Asked about the possibility of regime collapse, General James Jones, who was Obama’s national security advisor in 2009 and 2010, said the risk for Tehran cannot be ignored.
“I think the needle is moved more in that direction in the last year towards that possibility than ever before with a combination of the sanctions, relative isolation of the regime, and then some catastrophic decisions have been made — assuming that we weren’t going to respond, which turned out to be a very, very bad decision,” Jones told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Forum in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.
The response Jones referred to was the U.S. drone strike that killed top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani on Jan. 3, a move that shocked the region and prompted a response from Iran in the form of missiles strikes on two military bases in Iraq that housed U.S. forces. No one was killed in the strikes. Washington says the strike was in response to the storming by Iranian-backed Iraqi militias of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad and purported threats cited by the White House of impending attacks on Americans.
“I think it’s clear that the regime in Iran has had a very bad couple of weeks,” Jones said. “And one of the things that people don’t talk about too much is the degree of unrest that there is in the country, which I think is significant.”
“So you take the removal of Soleimani, you take the accidental downing of the civilian aircraft coupled with the amount of popular unrest — the needle towards possible collapse of a regime has to be something that people think about. It’s probably not politically correct to talk about it, but you have to think about it.”
Germany, France and the United Kingdom have launched a formal dispute mechanism against Iran which could end up putting international sanctions on the regime. The measure was announced on Tuesday following recent Iranian violations of the 2015 nuclear deal. The dispute will now be brought before a Joint Commission made up of Iran, Russia, China, the three European signatories, and the European Union. If the panel fails to resolve the dispute, the matter will then come before the United Nations Security Council.
Even if the process gets stalled at the UN, Iran could end up facing comprehensive international sanctions — in addition to the current U.S. sanctions, media reports suggest. “If the Security Council does not vote within 30 days to continue sanctions relief, sanctions in place under previous UN resolutions would be reimposed – known as a “snapback”,” British newspaper The Telegraph reported.
Tehran formally abandon the nuclear deal last Sunday by announcing its plans to scrap the limits on enriching uranium put in place by the international agreement, Iranian state TV confirmed. The move brings Tehran within striking distance of procuring sufficient weapons-grade uranium needed for a nuclear arsenal. The regime already possesses advanced missile delivery systems capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Florida Republican representative (and veteran) Brian Mast at congressional hearing on Soleimani “If you walk out this hallway, and you take a right and a right and another right, you’re going to come to several beautiful walls that have the names of our fallen service members from the War on Terror,” Mast began. “And I would ask, can any of you provide me with one name on that wall that doesn’t justify killing Soleimani?” Dead silence ensues. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
More swamp follies: “Federal Judge Orders Justice Department to Explain Why Awan Documents Are Being Kept Secret.”
An apparently frustrated federal judge ordered attorneys for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to appear Jan. 15 for a “snap” hearing to explain why the government isn’t producing documents sought by Judicial Watch concerning former Democratic information technology aide Imran Awan.
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Amit Mehta’s unusual order followed a sealed submission by DOJ attorneys Jan. 10 in the case prompted by the nonprofit government watchdog’s November 2018 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit.
Such hastily convened hearings are extremely unusual in a federal judicial system so jammed that months can pass before cases are litigated in courtrooms.
“In a hearing last month, U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta expressed frustration and ordered the Justice Department to explain its failure to produce records by January 10 and to provide Judicial Watch some details about the delay,” Judicial Watch said in a statement Jan. 14 about the snap hearing.
“Instead, the Justice Department made its filing under seal and has yet to provide Judicial Watch with any details about its failure to produce records as promised to the court,” Judicial Watch said.
Federal attorneys previously said in December 2019 that they were unable to provide the documents sought in the Judicial Watch FOIA requests because they include materials from a “related sealed criminal matter.”
I think we all know the real reason the DOJ won’t produce the documents: Because they’ll prove deeply damaging to Democrats. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Arizona Republican Senator Martha McSally calls CNN reporter Manu Raju a liberal hack. Good for her. (And yes, coverage of CNN’s putting it’s thumb on the scale for Elizabeth Warren and against Bernie Sanders is coming in next week’s Clown Car update.)
More about our crappy media: “So many of the people in foreign affairs journalism imbibed the “Bush lied us into war” rhetoric so deeply that they’ve concluded that American officials must be treated with way more skepticism than officials in secretive and serially dishonest authoritarian regimes. They say generals are always fighting the last war; apparently journalists are always covering the last one, too.”
