Month: October 2023

Trump dominated the airwaves between the day he came down the elevator and the end of his presidency. But have you seen much of him lately? Me, neither. Events and the lack of a suitable mouthpiece have put the spotlight elsewhere. And guess what? It’s helping him in the polls, which should be viewed as a referendum on Biden, not him.

I can’t imagine this will last for long. Once he is the nominee, he will be back in the spotlight, and we can focus on what a disaster a second term would be instead of grumbling about the border and inflation.

Nate Cohn looks at the votes and concludes that: 40 percent of House GOP members unconditionally supported Jordan; 50 percent were open to, or preferred, other choices, but would acquiesce to Jordan; and 10 percent would not vote for him under any circumstances. Are these numbers significant? Are they representative of the GOP as a whole?

Yes, because they are completely consistent with Trump’s polling numbers, and Jordan is a surrogate for Trump. If you’re a moderate Republican, and you can’t stand the MAGA crowd, you can’t win without uniting the other voters.

The difference between Jordan and Trump, however, is that Jordan needed unanimity in the GOP caucus to get elected. We won’t be so lucky in the primaries.

Plenty of pundits are advising the Israelis to avoid following the 9/11 precedent, where we allegedly overreacted out of anger without fully considering the consequences of our actions. Is the analogy correct?

Not exactly. The part about not fully considering the consequences of our actions is correct, but the part about blind anger is not. The Afghanistan military campaign was justified and limited in scope; it was what happened with nation-building in the 20 years thereafter that was the mistake. The Iraq War was not a reflex; it was a cold-blooded effort to carry out the George W. Bush agenda for the Middle East. It started long after 9/11. If you consider it a crime, it was premeditated murder, not an unjustified emotional overreaction that would qualify as second degree murder.

You would think that a Muslim fundamentalist organization that kills civilians with incredible brutality would score pretty low on the wokeness scale, but apparently, you would be wrong. The extreme left has embraced the group on the basis that, regardless of its reactionary beliefs, it represents the oppressed against the oppressor; on the other hand, Ron DeSantis, who would fit very nicely as the head of an American Taliban, thinks it should be completely exterminated. He’s not alone, either.

So maybe they are woke after all. Go figure.

On the wannabe Speaker named Jim.

His chances of winning were slim.

So he threw in the towel.

The right let out a howl

But the House wasn’t that into him.

We all know that Joe Biden is no orator. Sometimes his rambling on TV makes me cringe. But over the past week, he has acted clearly, decisively, and energetically. He struck more or less the right balance and connected the dots between Israel and Ukraine in an appropriate manner in his speech. He is refuting the allegation that he is too old to be an effective president.

The contrast between him and the incoherent House GOP could not be more striking.

Jonathan Chait points out that many of the New Right arguments against supporting Ukraine–including, but not limited to, the one about avoiding distractions when containing China is the main goal–apply with equal force to Israel. He concludes that these GOP members draw a distinction between Ukraine and Israel primarily because Donald Trump, for purely personal reasons, hates Ukraine. Is he right?

He absolutely is. GOP opposition to Ukraine is rooted in resentment about the first impeachment and the Russia investigation, not geopolitics or morality.

Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham, two prominent GOP senators, have indicated that it would be perfectly OK for Israel to exterminate, not just Hamas, but the entirety of the population of Gaza. These statements put them on the same moral plane as Assad and Putin and mightily offend public opinion in moderate Arab states. Does that sound like a good idea to you?

For their part, the left-wing students and politicians who somehow managed to celebrate the brutality of the assault on Israel don’t seem to understand that it made a backlash in kind inevitable. They also don’t seem to recognize that scores of non-Israelis, including Americans, were killed or taken hostage during the attack. Their opinions are beyond the pale, as well.

The clear objective here is to punish Hamas, but not the general citizenry of Gaza, very few of whom were consulted before the attack took place. That will be a very difficult process, and mistakes will be made along the way. There is no civilized alternative, however.

Finally fed up with contemptuous treatment by Margaret Thatcher, Sir Geoffrey Howe made a speech to the House of Commons in 1990 that contributed to the eventual demise of her government. He was known at that point as “the sheep that roared.”

The much-abused moderate House Republicans who are voting against Jordan, for a variety of motives, are doing essentially the same thing to the far right that Sir Geoffrey did in his day. If Jordan can’t intimidate them with threats about social media, Trump, Fox News, and possible primary opponents, he has no path to victory, because, given his personality and legislative record, he simply doesn’t have the ability to cut deals and make promises that McCarthy did. He apparently wants to keep trying, but he doesn’t really have any new cards to play, so I don’t see how he can succeed.

One of two things is going to happen to resolve the issue. Either the Democrats will make the decision for the GOP by acquiescing to a lesser of two evils candidate, or the GOP will find someone with a skimpy enough record and enough general credibility on the right to serve as an inkblot Speaker. If the latter happens, he will have to rely on McCarthy tactics, and he probably won’t last much longer than McCarthy did.

My bet is on the second option. There are 220 House Republicans; surely there is someone among them with the requisite ambition and lack of credentials to get the job.

