#daniel larison

It’s true: Donald Trump is getting awfully bored. The whole Mueller thing, which looked like it was going to be so much fun, has gone flatter than that liter bottle of malt liquor you opened last night and forgot to finish. Where’s the sparkle? Where’s the punch?

I got up this morning planning to start in on a long, and surely very learned, article responding to a slew of pieces, short and long, by the WashPost’s Dan Drezner, encapsulated by Dan in new post, snappily titled “The most apocalyptic article I have ever written”, in which Dan gives us a jargony but serious warning, “If the great powers start segmenting their economic exchange [reducing their trade], it’s a sign that they see conflict down the road,” citing disturbing similarities between the current state of affairs and the unfortunate series of events leading to World War I.

Well, I wanted to argue with Dan—I don’t know exactly how I would have differed with him, though surely I would have found a way1—if Donald Trump hadn’t lapped the both of us by labeling Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization, an absolutely terrible, and highly dangerous, decision, as the American Conservative’s Daniel Larison, painfully prescient as usual, explains—virtually guaranteeing that it will be impossible for the U.S. and Iran to have anything resembling “normal” relations. In fact, it will be difficult for us to have peaceful ones, according to Dan:

There is an obvious danger that this decision could lead to armed conflict between U.S. forces and Iranian-backed militias and proxies, but the designation could have other unexpected consequences that go beyond U.S.-Iranian relations. The precedent set by labeling part of another government’s military as terrorists not only makes it more likely that our military personnel will be subjected to similar treatment, but it also blurs the definition of what constitutes a terrorist organization. Labeling the entire IRGC as a terrorist organization is inaccurate and it continues a trend of using the label of terrorist to mean “something that we don’t like and want to punish.” The Iranian conscripts who are required to serve in the IRGC are obviously not terrorists according to any sane definition of the word, but this designation means that the U.S. will now treat them as if they are. The Trump administration keeps finding new and irresponsible ways to drive the regime and the people together and to make conflict between the U.S. and Iran more likely. U.S.-Iranian tensions are now set to increase with no clear path for de-escalation.

This brutal and entirely unwarranted harassment of another country (which of course presents no threat to us whatsoever) comes on the heels of Trump’s extended shitfit directed at Mexico. Our president obviously wished that he could inflict some “real” rather than rhetorical damage on one of our most important economic partners, but, to his great and obvious disappointment, this grotesque nonsense so offended the Republican donor class that even Mitch McConnell told our maximum leader to stuff it. Trump’s response to was to return to, and amplify, the most vicious rhetoric of his campaign, accusing Mexico of being the author of all our woes, sending us both rapists and drugs. Unsurprisingly, he demanded the resignation of the Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, because someone had to pay for his own stupidity, incompetence, and moral depravity. Over at Vox, Dara Lind explains exactly how big, and how vicious, an idiot Trump is being over the whole matter of immigration (hat tip to Reason’s Elizabeth Nolan Brown for leading me to Dara).

So, yeah, Dan Drezner, I definitely want to mix it up regarding the causes of World War I and, you know, today, but I’m afraid our “great debate” is very much in danger of being mooted. With the damn Democrats in control of the damn House of Representatives, and that damn Alexandra Ocasio-Who-Da-Fuck getting all his press, what’s a Donald to do but start a war?

You can’t blame the guy, can you? If I lied like Dave, I wouldn’t want to look at myself in the mirror either. Dave’s latest gaze blocker, delivered in the course of his mandatory suck-up to newly arrived enabler in chief John Bolton, runs as follows:

“Bolton’s hawkishness toward North Korea now looks prescient. He argued that Pyongyang would betray its nuclear-disarmament promises under the 1994 Agreed Framework and the 2003-2009 six-party talks.”

I’ll give Dave credit: it’s difficult to compress more nonsense and deceit than that into two sentences. Let’s begin at the beginning. When Republicans took control of Congress in 1994 they deliberately sabotaged the Agreed Framework, because, ever since Ronald Reagan, Republicans have sabotaged every international agreement Democrats make, because Democrats. Republicans didn’t want Clinton to get credit for accomplishing anything in the first place, and, in addition, Republicans believe in international tension as an end in itself. Because if there is peace the damn Democrats will win every goddamn election.

