Trump’s utterly incoherent Ukraine strategy

August 26, 2025

Donald Trump’s Ukraine policy today is no more coherent than it was last Friday when his administration executed search warrants against my home and office.  Collapsing in confusion, haste, and the absence of any discernible meeting of the minds among Ukraine, Russia, several European countries, and America, Trump’s negotiations may be in their last throes(https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/08/23/trump-ukraine-frustration/), along with his Nobel Peace Prize campaign. 

The administration has tried to camouflage its disarray behind social-media posts, such as Trump comparing his finger-pointing at Vladimir Putin to then-Vice President Richard Nixon during the famous kitchen debate with Nikita Khrushchev.  Why Trump wants to be compared to the only President who resigned in disgrace is unclear.  Trump also asserted Ukraine can only win by attacking inside Russia(https://www.wsj.com/world/trump-truth-social-ukraine-russia-a545b8a3?mod=article_inline), even as his own Pentagon blocked Kyiv from missile strikes doing just that(https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/pentagon-has-quietly-blocked-ukraines-long-range-missile-strikes-on-russia-432a12e1), reversing the Biden administration. Russia’s attack on a US-owned factory in Ukraine, which Moscow hasn’t acknowledged, only highlighted the disarray(https://www.nbcnews.com/world/europe/kremlin-casts-doubt-trumps-push-ukraine-peace-rifts-remain-unresolved-rcna226742).  

Russia’s unprovoked 2022 aggression against Ukraine is painfully straightforward, and the views of the combatants are completely contradictory.  Kyiv believes it is fighting for its freedom and independence, while Moscow seeks to recreate the old Russian Empire, positions which leave no middle ground.  They may ultimately agree to a ceasefire, but the threat of renewed hostilities will continue as long as the Kremlin maintains its imperialist goals.  Trump has called the conflict “senseless” and “ridiculous,” but Kyiv and Moscow, for widely varying but strongly held reasons, vehemently disagree.

Trump’s furious pace trying to move an extraordinarily complex conflict to resolution over the past two weeks was one of several significant mistakes.  So doing inevitably made reaching agreement even on a ceasefire, let alone a full-scale peace agreement, more difficult.  US envoy Steve Witkoff met with Vladimir Putin in Moscow on August 8, and immediately returned to Washington to inform Trump, among other things, that Putin wished to meet with him. Two days later, Trump announced the requested summit (soon thereafter revealed to be held in Alaska) would occur one week later, August 15.  Trump noted that he wished the meeting could have been held even sooner, but it is almost surely unprecedented in modern history that a summit between leaders of two major powers on such a contentious issue has been arranged so expeditiously.  After the Putin-Trump meeting, Trump executed a stunning about-face.  He said that, despite his pre-summit threats that sanctions would be imposed on Russia if Putin did not agree to a cease fire, he there would be no new US sanctions or tariffs.  Moreover, Trump announced he no longer favored a near-term ceasefire, but wanted instead to proceed directly to a final agreement.  Moscow and other capitals could hardly miss these U-turns.

Trump’s subsequent August 18 meetings in Washington with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and several European leaders also occurred with dizzying speed.  Emerging from that meeting, interrupted by a forty-minute Trump phone call to Putin, came the idea of a soon-to-follow bilateral meeting between Putin and Zelensky, perhaps joined at its conclusion by Trump, or with a follow-up trilateral meeting, presumably at which the three leaders would wrap up a final deal.  None of this was realistic, and now appears unlikely any time soon,

A corollary mistake was the very high level of generality at which the major substantive issues were discussed.  National leaders often converse together in broad terms, but almost always after their subordinates have plowed through the same ground in much greater detail prior thereto.  Inevitably, this more-traditional “bottoms up” process takes longer than the pace Trump wanted.  Speaking in broad generalities may seem to enhance chances of reaching agreement, but they may instead merely paper-over vast differences, potentially serious enough to derail discussions entirely.  We are not necessarily at that point, but today there is no clear path ahead.

Finally, other bilateral relationships have suffered considerable damage because of the fallout from the administration’s failing diplomacy.  India in particular feels deeply aggrieved by Trump.  It is the only victim of his threat to impose tariffs and sanctions, either directly on Russia or secondarily on countries purchasing Russian oil and gas.  Moscow has not been sanctioned in any way, essentially ignoring White House threats.  China, a considerably larger purchaser of hydrocarbons from Russia than India, also remains untouched, as Beijing-Washington trade negotiations continue.  By contrast, India has not only been subject to the comparatively high level of “regular” Trump tariffs of 25%, but also hit with another 25% tariff level because of its oil and gas trade with Russia.  The longer India hangs out to dry, the worse the New Delhi-Washington relationship gets.

Of course, it’s never over until it’s over, especially with Trump.  But his efforts over the last two-plus weeks may have left us further from both peace and a just settlement for Ukraine than before.

This article was originally published by Washington Examiner, on August 26, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

A Bad Summit’s Silver Lining

August 21, 2025

Vladimir Putin led Russia out of international isolation on Friday, striding down a red carpet to greet an applauding Donald Trump. He accepted a ride with President Trump in “the Beast,” and one-on-one applied his KGB training to restart one of Moscow’s most effective influence operations ever. After the Alaska summit, Mr. Putin could legitimately say, as generations of victorious generals have, “The day is ours.”

