Enabler in chief
Here is President Trump, on the day a white supremacist killed at least 49 Muslims in New Zealand, denying that right-wing extremism is a serious threat:
This is appalling. Right-wing extremism is responsible for 73% of the terrorist murders in the US over the past decade and for all 50 of them in 2018. This, not the women and children exercising their legal rights by seeking asylum at the southern border, is a crisis worthy of presidential attention.
Why does Trump refuse to acknowledge right-wing extremism as a threat? Odds are he regards white supremacists as among his strongest supporters. The New Zealand shooter was unequivocal. Calling immigrants “invaders” as the President does, the shooter said he supports Trump as ” a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.” In his pro forma denunciation of the attack, Trump said nothing to disown this avowal, or to denounce the white identity politics that motivate it.
New Zealand Prime Minister Ardern justifiably needled Trump about this on a phone call, telling the President the US could provide support by joining her message of “sympathy and love for all Muslim communities.” Trump has certainly not done that and never will. He advocated a ban on Muslims entering the US and only gave up on it when the Supreme Court told him he had to:
Even today, his travel ban is preventing people from some Muslim countries from entering the US.
Let’s also recall Trump’s reaction to the Fascist-inspired white supremacists demonstrating in Charlottesville against Jews in August 2017:
The simple fact is that we’ve got a racist, Islamophobe president who sees nothing wrong with white supremacy and right-wing extremism. His close relationships with Jewish lawyers and his Jewish son-in-law have done nothing to reduce Trump’s sympathy with extremists. Contact with Jews is not necessarily a hindrance to anti-Semitism: one of Mussolini’s favorite mistresses was Jewish.
Trump is enabling extremism. This will no doubt lead to further death and destruction. Stay tuned for much worse.
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The state of State
President Trump’s FY2020 budget cuts the foreign affairs budget by 23%, while significantly boosting the Pentagon. The cut is mostly from Overseas Contingency Operations (wars and post-war stabilization and transition), which is zeroed out. Trump expects America’s future wars to be fought entirely without the civilian component that helps to fix the damage after the military is done. Yemenis, Libyans, Syrians, Somalis, South Sudanese, Ukrainians and others can expect little or no civilian assistance once their wars are over, if Trump gets his way.
The Administration also anticipates no need for international disaster assistance and a small fraction of what was spent in the past on refugees and migration. Big percentage cuts also hit the already very small National Endowment for Democracy (almost 2/3, to $67 million and change) and United States Institute of Peace (almost 50% to $19 million), which both engage in trying to prevent wars and in post-war efforts stabilization, the former by promoting democracy and the latter by promoting conflict resolution.
This presidential budget has little practical significance, since it will be dead on arrival in Congress, but it signals the Administration’s priorities all too clearly: it intends to continue to overuse the military instrument and to forget about civilian contributions to the projection of American power. Conventional diplomacy of the embassy/cocktail party type is not cut. In fact, the “representation” budget for that activity is increased. You wouldn’t want your big campaign contributors not to get reimbursed for entertaining foreigners. Trump is saying he doesn’t need state/nationbuilding, conflict prevention, post-war stabilization and reconstruction, countering violent extremism, refugee protection and repatriation, and response to emergencies abroad. In short, all the most pressing needs of the past two decades and more.
He is not alone in thinking we can ignore civilian commitments to national security. A good part of America believes Washington spends more than one-quarter of the national budget on foreign aid, apparently because they think it includes military spending abroad. If I thought that, I’d want to cut the foreign affairs budget too. In fact the non-military figure is around 1%, counting not only foreign aid but also all operations of State, AID and related agencies, including international organizations. I’ve had people tell me the reason we have a big national debt is foreign aid, which in fact accounts for an infinitesmal portion of it.
Congress fortunately has been fairly supportive of foreign affairs in recent years. The one virtue of this presidential proposal is that it is guaranteed to arouse opposition. Most members travel abroad and know what embassies, consulates, aid workers, and other civilians do. Most Americans do not, despite my efforts. At least 64% of Americans do not have a passport and therefore do not travel abroad or care much about what happens there, though they believe the U.S. should play a strong international leadership role. I imagine the Congress will save the day, as it did last year, and restore a lot of the funding the President would like to cut. Leadership depends as much on civilians as on the military.
Restoring the foreign affairs budget will depend however on a broader budget agreement, since sequestration will come back for 2020 if there is none. Trump will not want that, since sequestration would cut Defense back 13%, instead of the increase he is proposing. So yes, there is likely to be a compromise. But getting there will not be easy.
The state of State is weak, and getting weaker.