The Bush Administration naturally repudiated the Agreed Framework entirely, substituting the spectre of “Shock and Awe” à la Iraq as a means to force the North Koreans to abandon their nuclear plans unilaterally, just as Trump and now Bolton are now demanding. It was, of course, a complete failure. During the Bush Administration, North Korea manufactured its first nuclear weapons. It wasn't negotiations that failed. It was the Republican faith in threats and bullying.

Hawks like Bolton are terrified of trust; they see it as weakness and loss of control. We can only be safe if we never trust anyone. Bolton’s obsessive suspiciousness, his contempt for weakness, his xenophobic hatred of all other nations for failing to do what the U.S. wants them to do, mesh perfectly with Donald Trump’s zero-sum bullying. It’s a marriage made in Hell, and we’re going to pay the bill. But David Ignatius don’t give a shit. Moustache or no, Dave’s gonna kiss that bride. Knock yourself out, Dave! Hope you enjoy tongue!

The quasi-civil war within the Cooperation Council of the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC), pitting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates against tiny but wealthy Qatar, has alarmed just about everyone in the "West", with the single exception of President Donald Trump. The Donald has been tweeting enthusiatically that the collision between the supposed Sunni state allies is proof that his recent, fervent embrace of the Saudis as totally our best buds in the Middle Eastern war on terror is bearing immediate and delectable fruit.

As a lot of people, including the American Conservative's Dan Larison, are pointing out, the Middle East is a lot more complicated than El Caudillo thinks:

"The underlying problem with Trump’s handling of the crisis is that he has mistaken the Saudi-led bloc opposed to Qatar for reliable partners in combating jihadism, and so he accepts that their punitive measures against Qatar are proof of their willingness to follow through on supposed commitments made in Riyadh last month. Because he has embraced these client states so fully, he doesn’t appreciate that he is being used to provide their vendetta with a U.S. stamp of approval. He seems to think that the Saudis and their allies are pursuing a U.S.-guided agenda when they are pursuing their own goals without regard to our interests. This is why he keeps thanking King Salman and the Saudi government, but his gratitude–like his support–is seriously misplaced."

Yeah, I'm sure that's all true. But, remember, what the Donald really craves is excitement. Gloves off, man, gloves off! Who cares what it really means! At least they're going at it! This is more fun than a 10-ton bomb!

That seems to be the take of a much too large portion of America’s pundits, not to mention Congress, the one group of folks who could actually do something about it. Over at Reason, Ed Krayewski counts the banalities of both congressional and pundit reaction to Donald Trump’s big bang:

“Such militaristic president-worship, last seen after the joint session of Congress where Trump honored the widow of a U.S. service member killed in a raid in Yemen, was a toxic political norm under previous presidents and is toxic now. Trump also cemented his position as president another way—by continuing the tradition of unilateral military action.”

So sad and so true. It's remarkable how many of our most distinguished talking heads sound like little boys whenever a president starts blowing shit up. They don't really care about policy all that other boring stuff. Of course, once the body bags start coming home, it won’t be their fault. And they certainly won’t be in them.

Well there probably is one, but his name isn’t Donald Trump. But over at The National Interest, Leon Hadar assures us that the Donald is indeed Bismarck with a conk1. Here’s how Leon spins his vision of “TrumPolitik”:

“TrumpPolitik would certainly place more emphasis on strengthening U.S. relationship with the big powers of the world, notably China and Russia, a la the Congress of Vienna system, as well as with regional “influentials” like Turkey, Indonesia and Brazil. Instead of allowing the governments of Southeast Asia to play China and the United States against each other, Beijing and Washington could negotiate above their heads and reach agreements that those governments would have to accept.

“Similarly, the United States has no interest to be drawn into the nationalist and ethnic rivalries of East and Central Europe. That was not why NATO was established in the first place, and there is a certain element of Chutzpah on the part of Germany and other European countries in trying to get the United States involved in their territorial disputes with Russia, while they continue to maintain their bloated welfare states and resist raising their defense budgets.

“But it’s in the Middle East where TrumpPolitik could prove to be the most effective, if, instead of engaging in new crusades to spread democracy, Washington works together with the main regional powers to restore the status quo and maintain the territorial integrity of states like Iraq and Syria, even if that means cooperating with unsavory autocrats and denying independence to the Kurds while placing the Palestinian issue on the policy backburner.”

