Author: Daniel Larison

Jeffrey Friedman wrote a somewhat interesting essay on how voters judge hawkish posturing from political leaders, but this section is nonsense:

Trump’s decision to assassinate Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in January 2020 provides a good example of how it is hard to evaluate a policy’s wisdom [bold mine-DL] – but simple to spot resolve. After Trump ordered the strike, many observers accused him of recklessly risking war with Tehran. Others said that the United States should have targeted Soleimani long ago and that the strike would help deter Iran from challenging the United States in the future. Even in retrospect, it is difficult to determine whether Trump’s decision reflected good judgment [bold mine-DL]. Iran’s retaliation for the Soleimani strike was less severe than many people predicted. It is thus possible that Trump carefully analyzed the situation [bold mine-DL] and accurately understood that his choice to kill Soleimani was not as dangerous as critics claimed. But it is also possible that Trump had no idea how Tehran would react and nonetheless opted to roll the dice without good reason – and happily lucked out.

There are few Trump decisions that have been been easier to judge as reckless and unnecessary than the decision to kill Soleimani. By all accounts, Trump ordered the assassination because it was the most aggressive option he was given, and because he was responding to pressure from Senate Republicans whose support he needed at his first impeachment trial. That is based on numerous reports that came out at the time and in the subsequent weeks and months. Alice Friend, Mara Karlin and Loren DeJonge Schulman wrote about the decision a couple weeks after it happened:

According to multiple news reports, policymakers gave Trump the option of killing Qasem Soleimani as one of several choices, perhaps hoping that including such a dramatic measure would push him toward a middle course; instead, he went for it, reportedly with little forethought or preparation [bold mine-DL].

Read the rest of the article at Eunomia

Daniel Larison is a contributing editor for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.

The UK Times reports on worsening famine conditions in Gaza. Those in northern Gaza are at greatest risk:

Barely any aid has reached the people in the north of Gaza, who are separated from the rest of the population by the fighting. Phone signals are cut off and large swathes of Gaza City, with its once-bustling beachfront restaurants, are destroyed.

No one knows how many people remain in the north, but charities estimate that it could be in the hundreds of thousands. They have nothing.

Continue reading “Famine Is Devouring the People of Gaza”

Steven Cook wants to have a new war with Yemen:

As a result, if the United States wants to protect freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and its environs, it is going to have to take the fight directly to the Houthis.

Escalation against the Houthis is a phenomenally stupid idea. For one thing, turning a nuisance into a full-blown war will not secure shipping through the Red Sea. It will interrupt commercial shipping even more. If shipping companies are nervous about being shot at with drones and missiles now, they will absolutely refuse to send their ships through an active war zone. The problem that the military action is ostensibly meant to solve will become ten times worse.

In addition to the direct risks to U.S. ships and personnel that escalation would involve, “taking the fight” to the Houthis would be a waste of limited military resources at a time when the U.S. is already overstretched. Escalating against the Houthis could lead to their resumption of attacks on Saudi and Emirati territory and a breakdown of the truce in Yemen that has largely held for the better part of two years. The Houthis might respond to U.S. attacks by striking at energy infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, and they have already demonstrated that they can do considerable damage to Saudi oil installations in the past.

Read the rest of the article at Eunomia

Daniel Larison is a contributing editor for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.

The Associated Press reports that dozens more civilians were killed in last night’s airstrikes in northern Gaza:

“It was another night of killing and massacres,” said Saeed Moustafa, a resident of the Nuseirat camp. He said people were still crying out from the rubble of a house hit by an airstrike on Wednesday.

“We are unable to get them out. We hear their screams but we don’t have equipment,” he said.

Continue reading “‘Another Night of Killing and Massacres’ in Gaza”

The level of acute food insecurity in Gaza has become catastrophic, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report released today:

Between 24 November and 7 December, over 90 percent of the population in the Gaza Strip (about 2.08 million people) was estimated to face high levels of acute food insecurity, classified in IPC Phase 3 or above (Crisis or worse). Among these, over 40 percent of the population (939,000 people) were in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) and over 15 percent (378,000 people) were in Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5).

Nearly 400,000 people were already in famine conditions at the start of this month, and almost a million more were in the next worst phase. That’s 1.3 million people that were suffering from famine or being one step away from it. This is already one of the most severe cases of extreme hunger in decades, and it is the direct result of the war and the siege. The rest of the IPC’s report is even more alarming:

Between 8 December 2023 and 7 February 2024, the entire population in the Gaza Strip (about 2.2 million people) is classified in IPC Phase 3 or above (Crisis or worse). This is the highest share of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity that the IPC initiative has ever classified for any given area or country. Among these, about 50 percent of the population (1.17 million people) is in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) and at least one in four households (more than half a million people) is facing catastrophic conditions (IPC Phase 5, Catastrophe) [bold mine-DL]. These are characterized by households experiencing an extreme lack of food, starvation, and exhaustion of coping capacities.

Read the rest of the article at Eunomia

Daniel Larison is a contributing editor for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.

Perry Bacon probably speaks for many Americans that don’t follow U.S. foreign policy closely and are then shocked by how terrible it can be:

Like a lot of Americans, I don’t follow foreign affairs as closely as I probably should. I have generally assumed that the United States, particularly with Biden in office, plays a largely positive role abroad. Watching senior US. officials adopt a deeply flawed approach and then make misleading statements about it has made me more worried and skeptical of America’s actions in other parts of the world. If Team Biden is this disingenuous about what’s happening in Gaza, should I trust its words about Ukraine, Sudan or China?

Most Americans pay little attention to how our government acts around the world, but when people in this country are directly confronted with how dangerous and destructive US policies can be they are often appalled. There are many cases where the cruelty of US policies goes unseen by most of the public, and so those policies don’t meet with much criticism and opposition. The frequent use of broad sanctions to attack the people of other countries is one example of this, but we also saw how US backing for the war on Yemen went on for years before there was significant pressure to end our government’s involvement. Greater public scrutiny is no guarantee that monstrous policies will end, but it makes it harder for the government to maintain the status quo.

The war in Gaza is shining a spotlight on just how morally and strategically bankrupt the US approach to Israel and Palestine has been for decades, and it also shines a light on the crimes that our government enables through its support for client governments. It might be too much to hope that this wakes a lot of Americans up to the harm that our foreign policy does around the world every day, but there is no question that it exposes the rottenness of the status quo. There are occasionally moments when the public sees the extent of this rottenness and demands something better, and we may be witnessing something like that with the backlash against this war.

Read the rest of the article at Eunomia

Daniel Larison is a contributing editor for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.