Since his first encounter with Kim Jong Un, Mr. Trump has argued that U.S. presidents lose nothing by meeting rogue foreign leaders without previously exacting a price. Most everyone else disagrees, especially the rogues. Friday’s summit should clear up Mr. Trump’s misapprehension. Mr. Putin emerged from diplomatic purdah with flags unfurled, literally. How long before Europeans like France’s ever-opportunistic Emmanuel Macron phone Mr. Putin or visit him in Moscow? And how does India, under sanctions from Washington for buying Russian oil, feel about still hanging out to dry?

At the summit’s concluding media event, the leaders were addressing multiple audiences: America, Russia, Ukraine, Europe and, never forget, China. Worried about all these audiences, the White House worked assiduously beforehand to lower expectations. Among Americans, only MAGA loyalists could assert their leader had a good day. Russians seemed exuberant, and in Kyiv and other European capitals the mood was disquiet or dismay. Xi Jinping may now be more inclined to meet with Mr. Trump, having noted his evident fatigue during the press conference.

We don’t know whether the economic teams—Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and their Russian counterparts—took advantage of their free time to confer. From Moscow’s perspective, it was a real opportunity. Even if these ministers reached no conclusions, they could have laid the basis for future discussions between Messrs. Trump and Putin, or at least arranged for their own subordinates to prepare the way.

IN ACCORDANCE WITH WSJ REQUIREMENTS, PLEASE CLICK ON LINK BELOW TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE:

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/a-bad-summits-silver-lining-russia-ukraine-war-trump-putin-summit-alaska-88ee5c42?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

The far north has become NATO’s soft underbelly

August 12, 2025

ALTHOUGH LONG a factor in American strategic thinking, the Arctic now receives far more attention in Washington than in decades. Several forces are at play: increased use of Arctic maritime passages for military and commercial purposes; Russia’s historical focus on its northern territories, now magnified by its aggression against Ukraine; and, most salient geopolitically, China’s undisguised aim to be an Arctic power, using the developing Beijing-Moscow axis. America and its allies have yet to cope adequately with these challenges.

In the second world war, Greenland was critical to North Atlantic convoy routes, hosting significant American deployments. The Pentagon clearly understood the Arctic’s cold-war role, building the “DEW [distant-early-warning] Line” across Alaska, Canada and Greenland to detect nuclear-equipped Soviet bombers or ballistic missiles heading to the continental United States. Responding to the Sputnik satellite, in 1958 President Dwight Eisenhower sent the USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine, under the Arctic ice cap from the Bering Strait to the Atlantic, in the first submerged transit of the North Pole.

Unfortunately, cold-war victory led to geostrategic complacency, not just in Washington, but across NATO and bilateral American alliances with the likes of Japan and South Korea. This complacency is disappearing as the race for Arctic hegemony picks up, but the West has much to do, and quickly, to counter the rising threats from China and Russia.

The prize is potentially vast. Opportunities to exploit the fabled Northwest Passage across Canada, or its counterpart across Russia’s northern coast, are enormous. Greater access to Far North natural-resource deposits, both at sea and ashore, are also generating a lot of attention.

Updating the jocular insight of General Hastings Ismay, NATO’s first secretary-general, is a good starting point for the West’s Arctic grand strategy: “Keep the Chinese out, the Americans in, and the Russians down.” The alliance’s soft underbelly is now probably the Far North, not the Mediterranean. NATO has four front-line Arctic Ocean littoral states (Norway, Denmark, Canada and America) facing off with Russia, although the full mix of Arctic players and threats is far more extensive.

President Donald Trump remains sceptical of NATO and, indeed, the very concept of collective-defence alliances. Nonetheless, America is a front-line Arctic power, as Alaska’s congressional delegation relentlessly reminds Mr Trump, and the region’s importance to his presidency’s legacy should be obvious.

Unfortunately, American military resources are currently wholly inadequate to the task, with insufficient Navy and Coast Guard vessels worldwide, let alone those required for Arctic (and Antarctic) operations, such as specialised icebreakers. NATO’s admission of Finland in 2023 and Sweden in 2024 helped plug some of the gaps in the alliance’s Arctic naval capabilities.

William Seward, Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of state, looks ever more prescient.  Had he not led the United States to purchase Alaska from Russia in 1867, and Russia had remained a North American power, the cold war might never have ended. He also tried to purchase Greenland from Denmark in 1868. Had he succeeded, today’s circumstances might have been easier.

Mr. Trump did not discover Greenland in 2019—when he first mooted buying it—but he has seriously complicated addressing how the huge island and its tiny population can once again be fully integrated into NATO defences. The 1951 US-Danish Defence of Greenland treaty is a workable basis for guarding against the thrusting Chinese and Russians, while allowing Greenland’s political status to evolve. America had as many as 17 military facilities there during the cold war, and today’s focus hopefully precludes China and Russia from acting covertly against NATO’s security interests.

Norway’s Svalbard islands graphically embody the alliance’s dilemmas. John Longyear, an American businessman, initially exploited their coal deposits in the early 20th century (more evidence of how ahistorical today’s American isolationists are). However, allowable under the 1925 treaty confirming Norwegian sovereignty, Svalbard also features Russian mining operations about 30 miles from its major habitation, appropriately named Longyearbyen.