Well, if wishes were horses, then beggars could ride. Has Leon noticed who Trump chose as his national security advisor? As head of the CIA? As attorney general? As The American Conservative’s Dan Larison points out, Trump’s “team” simply attempts to recreate the Cold War, with the U.S. facing a worldwide conspiracy, composed of not only the entire Muslim world—in itself a grotesque and self-defeating exaggeration—but Russia and China as well. Michael Flynn, Trump’s choice for national security advisor, has written a book with Michael Leeden, The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies. Larison quotes from it as follows: ““We’re in a world war, but very few Americans recognize it. [W]e have to energize every element of national power in a cohesive synchronized manner—similar to the effort during World War II or the Cold War—to effectively resource what will likely be a multigenerational struggle.”

This is the precise opposite of Hadar’s own vision, with which I heartily concur:

“But notwithstanding all the hysteria among western pundits and policymakers, the world isn’t in the midst of a historic crisis, and it is probably more stable than it was in the 1960s and 1970s when American presidents took steps to adjust U.S. interests and policies to changing international realities.”

Unfortunately, Donald Trump is appointing the hysterics, and he talks like he is one himself. Didn’t Trump say endlessly during the campaign that we were faced, not with a mere “historic” crisis, but absolutely the “worst” crisis ever?

Hadar wants to believe that Trump is a canny old rug peddler, who sobs, screams, and swears on his grandmother’s old paisley shawl, and then, after several hours of histrionics, “reluctantly” agrees to a split-the-difference compromise. But that isn’t the way Trump operates. He uses his out-of-control belligerence to bully the people he’s dealing with, feeling that, because they’re “sensible” people (that is to say, losers), they’ll back down. It’s the unreasonable guy who wins. But the theocrats in Iran, and the nationalists in China, play the same game, if less loudly. They won’t lose face just to accommodate Trump’s ego. In particular, it’s clear that Flynn, and many others on the far right, want to have it out with Iran, feeling that here is a “real” enemy, that we can punch on endlessly, in a multigenerational struggle that will, not incidentally, guarantee massive defense budgets, and massive Republican victories, as far as the eye can see.

But Iran has seen this movie, or one like it. Iran took over half a million casualties when it repelled Saddam’s invasion back in 1980, a war that lasted eight years. Iran is ready to fight another one. The American people could not possibly accept casualties of that magnitude. What are Trump et al. going to do? Are nuclear weapons off the table? A chance to prove that Uncle Sam really means business? I with that were impossible, but I don’t think it is.

The haters are in charge of immigration “reform”, Sahil Kapur reports for Bloomberg Politics. President-elect Trump has chosen for his transition team the notorious Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, author of Arizona’s “Papers, Please” law, which allows police to stop anyone they suspect of being in the U.S. illegally. Hey, no danger of racial profiling there! Unsurprisingly Kobach is also a big expert on “voter fraud.”

Rep. Paul Ryan, brave as always, says “I'm in favor of securing the border, and I do believe that you have to have physical barriers on the border. I will defer to the experts on the border as to what is the right way to secure the border.” Sure, Paul! You’re only Speaker of the House! What do you know?

There’s more not to like on our new president’s transition team, including Dan DiMicco, described by Keith Bradsher of the New York Times as “a longtime steel executive and trade critic, to oversee trade issues during his administration’s transition. Mr. DiMicco writes a blog, liberally sprinkled with exclamation points, that blames America’s industrial decline on cheating by trade partners, particularly China.”

Still not depressed? Over at the American Conservative, Dan Larison reminds us that three of Trump’s leading advisors/henchmen, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, and John Bolton, "have all been boosters of the totalitarian cult and “former” terrorist group, Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), which seeks to replace the current Iranian government with its cult leader. Trump has made denouncing the nuclear deal a major part of his indictment of Obama’s foreign policy, and Iran hawks in Congress will be eager to torpedo it."

RNC 2016: Republican National Convention – Night 2 Summary

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Donald Trump is now the Republican Party’s official presidential nominee. And there is plenty of blame to go around.

The theme of Night 2 of the Republican Party convention was “Make America Work Again”. Not that you would have noticed any great difference from Night 1, titled “Make America Safe Again”.

The speeches were the same – long diatribes against Hillary Clinton’s criminality, endless…