the US holds the door open for negotiations.
- The push to replace Venezuelan President Maduro with Interim President Guaido has stalled after several attempts.
- The “maximum pressure” policy on Iran is pushing Tehran towards restarting part of its nuclear program while alienating America’s European allies.
- The “Deal of the Century” between Palestinians and Israelis is stillborn.
- The tariff war with China is escalating.
The Administration knows only one negotiating tactic: squeezing hard to cause pain, while offering economic benefits if only the adversary will give in. Other peoples’ national pride, interests, and values are not taken into account. It is just assumed that “they” are just like us and want all the same things, mainly nice hotels.
That’s not how diplomacy works. To change an adversary’s behavior, you have to consider not your own value function but theirs. Kim Jong-un doesn’t want foreign investment or economic benefits he cannot control. Maduro isn’t interested in leaving Venezuela, even if the Americans leave him an escape route to Cuba. Iran has withstood sanctions before and will do so again. The Palestinians won’t take money instead of a state. Chinese President Xi Jinping isn’t going to weaken the Communist Party’s grip on the economy to please Donald Trump.
Of course Donald Trump will never admit defeat on any of these issues. Whatever happens, he’ll announce victory, exaggerating his own prowess and role. It really doesn’t matter what the truth of the matter is. After lots of sound and fury, Trump readily settles for half a loaf or less, as he did on the “renegotiation” of the North American Free Trade Agreement. His primary concern is not getting a good deal for America but rather ensuring that he looks strong to his domestic constituency and can count on them to go to the polls. It’s not about America. It’s all about him.
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Advantage Iran
President Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo are both begging for talks with Iran and have been for months. Now they are ratcheting up the pressure by deploying a carrier battle group (which had been slated to head for the Gulf a bit later) and toughening sanctions against Iran’s oil and metals industries. Washington’s theory of the case is that more pain will bring Tehran to its senses, maybe even to its knees.
Meanwhile Iran is heading in the opposite direction. It is planning to begin a phased withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that the US left a year ago. Without the economic benefits of the deal, there is little reason for Tehran to stick with it. The harder-line voices there never liked the constraints on the nuclear program and view the US withdrawal from the agreement as an opportunity, not a disincentive. It proves the hardliners correct in their assertion that the Americans can’t be trusted and gives them momentum in seeking to restart the nuclear weapons program that the JCPOA rolled back and suspended.
Washington and Tehran are engaged in a classic turn toward what conflict management folks call their “Best Alternatives to a Negotiated Solution” (BATNAs). Each is trying to demonstrate that it has a better one. The escalation is of course dangerous, but it could eventually lead towards a mutual recognition that the situation is ripe for a negotiation. If, as both assert, neither wants to go to war, which could have catastrophic outcomes, the escalation might generate the incentive each side needs to negotiate.
It is not clear however that both sides do in fact want to avoid war. The Americans are simply unpredictable: National Security Advisor Bolton has long advocated war to end Iran’s nuclear program, but President Trump seems reluctant and in any event is unreliable. The Iranians also have a divided command structure, but in the end it will be the Supreme Leader who decides whether to go to war, likely by attacking Americans in Iraq or Syria and possibly even using terrorist sleeper cells in the US. Pompeo and other American officials have warned as much and claimed that is why they are accelerating the deployment of the carrier battle group. Quid pro quo strikes could escalate quickly.
If I had to guess, Trump will flinch before the Supreme Leader does. A new war in the Middle East isn’t what he should want to try to sell to the American people. It would disrupt a growing economy and belie the President’s many declarations of intent to leave fighting in the Middle East to others. Even a flim-flam man knows his limits. Iran is a country of 81 million people long hardened by war (with Iraq) and sanctions. While discontent is rife, the Supreme Leader can be certain that the Americans won’t invade. A carrier battle group, plus some bombers, does not an invasion make. A cruise missile strike on elements of the nuclear program would set it back but free Iran from any JCPOA constraints.
The Americans served first by withdrawing from the JCPOA and reimposing sanctions without lining up multilateral support. The Iranians are responding with their own phased drawdown from their commitments under the agreement, while trying not to drive either the Europeans or the Chinese into the arms of the Americans. Some sort of mutual accommodation could still be possible, but if this were a tennis match, the score would be “ad out.”