A European intelligence official said recently that “Svalbard has to be near the top of a list of where Russia might try something.” This is not fantasy. China poses an analogous threat to Taiwanese islands like Kinmen and Matsu, just off the mainland, which it could readily seize without invading Taiwan outright. These are inviting targets, testing allied resolve in the Far East and the Far North. Can Svalbard’s treaty-based demilitarisation be preserved? As I discovered during my own visit there in April, the islands provide NATO’s adversaries excellent locations for naval or air bases.

Among NATO’s Arctic Ocean members, Canada is the hole in the doughnut. Persistent Canadian underspending on defence during Justin Trudeau’s several governments remains uncorrected. Helpfully, however, relations between America’s and Canada’s armed forces are otherwise quite good, including through long-term development of national missile defences for both countries. It is Canada’s politicians who have failed.

Moreover, disagreements between Canada and America over whether various aspects of the Northwest Passage are international waterways or Canadian territorial waters must also be resolved. One approach would be to agree that passage by NATO-member warships would be freely permitted in fulfilling their alliance obligations.

These are merely preliminary considerations. Formidable issues remain, including the need for massive increase in NATO defence expenditures, not just for the Arctic but worldwide. Cold-war victory didn’t “end history” in the Arctic any more than anywhere else. And, critically, isolationism can play no part in strategising about a region so close and vital to American national-security interests. Time to pick up the pace.

This article was first published in the Economist on August 11, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

Trump is favoring China over India on trade

August 07, 2025

As Donald Trump’s tariffs begin to bite more widely, considerable amounts of hard data on their actual consequences will soon arrive.  Of course, the rationale for many of Trump’s tariffs remains opaque, and, despite the August 1 “deadline,” negotiations continue with several important trading partners.

The tariffs’ economic impact continues to emerge, but their international diplomatic and political effects remain hard to measure.  From a geopolitical perspective, it is entirely logical to ask how tariffs fit into America’s grand strategy, although the Trump administration has not done so.  Unfortunately, based on international reactions so far, the United States, by tariffing friend and foe alike, has likely suffered a considerable loss of trust and confidence, built up over decades of effort, in exchange for minimal economic gains, if any, and risk of formidable losses.  

The central, still-unresolved issue is China, in recent years always among America’s top three trading partners (with Canada and Mexico), and especially how China fares compared to India. The White House seems headed toward more-lenient treatment for Beijing on tariff rates and other metrics than it imposed on New Delhi.  If so, it will be a potentially enormous mistake. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent(https://apnews.com/article/us-china-trade-stockholm-tariffs-bessent-lifeng-2cffb7de31169afc8de0c02bedb4683a) has suggested that China’s August 12 deadline could be extended if negotiations looked promising.  

Trump announced on July 30 that India’s tariff rate would be 26%, one percent lower than originally proposed on April 2(https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/trump-hits-india-25-tariff-rcna221907), but a major increase from the previous average rate of 2.4%.   Moreover, Trump harshly criticized India’s acquisition of Russian military equipment, underlining a longstanding US-India disagreement, and Indian purchases of Russian oil and gas in violation of America’s Ukraine-related sanctions.  (India is also one of the “BRICS” countries, which Trump separately singled out for a 10% tariff.)  Indians were surprised and angered by the relative harshness of India’s treatment(https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-31/trump-blasts-india-over-russia-ties-pushing-modi-into-a-corner), and the threat of additional, unspecified penalties if Washington and New Delhi could not quickly strike a deal.  

That anger could grow exponentially if China snagged a better agreement, especially if Trump is seen as sacrificing US strategic interests(https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/07/29/us-china-trade-war-talks-trump-xi-summit-partnership-cooperation/) in his “zeal for a deal” with Xi Jinping.  China has a significantly higher trade deficit with the US than does India, and Washington has long complained about Chinese trade practices.  These include stealing intellectual property, unfairly subsidizing their international companies, and denying access to China’s domestic market, contrary to repeated commitments.  

Geopolitically, China (and its emerging Russia axis) is this century’s principle strategic threat to America and its allies.  Many analysts believe Trump could offer significant concessions on key security issues, such as Taiwan, to get a China deal, citing the recent reversal of the long-standing practice(https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/world/asia/trump-taiwan-china.html) of allowing Taiwan’s president to make transit stops in America and not reaching a trade deal with Taipei(https://www.ft.com/content/3c48233d-dca6-4cd6-8ba9-c86fcfa853b0) before August 1.  Graham Allison says “Trump’s view of Taiwan is more compatible with China’s than any U.S. president since World War II(https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/07/29/us-china-trade-war-talks-trump-xi-summit-partnership-cooperation/).”  Further examples of Trump’s softness include allowing Nvidia(https://www.ft.com/content/ba0929bd-5912-44fb-9048-c143aced4c8a) to resume exports of sensitive information technology to China;  and ignoring US statutory requirements(https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/us-attorney-general-cited-this-justification-for-trumps-power-to-ignore-tiktok-ban) to ban TikTok or divest Chinese ownership.

Critical for Washington is Beijing’s strengthening axis with Moscow.  This “partnership without limits” as Xi and Vladimir Putin have described it, has already resulted in significantly increased Chinese purchases of hydrocarbons, and negotiations to build new oil and gas pipelines between the two, plus increased financial and military cooperation.  This axis raises risks all along their peripheries, from Asia through the Middle East to Europe.  Beijing’s hegemonic, threatening behavior against Taiwan and the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands, and against competing territorial claimants in the South China Sea, endanger key US allies and trading partners.  China and India themselves face off across a long, much-disputed border.  Moreover, China aids Pakistan, India’s intense rival, including militarily as demonstrated in the recent Pahalgam  crisis.  To make matters worse, Indians have noted that both Pakistan and Bangladesh scored lower tariff rates from Trump(https://indianexpress.com/article/business/us-tariffs-india-pakistan-bangladesh-50-countries-trump-market-10163029/).