In every treatment room in the @ChildrensPgh ER, there is a sign that says they are duty and legally bound to provide necessary life-saving or stabilizing care regardless of a patient's ability to pay. This is true *everywhere*. (22/25)
Oh come on! I’ve got nothing for or against Odell Beckham, Jr. (he’s a talented wide receiver; bit of a chucklehead, but far from the worst among wide receivers (*coughcoughAntonioBrown*)), and people committing actual assault against police officers should be arrested. This isn’t remotely it.
Although I know much of the Midwest has already been blessed with several feet of global warming, winter doesn’t officially start until tomorrow. In the meantime, finish up your Christmas shopping (if you haven’t already) and enjoy a Friday LinkSwarm!
Brexit bill passes by huge majority. Britain is set to leave the EU by January 31, 2020. I’m putting this first because Brexit is far more important in the long run than the impeachment farce.
The amazing psychic powers of Instapundit. From 2017: “Trump knows that the press isn’t trusted very much, and that the less it’s trusted, the less it can hurt him. So he’s prodding reporters to do things that will make them less trusted, and they’re constantly taking the bait. They’re taking the bait because they think he’s dumb, and impulsive, and lacking self-control — but he’s the one causing them to act in ways that are dumb and impulsive, and demonstrate lack of self-control.”
But then again, no president in modern memory has been on the receiving end of such overwhelmingly negative media coverage and a three-year effort to abort his presidency, beginning the day after his election.
Do we remember the effort to subvert the Electoral College to prevent Trump from assuming office?
The first impeachment try during his initial week in office?
Attempts to remove Trump using the ossified Logan Act or the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution?
The idea of declaring Trump unhinged, subject to removal by invoking the 25th Amendment?
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 22-month, $35 million investigation, which failed to find Trump guilty of collusion with Russia in the 2016 election and failed to find actionable obstruction of justice pertaining to the non-crime of collusion?
The constant endeavors to subpoena Trump’s tax returns and to investigate his family, lawyers and friends?
Now, frustrated Democrats plan to impeach Trump, even as they are scrambling to find the exact reasons why and how.
Most presidents might seem angry after three years of that. Yet in paradoxical fashion, Trump suddenly appears more composed than at any other time in his volatile presidency.
Ironically, Trump’s opponents and enemies are the ones who have become publicly unhinged.
If you want to know how it’s playing out in America, check out this tweet from PolitiBunny, who was so hardcore #NeverTrump she voted for Egg McMuffin in 2016:
No amount of persuasion, begging, or even outright harassment could convince me to vote for Trump in 2016.
Democrats not only made me a Trump voter last night, but I’m officially ready to do what I can to help him get re-elected.
The House passes the USMCA free trade deal, and I expect senate approval to be quick. USMCA will have longer and more lasting consequences than the silly theater the Democrats put on Wednesday.
Of the 65 deadliest cities in America, over 90% have Democratic mayors, and over 70% have not had Republican mayors in a long, long time. The last Republican mayor of New Orleans left office in 1872… (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Clearly Greta Thunberg is being exploited by her cynical puppetmasters, but equally clearly she’s a tiresome, bizarre Marxist scold whose exploitation of the hapless dummies who buy into the climate change hoax is part of what is an increasingly violent plot to undermine capitalism and freedom. Recently, the cretins at TIME, which shockingly still exists in 2019, named her “Person of the Year.” That’s appropriate, since 2019 has been a very annoying year.
In 2029, after the world hasn’t ended but her usefulness has, she’ll be a Jeopardy question and probably shacked up with an unemployed performance artist named Björn in an Oslo suburb. Fun fact: “Greta Thunberg” is Swedish for “Cindy Sheenhan.”
But today, we’re all supposed to fall over ourselves over Pippi Longnagging – at least that’s what our betters command – yet it’s unclear why. Teenagers are notoriously ignorant, and ones spewing recycled Marxism are the worst of all. But the idea is not that this tiresome truant is some visionary thinker. The idea is to leverage her youth and awkwardness to keep you from speaking the indisputable truth that she’s a weird brat who presses for an ideology that butchered 100 million people in the last century. And now, she is hinting she wants to run up that score.
Snip.
