End Three Wars, Then Blow Up Iran?

What in the world is going through the mind of Donald Trump? That question might have been asked at any time in any place over the past five years, yet it has special weight today, given that it involves matters of war and peace.

First there was this, from the New York Times on Monday:

President Trump asked senior advisers in an Oval Office meeting on Thursday whether he had options to take action against Iran’s main nuclear site in the coming weeks. The meeting occurred a day after international inspectors reported a significant increase in the country’s stockpile of nuclear material, four current and former U.S. officials said on Monday.

A range of senior advisers dissuaded the president from moving ahead with a military strike. The advisers – including Vice President Mike Pence; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; Christopher C. Miller, the acting defense secretary; and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – warned that a strike against Iran’s facilities could easily escalate into a broader conflict in the last weeks of Mr. Trump’s presidency.

Just when you think you’ve got Trump’s foreign policy figured out, you’re leaning on Mike Pompeo to stop the bombs from flying. Trump, of course, has always exempted Iran from any restraint he might show in the Middle East. The likely site of his proposed strike, Iran’s Natanz facility, has beefed up its uranium stockpile significantly since the president pulled out of the nuclear deal back in 2018. In other words, Trump himself provoked the very threat he now itches to address. Escalations beget further escalations. How many times must the old realist adage be vindicated?

The tub-thumping towards Iran makes even less sense when paired with this:

President Trump is expected to order the US military to withdraw thousands of troops from Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia by the time he leaves office in January, using the end of his time in power to significantly pull back American forces from far-flung conflicts around the world.

On its own, this isn’t especially surprising. The United States earlier this year negotiated a deal with the Taliban to remove its troop presence from Afghanistan. Iraq, too, has been on the president’s downsizing list, and the parliament in Baghdad back in January voted out our military entirely. The Pentagon has also been drawing down Special Operations troops in Africa, as Trump pounds the table for a full Somalia pullout. All this is in keeping with his expressed contempt for pointless Middle East wars as well as the desire among some in the establishment to at last achieve the chimeric pivot to Asia.

Read the rest of the article at The American Conservative.

Matt Purple is a senior editor at The American Conservative.

Hawkish Republicans Set To Bury Trump’s Afghan Ambassador Nominee

The Senate is about to wade neck-deep into a confirmation battle over a Supreme Court nominee. But even as their calendar jams up, they shouldn’t forget another important executive appointment: Will Ruger, nominated by Donald Trump to be the new ambassador to Afghanistan. Ruger is a board member and longtime friend of The American Conservative. A Naval Reserve officer, a realist on foreign policy, a foe of idiotic wars, his elevation was viewed as a statement that the president is committed to bringing the troops home from Afghanistan.

There’s just one problem: the gears of Ruger’s confirmation have ground to a halt. Part of the fault appears to lie with the White House, which waited more than a month to send the nomination to Congress. Another obstacle is that Supreme Court fight, which is set to suck up all of the oxygen on Capitol Hill. But there’s also an ideological angle here, as the Huffington Post noted last weekend:

Ruger’s positions are far less bellicose than those of top lawmakers who will determine his fate, like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch (R-Idaho). Those lawmakers may not want a public fight with the president over the nomination – and they almost certainly blessed Trump’s choice behind closed doors before he sent it to Capitol Hill – but they may also decide the easiest option is to simply never consider the matter at all.

Bear in mind that the Post’s piece was published before Ginsburg passed away; now that she’s gone, Republicans who wanted to duck Ruger’s confirmation have a perfect excuse. McConnell and Senate leadership are usually tacit about breaking ranks with Trump, but in cases of foreign policy, they’ve proven bolder. Recall that McConnell himself denounced Trump’s plan to pull troops out of Syria in 2019 and even introduced a resolution opposing it. The idea that he was going to easily accede to Ruger’s nomination was always farfetched.

Read the rest of the article at The American Conservative.

Matt Purple is a senior editor at The American Conservative.

In Which Joe Biden Brags About Having Written the Patriot Act

Imagine being a progressive forced to vote for Joe Biden. There aren’t enough clothespins in the world to hold your nose. Biden has lately tried to make inroads with the left, jumping onboard the post-George Floyd campaign for racial justice and releasing an economic plan that encompasses many progressive priorities. But even that can’t mask the smell of his support for the Iraq war, his authoring of the 1994 crime bill, his backing of 1996 welfare reform legislation.

Oh, and he essentially wrote the Patriot Act too. Here he is bragging about that during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in 2002, featuring, natch, a smirking Robert Mueller:

The bill Biden is boasting about was called the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995, which itself contained two subsidiary bills dedicated to fighting domestic terrorism. Biden introduced the legislation in the Senate, while then-congressman Chuck Schumer introduced it in the House, with the Clinton administration in full support. The package was backed by other Democrats too, including Senator Dianne Feinstein, and opposed by civil libertarians and many Republicans who were worried it would be used to, as Biden said, target conservative groups.

Read the rest of the article at The American Conservative.

Matt Purple is a senior editor at The American Conservative.

Saudi Arabia Threatens Democrats: We’ll Support You

Our great and glorious ally Saudi Arabia has fallen on hard times. The coronavirus has arrived in the desert kingdom, prompting its government to take emergency measures and sending its economy into a tailspin. Vision 2030, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s ambitious plan to turn his country into Tomorrowland, has either, depending on who you check, hit a speed bump or crashed headlong into a wall.

Perhaps most ominous of all, though, the recent Saudi-Russian economic war, which at one point turned the price of oil negative, has sparked unrest in the Saudi heartland, by which we mean the GOP. As Daniel Larison has pointed out, Senator Ted Cruz, normally prostrate in front of the Saudis, criticized them publicly in recent weeks. He wasn’t alone: other GOP senators, many from oil-rich states, threatened to impose tariffs and sanctions on Riyadh. And according to Reuters, Donald Trump called the crown prince himself and threatened to withdraw military support unless the price war ended. The message was summed up by one American official: “We are defending your industry while you’re destroying ours.”

And doesn’t that just sum up the entire U.S.-Saudi relationship.

Read the rest of the article at The American Conservative.