Having China emerge better than India in their respective trade relations with America is entirely counterproductive.  Instead of advancing cooperation within the Asian Security Quad (India, Japan, Australia and America), Trump could well push India into closer economic and political ties(https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/07/28/india-china-normalization-trump-second-term-geopolitics/) with Russia and China.  Beijing would see Trump’s trade concessions as expressions of fundamental American weakness and dependence on trade with Beijing.  At least Secretary Bessent did make clear(https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/bessent-warns-china-russian-oil-purchases-that-could-bring-100-tariffs-2025-07-29/) after the last round of US-China talks that China also risked heavy tariffs due to its purchases of Russian (and Iranian) oil and gas.   

This reality, and Beijing’s intransigence on trade issues, could stem Trump’s lust for an agreement with Xi, but the outcome is uncertain.  If the tariffs’ negative effects unfold as economics theory indicates, Trump’s domestic political support will weaken correspondingly.  Giving China a sweetheart deal on trade will only worsen his problems. We may be saved, therefore, by Trump’s highest priority:  his own well-being.

This article was originally published by The Hill, on August 6, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

Trump and Netanyahu are heading for an Oval Office showdown

July 05, 2025

Bibi Netanyahu’s Oval Office meeting with Donald Trump on Monday could be a game-changer. They will undoubtedly focus on Iran, Gaza, and Syria’s new regime among other subjects. But how close are the two leaders’ positions, and can their differences be reconciled?

Both will declare the meeting “successful,” but the reality may be quite different. On Iran, Trump crossed a Rubicon by ordering direct US military action against nuclear-weapons-related targets in Iran. He may think the strikes were simply a “one and done” affair, but, if so, he is badly mistaken. Trump put his personal prestige on the line, not to mention America’s. Despite his contention that the B-2 bunker-buster raids “completely and totally obliterated” the targeted nuclear-program sites, much remains to be done.

No one knows that better than Netanyahu, who has focused on the Iranian nuclear threat for over three decades. Although he persuaded (or manoeuvred) Trump into using military force, Trump swerved immediately after receiving favourable reports on the strikes to impose a cease-fire on Israel and Iran. Netanyahu had little choice but to stand down, having achieved two major objectives: getting Trump into the fight and imposing significant, albeit not fatal, damage on Iran’s nuclear project. Iran also had little choice, having been pounded by Israel and the US, but to launch merely pro forma retaliation, shake its rhetorical fist in defiance, and hope to escape any additional destruction.

Nonetheless, Netanyahu sees that the time is ripe for further action against Iran, including actions to encourage the domestic opposition to move against the ayatollahs. Iran’s air defences are now essentially flat, but the moment will not last forever. Top Iranian commanders and nuclear scientists have been eliminated, but their ranks will reform, and their respective work will resume. The ayatollahs have clearly signalled their continuing resolve by effectively expelling all International Atomic Energy Agency personnel from the country.

The last thing Netanyahu wants is for Trump to throw Tehran an economic or political lifeline. Israel seeks regime change in Iran, and Netanyahu needs at least Trump’s acquiescence for Israel to continue deconstructing the remains of Iran’s nuclear enterprise. Further US participation would be icing on the cake. By contrast, Trump desperately wants a Nobel Peace Prize. After all, he reasons, Barack Obama received one (which he didn’t deserve), so why not Trump?

Trump’s Nobel obsession now seems concentrated on Gaza, where the ongoing conflict has intensified since the Israel-Iran ceasefire took effect. He has pressured both Israel and Hamas to reach agreement to effect the return some still-unsettled number of Israeli hostages and remains, in exchange releasing possibly 1,000 Hamas prisoners in Israeli custody, plus a 60-day ceasefire. The sticking point remains Hamas’s insistence on a complete end to the war, or, reportedly, a commitment that talks to end the war commence immediately after the hostage/prisoner exchanges.

This sort of framework has been used before, but its durability remains just as doubtful as other post-October 7, 2023 efforts. Trump wants to announce a cease-fire on or before the Monday meeting, but how long it lasts is anyone’s guess. Hamas undoubtedly wants relief from Israeli military strikes, and domestic political pressure to secure the release of more hostages has left Netanyahu little manoeuvring room. But, apart from humanitarian objectives regarding the hostages, Israel gains no strategic upside from yet another cease fire. Israel has repeatedly suspended combat operations and withdrawn from already-secured positions in Gaza, and then been forced to re-take them, at considerable human and material costs to the Israeli Defense Forces. Lengthening the war also imposes additional strains on an already stressed Israeli economy.

The collapse of Syria’s Assad regime, replaced by former Al-Nusra Front terrorists (now known as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, or “HTS”), was undoubtedly a serious setback for Iran. Acceding to Saudi Arabia’s requests, Trump lifted US economic sanctions previously imposed against Assad’s government, but substantial questions remain whether HTS has actually renounced terrorism.