The other day, this malignant muppet “told cheering protesters … ‘we will make sure we put world leaders against the wall’ if they fail to take urgent action on climate change.” Now, maybe her English is bad, or maybe she’s just ignorant, but then again the murder of opponents is the Marxist way. Marxist? St. Greta? Well, let’s take a look at what was carved on the tablets she recently brought down from Mount Socialism:
“Schoolchildren, young people, and adults all over the world will stand together, demanding that our leaders take action, not because we want them to, but because the science demands it,” she said. “That action must be powerful and wide-ranging. After all, the climate crisis is not just about the environment. It is a crisis of human rights, of justice, and of political will. Colonial, racist, and patriarchal systems of oppression have created and fueled it. We need to dismantle them all. Our political leaders can no longer shirk their responsibilities.”
Wait, “the science demands” that we “dismantle” all our “[c]olonial, racist, and patriarchal systems of oppression?” Now, what science exactly is that? Is it geology? Physics? Phrenology maybe?
How stupid do they think people are? Very. And to judge by the judges at TIME, they’re often right. Maybe Greta never heard of Siberia or Cambodia, but we have. Screw that – if she wants to impose her masters’ Marxist fantasies on us, she’ll need to be packing something deadlier than “How dare you!”
Muslims across India staged angry protests over new legislation that grants citizenship rights for refugees fleeing Islamist persecution in the neighboring countries.
The Citizenship Amendment Bill, passed by the Lower House of the Indian parliament by 293 to 82 votes, opens the path to naturalization for the followers of six faiths, including Hindus, Sikhs, and Christians, but excludes Muslims.
Muslim mobs took to streets in several Indian cities, setting fire to vehicles, throwing stones, and hurling home-made bombs at security forces called in to restore order, Indian newspapers report. Left-wing student groups joined the protesters. They blockaded campuses in India’s capital New Delhi.
On the one hand, 95% of the time it is in fact Muslims who are persecuting the members of other religions. On the other, the trend in India under Modi has been toward a Hindu religious-ethno state, and things there could turn very bad, very quickly for the Muslim minority there. Muslims constitute only 14% or so of India’s population, but 14% of 1.3 billion is still some 182 million people. And by “very bad” I mean “possibly Rwanda-level bad,” only at 10 times the scale…
“Poland may have to leave EU, Supreme Court warns.” Hey, I bet I know at least a couple of countries who would be happy to sign free trade deals if they did…
I do not think it is a secret that Vox Media’s employment model has long been unsustainable. They use “contractor” designations to avoid all sorts of labor laws, including providing minimum wage and benefits — and they well exceed the intended use of “contractor.” I’ve published 1,304 articles in 8 years at Clips Nation. That’s not contract work. When I am on the site every day and have day-to-day oversight from corporate, that’s not contract work. Everyone, including SB Nation, has known that this model is unsustainable. While I won’t publicly disclose the numbers, and SB Nation limits our access to a lot of data, I am certain that Clips Nation generates enough revenue to support multiple employees, even when you account for the money that needs to support other aspects of the site (marketing, software, etc).
The state of California is cracking down on companies like SB Nation who are exploiting the “contractor” loophole, as it well should. Unfortunately, Vox Media is predictably unwilling to cease being greedy. In order to attempt to protect their disproportionate and exploitative revenue share from team sites, Vox has decided to eliminate about 200 of these contractor positions — every contractor in California, including myself, Robert, and our staff writers, editors, and podcasters in paid roles — and replace them with a handful of full-time employees who are going to work as a team to run SB Nation’s 25 team sites in California.
I doubt he knows how profitable Vox is. It’s entirely possible it loses money, like many online “media empires.” But I sincerely doubt Vox held a gun to his head those eight years. If he feels exploited for work he voluntarily agreed to do at the wages offered, he only has himself to blame. This is not to say that Vox doesn’t suck; it does. But this situation sucks not due to Vox, but due to the California state laws of which this freelancer so obviously approves.
Here’s an interview with Burt Ward, Robin on the 1960’s Batman TV show, about some of the behind-the-scenes shenanigans. Nowadays he and his wife run a dog rescue center, where they’ve eventuality saved the lives of more than 15,000. Good on you, Burt.
Happy Friday the 13th! Going to be a short one, since I spent most of the week finishing up the book catalog I sent out yesterday. And there are a lot of big news topics (like the Horowitz report) I want to do longer posts on. Maybe this weekend…
Boris Johnson’s Tories won a huge general election victory, winning an absolute majority projected at 364 seats, a net gain of 47 seats. By contrast, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour lost 59 seats, down to 203. That’s the largest majority Tories have enjoyed since Margaret Thatcher’s 1983 majority following the Falklands War. The combination of Corbyn and absolute opposition to Brexit has halved the number of seats Labour holds since Tony Blair’s first term. You know that second referendum Remainers were always nattering about? They just had it.