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Over the edge
Early in the Trump administration I recognized it as a radical one. By now, we can all see that there is little conservative about Trump: he has exploded the Federal deficit, attacked Federal law enforcement, appointed judges who want to reverse the decision that allowed legal abortion in the US, and avoided criticism of right-wing and racist hate groups.
In foreign policy the Trump Administration has also been radical: it supported an attempted seizure of power (I won’t call it a coup because it is arguable that Guaido is the legitimate president) in Venezuela, it has unilaterally reimposed sanctions on Iran without enlisting the support of European or Asian allies, it has supported Israel’s rejection of the two-state solution with the Palestinians, and the President himself has supported a military assault on Tripoli by a Benghazi-based warlord.
But there is another radical edge of this Administration: willingness to skirt the law. That is the main conclusion of Special Counsel Mueller’s report. He found no evidence of active cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russia, but lots of evidence that the campaign welcomed Russian interference in favor of candidate Trump. He also found lots of evidence of obstruction of justice, but declined to make a formal finding against a sitting president. Well before Mueller’s report we knew that the President was at or beyond the edge on accepting payments from foreign governments, not to mention the manifold charges of corrupt behavior against his cabinet officials, several of whom have resigned as a result.
The aborted nominations of Herman Cain and Stephen Moore to the Federal Reserve tell us more about this radical edge. Neither is even remotely qualified for the position. Both had a graveyard’s worth of skeletons in their closets. That is the sort of person Trump likes. These are people who can be relied upon to be 100% loyal and not to make noise about the Administration malfeasance. They can be blackmailed and won’t rebel. Both proved to be beyond the pale for Republicans in the Senate, but Trump had no problem with proposing such radically unqualified candidates.
Now, as I was writing this post, Trump called Russian President Putin, did not object to Russian interference in the 2016 election, and agreed with Putin that the whole thing was a hoax, contradicting both the Mueller report and the consensus of US intelligence agencies. Trump also believed Putin when he denied being interested in doing anything but positive things in Venezuela, where Russia has been backing President Maduro to the hilt while the US is trying to oust him. Trump’s refusal to back American government intelligence and policy is as close to disloyalty to the United States as was Trump’s appearance with Putin in Helsinki. Judge for yourself:
It’s over the edge for me.
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Venezuela is no Grenada
One thing seems clear: it’s not over yet in Venezuela. The Americans appear to have anticipated that the military would break with Nicolás Maduro and support Juan Guaidó’s claim to the presidency. That didn’t happen yesterday, when it was supposed to. Nor did Maduro leave the country, as Secretary of State Pompeo thought he would. John Bolton this morning is claiming that Maduro surrounded “by scorpions in a bottle,” but they haven’t bitten yet.
In the meanwhile, yesterday’s demonstrations departed at least in part from non-violence. This is both comprehensible and mistaken. Comprehensible because the police, army, and paramilitaries used violence against the demonstrators. Responding in self-defense is certainly justifiable. But it is also mistaken because violence will limit the number of people who take to the street today and also make it more difficult for the security forces to come over to the side of the demonstrators. If attacked, they will defend themselves.
The Trump Administration meanwhile is still threatening a military intervention as well as sanctions against Cuba for its support of Maduro. A military intervention would be nuts. There are no signs of preparation for it. Venezuela is a country of about 30 million people even after a couple of million have fled. A significant percentage of those are loyal to Maduro, in addition to at least part of the 2.8-million man army. Even in its current dilapidated state, that army would not welcome the US Marines with open arms. The Cubans and Russians would also be a problem. Venezuela is no Grenada, which wasn’t entirely a picnic.
A coup is of course still possible, but that won’t solve Caracas’ problems. The Venezuelan army leadership is deeply corrupted, including with drug trafficking and other organized crime activities. Armies don’t seize power in order to hand it to civilian leaders, but rather to protect themselves. A chat with Egypt’s President Sisi should be enough to convince anyone of that. The Americans will figure military rule is better than Maduro, but
Guaidó should be thinking twice before collaborating in a military takeover. He needs to the military to support him, not to seize power for itself.
The next 48 hours or so may be decisive. If Maduro can survive for that long, he has a chance of re-consolidating power. If he trembles even slightly, he could end up history. He has far more at stake than the Americans, which means he is likely to hold on tight, using brutal force if need be to show his determination. But the army has a lot at stake too. As in Algeria and Sudan, there are really three contenders for power, not just two. And Guaidó doesn’t look like the strongest of them today.
