#belligerence

including me.

Less than three weeks into the presidency of Donald J. Trump, there are several  troubling signs that the new administration is abandoning its foreign policy  mandate and going off the rails.

First and foremost is the saber-rattling  aimed at Iran. The ostensible reason for this is Tehran’s testing of mid-range  ballistic missiles which, we are told, are “nuclear capable.” But of course  any and all ballistic missile systems can be modified to carry nuclear warheads,  and since Iran is complying with the JCPOA  agreed to by Tehran and the Western powers, this is just rhetorical noise generated  for home consumption. Accusations by the Trump administration that the tests  violate a UN resolution are inaccurate:  part of the Iran deal was a revision of an earlier  UN resolution that forbade such tests to read that the international body  merely “calls on” the Iranians to  refrain from such activities. The Obama administration opposed this, but received  no backing from our European “allies.” So the tests are “legal,” albeit considered  provocative.

And yet, as Kelsey Davenport and Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association  point  out: “Given the tensions between Tehran and its neighbors, it is extremely  unlikely that Iran will stop developing its ballistic missile capabilities when  countries like Saudi Arabia and Israel field ballistic missiles capable of targeting  Iran.” Indeed, the Saudis have been procuring nuclear capable ballistic missiles  from China since  the 1980s, more recently with CIA approval. And US arms  sales to the Saudis have buttressed their military, enabling the Kingdom’s  invasion of Yemen – the first such action in the region since Saddam Hussein  marched into Kuwait in the early 1990s. All this gives heft to Tehran’s contention  that their missile tests are strictly defensive.

The real epicenter of the gathering storm is Yemen,  where the Saudis have intervened in the ongoing civil war at the “invitation”  of a “President” with no popular support (and whose “election” was engineered  in a contest with only one candidate). The insurgent Houthis – northern-based  adherents of a dissident sect of Shia Islam – have taken over most of the country,  except those areas in the southeast controlled by a resurgent al-Qaeda. It is  a conflict grounded in local  issues, but the Saudis and our own War Party have internationalized it to  such an extent that all mentions of the Houthis in Western media are preceded  by the phrase “Iranian-backed” – although no evidence is ever presented to support  this claim. In fact, such weapons as the Houthis possess were looted from Yemeni  government warehouses when the regime was toppled and large sections of the  military went over to the rebels. The reality is that the Houthis are theologically  opposed to their Iranian Shi’ite counterparts, an important point that Western  journalists routinely overlook, due perhaps to their ignorance of – and contempt  for – religion in general.

As the Saudis bombed civilian targets – in one incident targeting a funeral,  140  people were killed – the Obama administration, which had been aiding Riyadh  with arms and intelligence, began to pull away from the conflict – but it was  too late. In  October, Houthi missiles reportedly targeted US ships at the mouth  of the Red Sea, and now American officials are claiming that a suicide attack  on a Saudi ship was actually meant to target a US ship – a dubious  claim, to be sure. This has now morphed  into accusations by the Trump administration that the Iranians are targeting  US ships in the region.

The US was dragged into the Yemen war by the Obama administration in 2015,  and started playing an active role – rather than just passively aiding the Saudis’  murderous assault – when we took  out mobile Houthi radar installations in retaliation for the October incidents.  This is the context of the Trump administration’s fulminations, with Trump’s  national security advisor Mike Flynn putting Iran “on notice” that the US is  not going to “sit idly by.” This was followed by the imposition of more sanctions  on Iran, and the arrival of the USS Cole to the area, with more on the  way. Signaling trouble on the horizon,Trump tweeted on Friday: “Iran is playing  with fire – they don’t appreciate how ‘kind’ President Obama was to them. Not  me!”

The Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,  answered  Trump in a speech to Iranian military officials this [Tuesday] morning:

“The new U.S. president says Iran should thank Obama!  Why?! Should we thank  him for [creating] ISIS, the ongoing wars in Iraq and Syria, or the blatant  support for the 2009 sedition in Iran?”

Mike Flynn’s ears must have burned when he got wind of this, for the Ayatollah’s  accusation that Obama “created ISIS” echo his own contention that the previous  administration pursued a policy deliberately aiding and succoring the forces  that eventually were consolidated in the Islamic State. In an interview  with al-Jazeera, Flynn said:

“Al-Jazeera: You are basically saying  that even in government at the time you knew these groups were around, you saw  this analysis, and you were arguing against it, but who wasn’t listening?