Its leader, Syria’s de facto head of government, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is also an unknown, having shed his combat fatigues for a suit, trimmed his beard, and dropped his nom de guerre for, apparently, his real name. In the meantime, Israel continues military operations inside Syria, in addition to holding onto an extended buffer zone occupied after Assad’s fall.

Perhaps nothing concrete regarding Syria will emerge from the Netanyahu-Trump meeting, but the two leaders need a better sense of each other’s concerns and objectives. Since the First World War, the Middle East has seen more diplomatic efforts crash and burn than any other geographic hot spot. Iran and Gaza today are unlikely to prove more successful.

Monday’s most important outcome in the West Wing will be decisions on the possible further use of US and Israeli military force to achieve key objectives on both fronts.

This article was originally published in The Telegraph on July 5, 2025. To read the original article, please click here.

Iran’s Ayatollahs Are Weaker Than Ever

June 16, 2025

Iran’s war against Israel took another turn for the worse last week as Operation Rising Lion struck Tehran’s nuclear-weapons program, air defenses and military leadership. Iran’s retaliation has so far been uneven and ineffective. Contrary to the scaremongers, World War III hasn’t broken out, nor will it.

 But what next? The 1979 Islamic Revolution retains power in Tehran, and it could rebuild its nuclear and ballistic-missile programs and terrorist networks. The only lasting foundation for Middle East peace and security is overthrowing the ayatollahs. America’s declared objective should be just that. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the case last week, telling the Iranian people: “The time has come for you to unite around your flag and your historic legacy by standing up for your freedom from an evil and oppressive regime.”

Despite outward appearances of solid authoritarianism, the regime in Tehran faces widening discontent. The opposition extends across Iran, in the smaller cities and countryside, far beyond Tehran, where the few Western journalists congregate. Iran’s economy has been parlous for decades, and Israeli strikes on oil refineries may weaken it further. Citizen protests in 2018-19 provoked heightened nationwide repression. International antiproliferation and antiterrorism sanctions caused part of the distress, but the fundamental lesson is plain: Never trust your economy to medieval religious fanatics. There is widespread outrage at the corruption and self-enrichment of senior clerics and flag officers (and their families) in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and regular military.

The regime’s imperial projects have done nothing for Iran’s people. They have brought only devastation in Iran itself and elsewhere. Untold billions of dollars were spent over decades to empower terrorist proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis), to prop up Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and to undertake massive nuclear and missile projects that now lie in ashes.

Click here to read the full article. 

Will Trump TACO on Iran?

June 11, 2025
Post Photo

The world is undeniably close to learning whether Iran can yet again out-negotiate and out-last feckless Western politicians and save its nuclear-weapons program.  On June 5, Donald Trump said(https://www.axios.com/2025/06/04/iran-nuclear-deal-trump) Iran was “slow-walking” nuclear negotiations with the United States.  His two-month time limit to the Ayatollah Khamenei has either expired already or soon will(https://www.axios.com/2025/03/19/trump-letter-iran-nuclear-deal).  

The moment of decision is near, but there is no credible evidence which way Trump will go.  Is he prepared to accept Israel using force against Iran’s nuclear program, either acting alone or alongside the United States?  Or will we see another episode of what Wall Street calls the “TACO trade”:  Trump Always Chickens Out?  At this point, not even Trump knows the answer.

He may hope to proclaim he has produced a better nuclear deal than Barrack Obama’s flawed 2015 agreement, but this is a risky domestic gambit.  Trump faces palpable political vulnerability if he agrees to something that looks, in substance, like Obama’s deal, permitting Iran to continue any uranium-enrichment capability, let alone one as large and sophisticated as Tehran has already developed.  Indeed, if Iran were allowed to do so under whatever guise, including an “international consortium,” Trumpian claims of outdoing Obama and actually stopping Tehran’s drive for nuclear weapons will be immediately exposed as false.  

This risk to Trump of appearing to “chicken out” to Iran is just as high even if an agreement is disguised as “interim,” or “time limited” or qualified in any cosmetic way.  A poorly camouflaged deal is so intellectually dishonest that, when inevitably discovered, the political damage to Trump would be  extensive and lasting.  Trump’s “zeal for a deal” has already united congressional Republicanshttps://jewishinsider.com/2025/05/most-congressional-republicans-insist-on-no-enrichment-for-iran/), notably tame on almost every other issue, against allowing Iran any enrichment capabilities.  Trump says repeatedly he doesn’t want to see force used, but he will soon have no choice, given his own framing of the Iran issue, let alone political and military reality.

Middle Eastern oil-producing states are reportedly working  quietly to facilitate a US-Iran deal.  Of course, Gulf Arab states would respond affirmatively if asked whether they prefer seeing Iran’s nuclear-weapons program ended peacefully.  But in real-world terms, they are confronted by a different question.  If they must face the risk of hostilities with Iran, would they prefer to do so before Tehran possesses deliverable nuclear weapons, or after?  Understood fully, there is only one correct answer, unless Gulf Cooperation Council members wish to live in Tehran’s nuclear shadow, or to launch full-scale efforts to achieve nuclear-weapons status, precipitating an arms race in which they start far behind

Unsurprisingly, Arabian Peninsula leaders have indicated their worries that, given Tehran’s bizarre worldview, they might be targets of Iranian retaliation should Israel and/or America attack the nuclear program.  The United States also worries that its deployed forces in the Middle East are possible targets, and that Iran’s support for international terrorists and murder-for-hire criminal efforts might also be expanded.  Israel need not speculate.  Tehran and its terrorist proxies, particularly Hezbollah, will try to strike Israel, in whatever way they can.