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Peace Picks April 29-May 3
1. Withdrawal or Realignment? The Future of U.S. Middle East Policy After 2020| Monday, April 29, 2019| 11:45-1:30| Hudson Institute|1201 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Suite 400 Washington, DC 20004| Register Here|
Hudson Institute will host a discussion on the future of U.S. policy in the Middle East. Panelists will include Hudson Senior Fellow Michael Pregent; Daily Beast columnist and author Gordon Chang; the Washington Institute’s Anna Borshchevskaya; and Hudson Fellow Blaise Misztal. Al Arabiya’s Nadia Bilbassy-Charters will moderate the discussion.
Iran, Russia, China, and others are closely monitoring U.S. policy in the Middle East ahead of the 2020 U.S. presidential election. As 2020 candidates’ foreign policy platforms come into focus, this election outcome could have significant ramifications across established policies impacting regional fault lines, such as the polarizing Iran Deal. Additionally, recent efforts by the Trump administration to decrease the U.S. presence in Syria and Iraq have raised questions among allies about America’s long-term ambitions for the Middle East, while adversaries eye the moves as an opportunity to fill potential power vacuums left in the region.
Speakers
Nadia Bilbassy-Charters Moderator, Bureau Chief, Washington D.C., Al Arabiya
Gordon G. Chang, Author, Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes on the World; and a columnist at The Daily Beast
Blaise Misztal, Fellow, Hudson Institute
Mike Pregent, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
Anna Borshchevskaya, Senior Fellow, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
2. Trump’s Iran escalation| Monday, April 29, 2019| 12:00-1:15| Carnegie Endowment for International Peace|1779 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, DC 20036-2103| Register Here|
One year after exiting the Iran nuclear deal, the Trump administration officially designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization and is seeking to strangle Iranian oil exports. What is the likely outcome of the Trump administration’s escalating pressure campaign against Iran? How will Tehran react, and what lessons can be drawn from the last four decades of U.S.-Iran history?
SPEAKERS
GENERAL DAVID PETRAEUS, former director of the CIA and is currently the chairman of the KKR Global Institute.
WILLIAM J. BURNS, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal.
SUZANNE MALONEY, senior fellow at the Brookings Center for Middle East Policy and Energy Security and Climate Initiative.
MODERATOR, KARIM SADJADPOUR, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
3. After the caliphate: A global approach to defeating ISIS| Tuesday, April 30, 2019| 2:00-3:30| Brooking Institute|1775 Massachusetts Avenue N.W. Washington, DC 20036| Register Here|
The Islamic State took the world by surprise in 2014 when it conquered much of Iraq and Syria and declared a caliphate there. Today, the so-called caliphate is no more. Nevertheless, the Islamic State has branches and affiliates in many countries, a large underground presence in Iraq and Syria, and numerous sympathizers around the world. The future of the group, and of the broader movement it claims to champion, are uncertain, and U.S. policy must ensure that it continues to retreat.
On April 30, the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings will host a discussion on this topic. Nathan Sales, ambassador-at-large and coordinator for counterterrorism at the U.S. Department of State, will offer a keynote address after which Brookings Senior Fellow Daniel Byman will moderate a discussion with Ambassador Sales. Following the conversation, the speakers will take questions from the audience.
AGENDA
Introduction
Bruce Jones, Vice President and Director – Foreign Policy Senior Fellow
KEYNOTE
Nathan A. Sales, Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator for Counterterrorism – U.S. Department of State
MODERATOR
Daniel L. Byman, Senior Fellow – Foreign Policy, Center for Middle East Policy
DISCUSSANT
Nathan A. Sales, Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator for Counterterrorism – U.S. Department of State
4. Pursuing Effective and Conflict-Aware Stabilization | Tuesday, April 30, 2019| 3:30-5:00| Center for Strategic and International Studies|1616 Rhode Island Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20036| Register Here|
Please join the CSIS International Security Program and Project on Prosperity and Development for a discussion on pursuing effective and conflict-aware stabilization in light of the new Stabilization Assistance Review framework, released by the U.S. administration in June 2018.