For years–decades, even–Bibi has promoted a policy of passive-aggression relative to the Palestinians. Its elements consisted of the following:

1. Refuse to engage in meaningful negotiations on the basis that no decent Palestinian partner existed;
2. Create facts on the ground, but slowly enough to avoid irrevocable conflicts with Israel’s friends and patrons;
3. Use right-wing contacts in America to prevent Democratic governments from siding with Israel’s adversaries, and, if possible, drag America into war with Iran; and
4. Engage in limited military actions whenever the Palestinian militants get out of control. This part of the policy was known as “cutting the grass.”

This approach seemed to work and had the additional benefit of making Bibi the indispensable man–the only one who could keep all of the balls in the air at once. Well, where is that now? Did Bibi, in the end, keep Israel safe?

Obviously not. If you don’t take some risks for peace, you get war.

Let’s assume that the Israelis exterminate the leadership and the military capabilities of Hamas in the upcoming campaign. Northern Gaza, at the very least, will probably look like Grozny after Putin was finished with it. What will the Israelis do after that?

They have two choices: simply walk away and say that reconstruction is someone else’s problem; or offer hope to the remaining Palestinians in the form of lots of aid, meaningful political concessions, and a promise never to do it again. If they pick Option #1, they will be back doing the same thing before you know it. Only Option #2 provides any reason for optimism for the future.

One hopes that Biden is discussing this issue with the Israeli government as well as the more immediately pressing matters I identified in my last post.

The trip means that Biden is clearly associating himself with whatever the Israelis do next. The political advantages–both internationally and domestically–of that will only outweigh the disadvantages if Biden already has a clear agreement with the Israelis on freeing hostages, providing lots of humanitarian aid, and getting Americans and other foreign nationals out of Gaza.

If the Israelis, as they often do, ignore our advice and bounce the rubble, this is going to be a terrible mistake.

Jake Sullivan has come to the White House to talk about the Middle East.

B: Well, so much for my plan to disengage with the Middle East and focus on China.

S: You’re not the first, Mr. President.

B: Is there anything we could have done to prevent the attack? Why wasn’t our intel better?

S: We don’t have enough resources to monitor everything, everywhere. Hamas is not really our problem. We leave them to the Israelis.

B: How could the Israelis have screwed it up so badly?

S: The obvious answers are overconfidence and plenty of constitutional and political distractions. A level of incompetence with the new government also comes into play.

B: Is Iran directly involved? If not, do you expect them to get more involved?

S: History provides plenty of examples of satellites acting independently of their patrons. Israel does that to us all of the time. North Korea does it to China. So, it isn’t surprising that the evidence we have indicates Hamas did this on their own. As to the second question, why would the Iranians put their very existence at risk when their proxies are doing the dirty work for them? I don’t see them attacking Israel on their own. Just in case, we’ve warned them, though.

B: What about Hezbollah? Could they try to invade while the Israelis are focusing on Gaza?

S: Hezbollah is a lot more professional and dangerous than Hamas, but they’re geared to fight defensively. They don’t have the resources to take and keep Israeli territory. You will probably see more missile strikes than usual, but not much more than that. Again, though, we’ve warned them, just in case.

B: If they did try to invade, would you recommend that we intervene?

S: Yes, but only if it appeared the Israelis couldn’t handle the matter on their own, which is unlikely.

B: Would the country support me if we did that?

S: Yes, and it might split the Republican Party, which would be a good thing. The bottom line, however, is we don’t need another war.

B: What can we do about the American hostages?

S: Unfortunately, not much. The hostage issue has taken a back seat to the killing and the humanitarian crisis at this point, but that might not last. If it doesn’t, you’re going to have some political problems. We will gather as much information as possible and assist the Israelis in efforts to free hostages if they ask for help. Otherwise, we’re at the mercy of events. We can’t control either party here.

B: Can we lean on the Egyptians to let our people out of Gaza?

S: We’re doing that now. As you would expect, Sisi wants things in return.

B: Do you think I should go to Israel?

S: Probably not, but you don’t have to make that decision today.

B: OK. Keep me informed. (Sullivan leaves)

Many Israeli commentators have called the October attack “Israel’s 9/11.” Is the analogy accurate?

It’s not perfect. Israel abuts Gaza, and has been effectively at war with Hamas for decades. It consequently had less justification for its poor preparation than the American government did during 9/11. In addition, hostages were taken by Hamas as bargaining chips; the passengers on the doomed planes during 9/11 were only incidental to the purposes of the terrorists. These are significant differences.

The similarities, however, are more compelling. In both cases, the terrorists successfully killed large numbers of unsuspecting civilians for the purpose of provoking an overreaction on the part of the victim state. In the case of 9/11, it worked, although not really to the ultimate advantage of the Islamic fundamentalists. Will it work in Gaza? The jury will be out for awhile.

The contest pitted two elderly party leaders against each other, probably for the last time. One of them was a cosmopolitan liberal, whose support came largely from the urban areas of the country; the other was a right-wing populist famous for repeating conspiracy theories and bashing foreigners and LGBTQ people. Consistent with his reactionary beliefs, the latter supported increasing the size of the welfare state for conservatives and rural residents, and did his best to turn a vibrant liberal democracy into an illiberal state, largely by gaining complete control over the judicial system.

Is it Poland in 2023 or America in 2024? You decide.