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Peace Picks March 11-15
1. A city-based strategy for rebuilding Libya | Tuesday, March 12 | 9:00 am – 11:00 am | Brookings Institute | Register Here | The overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 unleashed a long period of instability in Libya. Although elements of governance and a functional economy remain, Libya’s central institutions are weak, with militias and other non-state actors competing for state spoils, such as oil. This internal crisis has significant security ramifications for Libya and beyond: Besides presenting a potential source of terrorism, Libya’s ungoverned spaces have contributed to the unregulated flows of people from the Middle East and Africa to Europe. However, in recent years, the United States has been largely absent from international–including U.N.-led–efforts to restore governance in Libya. In their new report outlining recommendations for the United States and other outside actors on a new policy in Lybia, it focuses on the country’s economic, political, and security activity on its major cities, with the United States reinstating its embassy and ambassador. John R. Allen, the president of the Brooking Institute, will provide opening remarks, and Karim Mezran, Federica Saini Fasanotti and Frederic Wehrey will join Jeffrey Feltman and Alice Hunt Friend in a discussion moderated by Michael E. O’Hanlon.
2. How Pakistan Navigates the Saudi Arabia-Iran Rivalry Libya | Tuesday, March 11 | 1:00 am –2:30am |United States Institute of Peace |Register Here | The deepening relationship between Pakistan and the Gulf states comes at a period of high tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran, whose border with Pakistan has also been the site of periodic clashes and whose past efforts to launch a gas pipeline project linking the two countries remains stalled. A February 13th terrorist attacked, which killed 27 members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and was linked to Pakistani-based militants, only further escalated tensions between the two countries. While Prime Minister Khan has professed a desire to serve as a mediator between Saudi Arabia and Iran, Pakistan faces an increasingly challenging diplomatic balancing act. A discussion analyzing the current Pakistani government’s relations with Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Gulf States, and implications for regional security in South Asia and the greater Middle East, with Ankit Panda for the Diplomat, Karen Young for American Enterprise Institute and Alex Vatanka for Middle East Institute. Ambassador Richard Olson will moderate the discussion.
3. How Russia is surviving Western Sanctions | Monday, March 11 | 2:00 – 3:00 pm | Wilson Center | Register here | Despite uncertainty in the world economy and sanctions, Russia’s economy is set for a broad-based economic recovery. Policies to boost public spending, notably investment, should contribute. Martin Gilman will explore why the Russian authorities have been able to marginalize the impact of the US-instigated sanctions. Gilman will underscore how the most recent legal case involving Baring Vostok could have a much more chilling effect on economic prospects. The panel will be one-one discussion with Martin Gilman of Higher School of Economics in Moscow.
4. Plan País: Building the New Venezuela – A Roadmap for Reconstruction | Monday, March 14 | 5:00pm -6:30pm | Atlantic Council | Register Here | Venezuela is at a turning point. Interim President Juan Guaidó has received the backing of both the Venezuelan people and more than sixty countries. Looking ahead to the democratic transition, the interim government is focused on the reconstruction of Venezuela’s economy and public sector. Here, the Venezuelan National Assembly has proposed Plan País as the most promising opportunity yet to steer Venezuela out of its crisis. Beyond domestic support, Plan País will require the help of the international community and multilateral cooperation for successful implementation. “How would Plan País rebuild Venezuela, and what would be the role of the Inter-American Development Bank and other multilateral development banks,” will feature panelists Ángel Alvarado of Miranda State National Assembly of Venezuela, Alejandro Grisanti of Ecoanalítica, Paula García Tufro of Atlantic Council, Diego Area of Atlantic Council.
5. Dialogues on American Foreign Policy and World Affairs: A Conversation with Jake Sullivan| Friday, March 15 | 11:30am – 12:45 pm | Hudson Institute | Register Here | Hudson Institute will host Jake Sullivan, former national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, for a one-on-one discussion with Hudson Institute Distinguished Fellow Walter Russell Mead on U.S. national security threats and opportunities. Mead will explore Mr. Sullivan’s perspective on the future of the Middle East; Russia and Transatlantic relations; the challenge of a rising China; and other concerns facing American policymakers today and in the years ahead. Speakers include Jake Sullivan of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Walter Russell Mead of Hudson Institute.
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Your Saturday video
I’ve written many screeds against partition schemes, but none more effective than this from Yes Prime Minister:
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Criminal whitewash
Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort got off easy. Convicted in Federal court of five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud, and one count of failure to disclose a foreign bank account, the judge gave him less than four years in prison, claiming Manafort had lived an “otherwise blameless life.” That’s rich, as he was a political adviser to a corrupt Ukrainian prime minister and worked hard to fulfill Vladimir Putin’s political ambitions, both in Ukraine and in the US. He also violated his cooperation agreement with prosecutors and sought to influence witnesses during the trial. Before sentencing, he expressed no remorse for his crimes but claimed to have suffered greatly.
There really is only one way of understanding this travesty of justice: Manafort is rich and white. A poor or black defendant convicted of such charges would be looking at twice the time in prison, if not three or four times. Appointed by President Reagan, Judge Ellis had often expressed sympathy for Manafort and distaste for the prosecutors, who work for Special Counsel Mueller. Ellis seems to have decided early on that Manafort was “one of us” caught by overzealous prosecutors in what the judge considered victimless white collar crimes.