Agenda
3:30 PM – 4:00 PM: Keynote
Dr. Denise Natali, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, U.S. Department of State
Moderator: Erol Yayboke, Deputy Director and Senior Fellow, Project on Prosperity and Development, Project on U.S. Leadership in Development, Center for Strategic and International Studies
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM: Panel Discussion
Ambassador Barbara Bodine, Director and Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University
Frances Brown, Fellow, Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Robert Jenkins, Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance, U.S. Agency for International Development
Moderator: Melissa Dalton, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director, International Security Program, and Director, Cooperative Defense Project, Center for Strategic and International Studies
5. The Christian right in the Trump and post-Trump eras| Wednesday, May 1, 2019| 10:30-12:00| Hudson Institute|1789 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, DC 20036| Register Here|
Donald Trump was not the first choice of many conservative Christian voters for the 2016 Republican nomination. However, they strongly backed Trump in the 2016 presidential election, and they remain among Trump’s most ardent supporters. Are conservative Christians, in backing Trump, wagering that his policies are worth the baggage? Or have their priorities fundamentally changed?
More broadly, the percentage of Republicans who attend church regularly and who identify as Christian traditionalists is dropping, and the issues that animate Trump’s GOP appear different than those of the 1990s and 2000s. At a time of growing secularization, rising religious pluralism, and identity-based political polarization, has the role of Christianity in the Republican Party fundamentally changed?
Agenda
10:15 AM
Registration
10:30 AM
Opening remarks:
Daniel A. Cox, AEI
10:45 AM
Panel Discussion
Panelists
David Barker, Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies; American University
Emily Ekins, Cato Institute
Emma Green, The Atlantic
Joanna Piacenza, Morning Consult
Moderator:
Daniel A. Cox, AEI
11:45 AM
Q&A
12:00 PM
Adjournment
6. Instability and Opportunity in North Africa| Wednesday, May 1, 2019| 2:00-3:30| United States Institute of Peace|2301 Constitution Ave NW, Washington, DC 20037| Register Here|
Since 2011, popular protests have forced four of the five governments in North Africa out of power. As these long-standing regimes fall, the resulting political vacuums are creating security challenges that could undermine internal efforts to promote reform. Weak or non-existent government institutions are being exploited by terrorists, human traffickers, and criminals—threatening the stability of immediate neighbors while having a direct impact on Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and U.S. national security interests. Yet, all this upheaval may also present an opportunity to advance deep, regional security cooperation that has been historically unattainable.
Across North Africa, instability is at its highest level since 2011. In Algeria, President Bouteflika’s resignation was a necessary step to democratization, but it remains to be seen if the political structure can survive protesters’ demands for reform and ensure a peaceful transition of power. In Libya, the hope for a compromise to end the stalemate between the internationally recognized government in Tripoli and armed opposition forces seems to be lost. In Egypt, President el-Sisi’s supporters have proposed constitutional changes that will concentrate executive power, alarming human rights and democracy advocates around the world. And amid all this turmoil, Tunisia is trying to consolidate its own democracy and reform its security institutions following decades of autocratic rule.
Speakers
Abdelkrim Zbidi, Minister of Defense, Republic of Tunisia
Thomas Hill, Senior Program Officer, North Africa, U.S. Institute of Peace
Michael Yaffe, Vice President, Middle East and Africa, U.S. Institute of Peace
7. A new Palestinian Government: Is reconciliation possible| Friday, May 3, 2019| 12:30-2:00| Middle East Institute|1319 18th St NW District of Columbia, Washington 20036| Register Here|
The Middle East Institute (MEI) is pleased to host a panel discussion to examine the implications of the Palestinian Authority’s recent power shift. On April 14, Mohammed Shtayyeh took office as Prime Minister, a position held by Rami Hamdallah since 2014. Shtayyeh’s appointment comes during a turbulent time in Palestine, amid protests over a new social security law and escalating confrontation with Israeli occupying forces. Unlike his politically-independent predecessor, Shtayyeh is affiliated with Fatah, President Mahmoud Abbas’s party, and Hamas has announced that it will not recognize his authority, saying he was appointed without national consensus.
How might this change in leadership affect Palestine’s political environment? Will Shtayyeh further sideline Hamas in negotiations with the Israeli government? What prospects are there to promote human rights and the rule of law amid heightening tensions between Palestine and Israel?
Speakers
Tamara Kharroub, Assistant executive director and senior Middle East fellow, Arab Center DC
Grace Wermenbol, Non-resident scholar, MEI
Ambassador Gerald Feierstein, moderator, Senior vice president, MEI
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