But assessing possible Iranian retaliation means more than simply listing measures the ayatollahs can take.  So doing affords all manner of possible threats a level of credibility that only plays into Iran’s hands.  Right now, Iran is in its weakest geostrategic position since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.  Its terrorist surrogates Hamans and Hezbollah have been battered, if not yet fully destroyed;  Syria’s Assad regime has fallen;  the Houthis are at least damaged;  and Iran itself has sustained catastrophic losses to ballistic-missile production facilities and some damage to its nuclear program.  

Is a country already in such dire straits really prepared to add as many as four-to-six new enemies, risking the survival of the regime itself, which is already under enormous threat internally and externally?  In short, Iran’s threats sound decidedly hollow.  In any case, American and Gulf Arab interests coincide, arguing for Washington to meld both its defensive and its deterrence strategies against Iran with interested GCC members, and legitimate for Gulf Arabs to be included in US protective measures for military forces in their territories.

Many believe  Israel will not act decisively against Iran’s nuclear program without explicit US approval.  This is incorrect.  As a geographically small nation, like Singapore and most GCC states, Israel knows that nuclear weapons are an existential threat:  just a few nuclear detonations, and there is no more Israel.  Jerusalem acted without Washington’s blessing against Iraq in 2001;  Iran and Syria in 2007;  and against one facility of Tehran’s nuclear-weapons enterprise (never inspected by the IAEA) at the Parchin military base in 2024.  Faced with Iran’s existential threat, Israel will do what it must,  Bibi Netanyahu in particular understands the American saying, “better to ask for forgiveness than for permission.”  And if the Israelis fail to act, they will have only themselves to blame.

This article was first published in The Independant Arabia on June 11, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

What is required of Sharia to obtain full American recognition

May 26, 2025
Post Photo

Donald Trump’s just-concluded Middle East visit produced considerable press coverage for the business deals and investments he and his counterparts announced.  The visit’s biggest news, however, was his declaration that the United States would lift economic sanctions on Syria imposed during the Assad regime.  Trump said in Riyadh(https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-starts-gulf-visit-seeking-big-economic-deals-2025-05-13/), “Oh what I do for the crown prince [Mohammed bin Salman].”

Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, even received a brief meeting with Trump in Riyadh(https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/14/middleeast/syria-trump-meeting-analysis-intl).  In 2013, America had named(https://2009-2017.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2013/05/209499.htm) Al-Sharaa, under his nom de guerre Mohammed al-Jawlani, a “specially designated global terrorist,” and put a $10 million bounty on his head.  The US had previously listed his terrorist group, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, once known as the Al Nusrah Front, an Al Qaeda affiliate, as a foreign terrorist organization.  

American presidents don’t normally meet with terrorists, but al-Sharaa obviously received good public-relations advice after taking power:  he abandoned his nom de guerre, trimmed his beard, and traded his combat fatigues for a suit and tie, looking more like a businessman than a terrorist.  But have Al Sharaa and HTS truly renounced terrorism?  

Trump didn’t wait to find out.  To be sure, Trump advised al-Sharaa during their meeting to sign an Abraham Accord recognizing Israel, expel foreign terrorist fighters from Syria, and join the fight against ISIS.  But Al-Sharaa made no apparent commitment to do so, certainly not publicly.  This is hardly “the art of the deal” at its finest. 

Saudi Arabia’s interests, and those of the broader Arab world, in accepting al-Sharaa’s new government are clear.  Assad’s fall was a massive defeat for Iran, losing its most important regional ally and cutting off land supply routes to Hezbollah, Iran’s principal terrorist proxy.  Moving to restrict Turkish President Erdogan’s influence in Syria was also important, since HTS could not have overthrown Assad without Ankara’s considerable assistance.  

Defeating Tehran’s mullahs and restraining Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman influence in Syria and the Middle East generally are also in America’s interest.  But these objectives are not enough.  Washington needs more than rhetoric from  al-Sharaa, it needs performance of concrete actions proving he has abandoned terrorism in fact not just in talk.  Trump let the moment slip when he should have insisted on America’s conditions to lift sanctions, but the designations of al-Sharaa and HTS as terrorists, and Syria’s Assad-era designation as a state sponsor of terrorism remain in effect.  These listings should not be rescinded unless and until al-Sharaa’s regime meets several further conditions, enumerated below.  Moreover, if it fails to do so promptly, sanctions should be reimposed.

Most importantly, al-Sharaa must permanently reverse Assad policies that led to Syria’s ostracization, and be completely transparent with the Assad’s government’s archives and related materials.  Since non-terrorist governments do not take hostages, al-Sharaa should open Syria’s government records to international review on all aspects of foreign hostages seized over the past decades.  For the hostage families’ sake, their stories must be told fully, and any Syrian links with foreign entities assisting the hostage-taking must be disclosed to law-enforcement agencies for appropriate follow-up.

There must also be a clean break from all Assad regime efforts in chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, particularly ties with governments like Iran.  After Assad’s fall, Israel reportedly bombed suspected chemical-weapons facilities, but al-Sharaa should nonetheless identify all chemical-weapons-related sites in Syria, and open these locations and government files to inspection either by Washington or the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.  Comparable steps need to be taken regarding biological weapons.