Flynn: I think  the administration.

Al-Jazeera: So  the administration turned a blind eye to your analysis?

Flynn: I don’t  know that they turned a blind eye, I think it was a decision. I think it was  a willful decision.

Al-Jazeera: A  willful decision to support an insurgency that had Salafists, Al Qaeda and the  Muslim Brotherhood?

Flynn: It was  a willful decision to do what they’re doing.”

This underscores the big contradiction at the core of the administration’s  anti-Iranian fixation. They denounce Iran as the “number one” supporter of “terrorism,”  but the reality is that the Iranians are fighting – and dying – in Syria in  battle against ISIS. This includes Tehran’s regional proxy, Hezbollah. And in  Yemen, it is the Houthis, not the Saudis, who are the only force either capable  of or interested in taking on al-Qaeda.

The truth is that Moscow and Tehran have been doing the heavy lifting in the  battle against the terrorist groups Trump vows to “eradicate.”

Trump’s often-stated desire for a rapprochement with Moscow is the key to blasting  open the logjam that has made progress toward peace in the Middle East a distant  dream. Just as the Russians served as mediators between Washington and Bashar  al-Assad in getting  chemical weapons out of Syria, so Putin could play the same role in de-escalating  the developing US-Iranian conflict. A “grand bargain” with Putin need not focus  exclusively on Syria and the NATO buildup on Russia’s borders: such a deal would  logically lead to the calming of tensions with Iran.

This possibility is less likely, however, if the more aggressive factions within  the Trump administration have their way  –  and these elements will be strengthened  and emboldened if Elliott Abrams is appointed  Deputy Secretary of State, as  rumored.

Abrams is a hardcore neoconservative with a long  record  as a rabid warmonger – as well as a vicious  anti-Trumper, who attacked candidate Trump as lacking character and disdained  him for his “complete ignorance” of foreign policy. Although he is not the only  prospective appointee – longtime State Department official Paula Dobriansky, who  has served under five presidents, is also reportedly in the running – Abrams  is being heavily promoted in the media, and is said to be favored by newly-confirmed  Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

His appointment would turn the State Department into a neocon redoubt and signal  that the Trump administration could very well be on its way to betraying candidate  Trump’s pledge to seek out “new voices” in the foreign policy realm. Abrams,  whose career started in the 1970s as an aide to Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson (D-Boeing),  is the voice of the same neoconservative  sect that drove the Bush administration to rampage across the Middle East  and bring about the biggest military-diplomatic disaster in our recent history.

As I have said  before, Trump’s version of American nationalism is a double-edged sword: on  the one hand, there is the “isolationist” “America first” aspect, which led  him to condemn the Iraq war, question the utility of NATO, and criticize the  liberal internationalist interventionism of the Obama administration in Syria  and Libya. On the other hand, Trumpian nationalism has a fiercely belligerent  aspect, often described as “Jacksonian,” which views any attempt to reach out  to old enemies as “appeasement” and too often derides diplomacy as evidence  of “weakness.”

As the Trump era commences, there are disturbing signs that the belligerent  aspect is trumping – if you’ll pardon the expression – the “isolationist” side  of the equation. Yet this is by no means certain: the situation is still in  flux, as the factions within the administration position themselves for the  inevitable struggle.

Our relationship with Russia is the key to untying the Gordian knot that locks  our interventionist foreign policy in place. The efforts by the Democrats and  their Republican collaborators in Congress to block any attempts at a “grand  bargain,” combined with the neoconservatives’ infiltration of the national security  bureaucracy, could throw a roadblock on the path to peace. Our only hope is  that the President’s focus on domestic affairs will make him wary of getting  bogged down in a foreign policy crisis this early in his administration – and  remind him of his pre-election promise:

“Unlike other candidates for the presidency, war and aggression will not  be my first instinct. You cannot have a foreign policy without diplomacy. A  superpower understands that caution and restraint are really truly signs of  strength. Although not in government service, I was totally against the war  in Iraq, very proudly, saying for many years that it would destabilize the Middle  East. Sadly, I was correct…

“My goal is to establish a foreign policy that will endure for several generations.  That’s why I also look and have to look for talented experts with approaches  and practical ideas, rather than surrounding myself with those who have perfect  résumés but very little to brag about except responsibility for a long history  of failed policies and continued losses at war. We have to look to new people.”

Belligerence