Manafort still faces serious problems, as a different Federal judge in a different court will sentence him next week on conspiracy convictions. She has shown no sympathy for Manafort and is expected to throw the book at him, which likely means an additional ten years in prison for the 69-year-old felon. Manafort may yet end his life in prison, though early release is common for good behavior. Surely there are parole boards who, like Judge Ellis, have sympathy with “one of us.” And the President could still pardon Manafort.
This sentencing has international import. President Trump has already enormously weakened America’s stance on democracy and the rule of law, which he regards as demands to make of Washington’s adversaries and not its friends. Judge Ellis’ sentencing has now added insult to injury. Who would believe that the US really stands for equality before the law, when a pal of the President gets such kid glove treatment? This criminal whitewash may obscure Manafort’s malfeasance, but it is a stain on America’s reputation. It will encourage autocrats worldwide to continue to resist the rule of law. That is precisely what Donald Trump wants to do, so long as the autocrats are his friends.
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Why the rush?
I spoke this morning via Skype to a conference in Pristina on the Kosovo-Serbia Dialogue: Nomalization or an Aggravated Status Quo. These were my speaking notes, which I did not follow religiously:
1. Thank you all for accommodating me by Skype. I’ll miss the pleasure of your company but appreciate the opportunity for my views to be heard.
2. As I hope you all know, I am an opponent of land and people swaps in the Balkans, for many reasons:
- They would be an admission that neither Belgrade nor Pristina is able to treat all their citizens properly and equally under the law, which is the main requirement of NATO and EU membership.
- They would lead, sooner or later, to massive displacement of Serbs from south of the Ibar River and Albanians from Serbia proper.
- Germany, the Netherlands, and other EU members will not approve accession for partitioned countries.
- I don’t believe any of the deals I’ve seen could be welcomed by Presidents Vucic and Thaci or approved in parliament in either Belgrade or Pristina, and certainly not in a referendum in Kosovo.
- A land swap would destabilize Bosnia and Herzegovina, where Milorad Dodik has been clear about his intention to lead Republika Srpska to secession if Kosovo is partitioned.
- A land swap in the Balkans would strengthen Russian claims to the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the secession of Transnistria, Donetsk and Luhansk as well as the annexation of Crimea.
- UN membership for Kosovo would only be possible if Washington were to concede on those issues, which it has no interest in doing.
3. Land and people swaps are a zombie idea: it wanders the earth looking for its next victim and is difficult to kill because it is dead already.
4. So why so much attention to a zombie idea and so much urgency about concluding an agreement?
5.Presidents Thaci and Vucic are both ethnic nationalists, not liberal democrats. Ethnic nationalists have a hard time dealing with numerical minorities. If they are equal, what use is being part of the supposedly privileged minority?
6. But President Thaci long resisted the idea of partitioning Kosovo. Why did he change his mind?
7. Best to ask him of course, but my explanation is this: he saw that Belgrade was making progress with the idea in Washington, where there is also an ethnic nationalist administration.
8. John Bolton was opposed to Kosovo independence and would be pleased to wreck a Clinton protégé, which Kosovo certainly is.
9. So when Bolton said he would entertain partition ideas if Vucic and Thaci could agree, President Thaci became concerned that he would be outflanked and end up with a one-sided proposition: northern Kosovo would go to Serbia without any gain for the Albanians.
10. So he invited the Presevo Albanians to Pristina and made it clear that no one-sided proposition would pass muster. It would have to be reciprocal.
11. That was a reasonable thing to do, but it does not mean that there really is an acceptable proposition, even a reciprocal one.
12. How can Vucic give up the territory in southern Serbia that Thaci wants, in defiance of concerns about the security of Serbia’s main route to the sea? How can he survive abandonment of Serb communities and religious sites south of the Ibar?
13. How can Thaci give up North Mitrovica, which was majority Albanian before the war, as well as Trepca and Gazivoda, his country’s main natural resources and water supply respectively?
14. So people come up with fantasies about 99 year leases, foreign management, and extra-territorial status that are simply too elaborate and risky to convince a serious person that they would last. The zombie emperor is wearing no clothes.
15. I’d like to finish with a question: why the urgency? I understand why Belgrade might feel some pressure for an early solution, as its EU accession is fewer years in the future than Kosovo’s.
16. But Kosovo should know that once Serbia enters the final stages of accession it will have to do whatever the EU member states ask. And one of the things they are certain to ask is complete normalization of relations with Pristina.
17. I fear, however, that some people in Belgrade and Pristina may feel some urgency because of President Trump’s promise of a Rose Garden ceremony.
18. They are unquestionably a nice occasion but let me be clear: a Rose Garden ceremony does not ensure impunity.
19. I’d be happy to see Presidents Vucic and Thaci cut a deal sooner rather than later. Kosovo might even want to offer concessions on payment of World Bank debts and the planned roles of the Kosovo army, as well as protection for the Serbs south of the Ibar.
20. But to sell your sovereignty for a bowl of porridge, or a Rose Garden ceremony, would be a historic and unforgivable mistake.
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