Syria’s nuclear activities likely centered on the nuclear reactor, which it aided Iran and North Korea in building at Deir al-Zour.  Syrian records on Deir al-Zour and other links with Iran could prove invaluable in countering Tehran’s regional threat.  Syria should take every step to preserve this evidence and make it available for international review.  Al-Sharaa should also abandon support for Iran’s efforts to dominate Lebanon through Hezbollah.

Moreover, if al-Sharaa has indeed renounced terrorism, he needs to fully disclose Al Nusrah’s funders over the years.  He should commit to working with the Kurds, particularly the Syrian Democratic Forces, in securely confining their thousands of ISIS prisoners.  Other terrorists in Syria should be imprisoned there, not expelled, as Trump suggested, possibly to return to terrorism elsewhere.  Signs of possible Turkish reconciliation with its own Kurdish citizens do not prove that Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman ambitions regarding Kurdish-populated areas in Syria and elsewhere have diminished.  Accordingly, US forces need to remain in northeastern Syria until HTS’s good faith is fully proven. 

Finally, Syria should expel Russia from its naval station at Tartus and air base at nearby Hmeimim.  Russia’s 2022 unprovoked aggression against Ukraine, not to mention its long-time support for Assad, prove how dangerous an extensive Russian military presence in Syria is 

In short, Al-Sharaa has a long way to go before he and his HTS regime deserve full recognition and legitimacy from the United States.  This “deal” is not yet done.

This article was first published in The Independent Arabia on May 19, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

Starmer’s turn against Israel will prolong war

May 26, 2025

Removing the ayatollahs in Iran is the only route to securing longterm peace in Gaza

Israel is now grappling with possibly the last phases of eliminating the Hamas terrorist threat. Instead of support from a unified West determined to extirpate terrorism, however, Jerusalem is under attack for attempting exactly that. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was “horrified” by Israel’s recent “escalation”. Foreign Secretary David Lammy condemned the “dark new phase in this conflict,” suspended trade negotiations with Israel, and said it should agree to a cease-fire to free remaining hostages, as if that were Jerusalem’s only legitimate objective.

Last week, a gunman in Washington brutally murdered two Israeli embassy employees, chanting “free, free Palestine” while being arrested. Thereafter, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Starmer and others were “on the wrong side” of justice, humanity and history. Starmer has not responded. Before he does, he should at least check the history.

Immediately after Hamas’s barbaric October 7, 2023, invasion, Netanyahu declared that Israel would seek Hamas’s political and military destruction. This was an entirely legitimate exercise of UN Charter Article 51, which affirms “the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense.”

Jerusalem was not limited to a “proportional” response, something comparable to the Hamas terrorist attack, any more than America was limited to a “proportional” response to Pearl Harbor. States are entitled not merely to repel threats, but to destroy them, as the allies did to Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

Moreover, clear from the outset and becoming clearer by the day as new information emerges, Hamas’s attack was part of Iran’s “ring of fire strategy” against Israel, a strategy implemented by the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.  Just to remind, “Quds” is an Arabic term for Jerusalem, celebrated on Ramadan’s last day by Palestinians as “Quds Day.”  Implementing its “ring” strategy, Tehran created or fostered a chain of terrorist groups: Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Shia militias in Iraq. Bashar al-Assad’s Syria was a key ally.

The anti-Israel strategy unfolded across the Middle East immediately after October 7. From the beginning, Israel saw Gaza as part of a wider war, not merely a discrete conflict. Now far more evident than at the outset, however, is the war’s economic dimension, a critical factor long before October 7.

Iran and other regional states, groups and individuals provided billions of dollars, directly and through international agencies like UNRWA, ostensibly for humanitarian aid. Tragically, however, as we now know, Hamas diverted much of these “humanitarian” resources to build Gaza’s underground fortress of tunnel networks; armed itself to the hilt (including with missile arsenals capable of menacing all Israel); and effectively mobilised most Gazans to serve as human shields for that fortress. If Hamas kept adequate records that can be recovered, the story will embarrass those who enabled this massive fraud, particularly in the West.

Meanwhile, Jerusalem is pursuing its post-October 7 goals, which must include eliminating all potential assets, in cash or in kind, Hamas can use to retain control over Gaza’s population. Working through UNRWA over decades, Hamas seized control over the distribution of virtually all humanitarian supplies entering Gaza. Credible reports (and Hamas records, if recovered) demonstrate how the terrorists rewarded their cadres at the expense of others, using control over the internal distribution of supplies in Gaza to cement their political control.

This pattern is nothing new. After the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein used the UN’s “Oil for Food” programme to gain control over Iraq’s population. As originally conceived, an intrusive UN presence would use Iraq’s oil revenues for humanitarian aid to its people, thus ensuring the non-political delivery of assistance to the truly needy, while also demonstrating to Iraqis that Saddam had effectively lost control of his country. He repeatedly rejected this model, until the Clinton administration conceded that his regime would disburse Oil-for-Food aid. That mistake helped Saddam reinforce his authoritarian grip, repress Kurds and other dissidents, and again threaten his neighbours,

Hamas has thus simply been following Saddam’s plan. Israel, by contrast, has followed principles Herbert Hoover first articulated in World War I when he organised relief programs in Europe, starting in Belgium. Hoover ordered that no aid would go to combatants, and that his volunteers would distribute the aid, or at least rigorously monitor delivery to prevent diversion to combatants.

Hamas scorned Hoover’s principles, and continues to do so. Comments by Starmer, Lammy and others ignore both the reality in Gaza today and Hoover’s wise admonitions about ensuring that relief goes to those who actually need it, not those who use the aid to oppress them.

Israel has a plan to aid Gazans, backed by Washington but opposed by the UN. Instead of criticising Israel, Starmer should support and help perfect Jerusalem’s plan and thereby properly deliver humanitarian assistance.

The only way Gazans can ever be free is to eliminate the curse of Hamas. And because Gaza is part of Iran’s larger war against Israel and the West, that will happen only when Iranians are free of the ayatollahs. That should be our common goal.

This article was first published in The Daily Telegraph on May 26, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

Will Trump Blow Up the National Security Council?

May 19, 2025

President Trump is reportedly considering(https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/rubio-working-major-changes-national-security-council-rcna206658) major alterations to the National Security Advisor’s role and the National Security Council staff.  One administration source said(https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/14/politics/rubio-national-security-council-overhaul) the “NSC as we know it is done.”  The potential changes center apparently on reducing the staff and its responsibility for developing and coordinating policy formulation, particularly long-range policy, and making it an implementer of Mr. Trump’s directives.

If executed, such changes will affect not merely the staff, but the NSC process itself.  Ignoring history’s lessons, reflecting instead Mr. Trump’s aversion to coherent strategy and policy, the proposals would seriously harm both the administration’s already haphazard decision-making process and the president’s ability to manage the enormous foreign-policy, defense, intelligence, and homeland-security bureaucracies.  The ultimately critical factor in presidential national-security strategy is judgment, but a properly functioning NSC staff can help provide the necessary information and options foundational to the sound exercise of judgment.

The 1947 National Security Act established the NSC to help presidents get their arms around the new and enlarged departments and agencies required to cope with a complex, menacing international environment, the likes of which we had never before experienced.  Because presidents differ in their work habits, the NSC structure was intended to be flexible, varying in size and shape over time.  But through often painful lessons in recent decades, until Trump 47, a broad consensus formed over an optimal approach.

Dwight Eisenhower was the first president to pay real attention to NSC staffing, which he structured along lines comparable to his military experience.  John Kennedy rebelled against what he saw as excessive rigidity, at least until the Bay of Pigs, the discouraging and intimidating 1961 Vienna summit with Nikita Khrushchev, and the Cuban Missile Crisis convinced him that structure wasn’t so bad after all.

The personalized National Security Advisor roles of Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brezinski in the Nixon/Ford and Carter administration respectively have received enormous attention, but, in between, Brent Scowcroft was building the current NSC model.  Scowcroft would perfect the model under George H.W. Bush, confronting Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, the Soviet Union’s collapse, and the start of the post-Cold War era.

Scowcroft devised a system to coordinate and control the flow of decision-making, topped by Cabinet-level NSC meetings chaired by the President;  “principals” meetings, also cabinet-level, led by National Security Advisors;  “deputies” meetings attended by deputy- and undersecretary-level officials;  down to meetings of assistant and even deputy assistant secretaries.  Some describe this five-tiered edifice as too bureaucratic, but Bush 41 and others proved it could move as fast and comprehensively as exigent circumstances warranted.

The plan embodied the principal of subsidiarity, with decisions made at the lowest level achievable, with only the most important issues occupying the attention of the president and his top advisors.  This system’s substantive outcome was providing the ultimate decision makers with all the pertinent data, the full range of available options, the pros and cons of each, and forward thinking about implementation, counter-moves by adversaries and allies, and possible US responses. 

To Scowcroft also goes considerable credit for repairing the NSC after the Iran-Contra crisis, its worst mistake, during which NSC staff became operational.  Since then, almost all agree the NSC should coordinate, and implementing departments and agencies should implement.  Not all have adhered perfectly to this maxim.

Importantly, the size of the NSC staff is solely a dependent variable.  Size follows mission.  Setting a staff level before deciding its tasks is backwards.  Moreover, comparing current staff levels to prior administrations is inapposite for several reasons.  In bygone days, only “professionals,” not “administrative” staff, were counted;  Situation Room staffers were sometimes included in NSC numbers, sometimes not;  and, pre-9/11, there were almost no “homeland security” staff anywhere in the White House.

On the president personally, Scowcroft ‘s model bestowed one key advantage:  creating interagency staff contacts reaching into deep bureaucratic depths gave far greater insight into potential agency agendas and disagreements before they rose to higher levels, thereby reducing the risks of bureaucratic obfuscation and delay.  Similarly, presidents today have significantly enhanced capabilities to monitor how their decisions are implemented down below in the operating agencies.  A dramatically constrained NSC staff would simply not have such abilities.

Everyone knows presidents make the ultimate decisions.  But will they make the best-informed decisions, in widely varying contexts, or will they merely follow their own neuron flashes?  The animus now directed at Scowcroft’s system largely emanates from fear of the bureaucracy (“deep state”’ to Trump acolytes).  The real question is whether top decision-makers will run the bureaucracy or whether the bureaucracy runs them.  If the highest levels fail to drive lower levels, the fault lies more with inadequate top officials who lack knowledge, experience, and resolve.

The NSC system has its faults, but turning its staff into liege-men and -women will not benefit America, or even Donald Trump.

This article was first published in Wall Street Journal on May 19, 2025. Click here to read the original article.