Howard County, Maryland is bringing back forced busing. Crime, rampant drug use, forced busing: It’s like Democrats are trying to turn the areas they control into The 70s Sucked theme parks.
“Austin Council Wants Even More Homeless Hotels.” Of course they do. The more homeless hotels, the more opportunity for graft…
Ann Althouse reads the latest entry in that time-honored genre, New York Times Profile Of Woman We’re Supposed To Find Sympathetic That Actually Makes Us Hate Everyone Living In New York City.
Here’s an interesting interview with Gen. Robert Spalding, chief China analyst for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who analyzes the pressures the trade war puts on China, and how they respond to Trump’s challenge.
“When you look at the full scope of everything China does, it mixes in its own brand of expansive influence into its economics.”
Also a bit on Huawei and 5G, and how China intends to use technological leadership to extend its own censorship regime.
….stem the tide of Migration through Mexico, and to our Southern Border. This is being done to greatly reduce, or eliminate, Illegal Immigration coming from Mexico and into the United States. Details of the agreement will be released shortly by the State Department. Thank you!
Mexico will deploy National Guard throughout the country with priority on its southern border under the joint declaration with the U.S. https://t.co/N7vSTcA9iD
The threat of tariffs got #Mexico to agree to take unprecedented steps to control illegal migration.
Will be very interesting to see how media covers this now. It is going to be very hard for some of them to give @POTUS credit for this. https://t.co/XmKMrSH5gU via @NYTimes
President Trump’s Mexico tariff threat worked! Mexico signed a immigration deal with the U.S. to stop the flow of migrants thru Mexico. Trump is the FIRST President in modern history to understand the most powerful weapon we have is our economy… well done, @realDonaldTrump.
Congratulations to President @realDonaldTrump and his team for reaching an agreement with Mexico that will substantially reduce the number of illegal immigrants coming through Mexico.https://t.co/mY3rVuXjYh
The Mexican government has pledged to do more than Congressional Ds to address this crisis: Trump announces deal to avoid tariffs on Mexico – Los Angeles Times https://t.co/WTPrHmuP0U
— Rep. Dan Crenshaw (@RepDanCrenshaw) June 8, 2019
President Trump’s newly-signed agreement with Mexico is great news for both our economy and our country’s border security. Once again, @realDonaldTrump has proven those who doubted him wrong by getting Mexico to step up their efforts to help us secure our southern border.
Important traffic notice for Austin residents: Half of I-35 is going to be closed between 290 and Rundberg starting at 9 PM tonight and lasting through 5 AM Monday, June 3, while they take down the St. John’s bridge and route southbound traffic down two northbound lanes, squeezing traffic in both directions. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s going to screw up traffic everywhere between Georgetown and Slaughter Lane. Avoid if at all possible…
Alan Dershowitz thinks that Mueller acted shamefully in going beyond his prosecutor’s mandate:
Virtually everybody agrees that, in the normal case, a prosecutor should never go beyond publicly disclosing that there is insufficient evidence to indict. No responsible prosecutor should ever suggest that the subject of his investigation might indeed be guilty even if there was insufficient evidence or other reasons not to indict. Supporters of Mueller will argue that this is not an ordinary case, that he is not an ordinary prosecutor and that President Trump is not an ordinary subject of an investigation. They are wrong. The rules should not be any different.
Remember that federal investigations by prosecutors, including special counsels, are by their very nature one-sided. They hear only evidence of guilt and not exculpatory evidence. Their witnesses are not subject to the adversarial process. There is no cross examination. The evidence is taken in secret behind the closed doors of a grand jury. For that very reason, prosecutors can only conclude whether there is sufficient evidence to commence a prosecution. They are not in a position to decide whether the subject of the investigation is guilty or is innocent of any crimes.
That determination of guilt or innocence requires a full adversarial trial with a zealous defense attorney, vigorous cross examination, exclusionary rules of evidence and other due process safeguards. Such safeguards were not present in this investigation, and so the suggestion by Mueller that Trump might well be guilty deserves no credence. His statement, so inconsistent with his long history, will be used to partisan advantage by Democrats, especially all those radicals who are seeking impeachment.
Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw on the issue:
My take on this Mueller press conference:
Nothing changed. Still no Russian collusion and no conclusion on obstruction.
But the President’s adversaries will continue to move the goalposts and push impeachment, ignoring what the American people really want: good governance.
President Donald Trump has given Attorney General William Barr authority to declassify to declassify Scandularity documents (like FISA warrents aimed at the Trump campaign), and Democrats are freaking out.
Related: “It’s Not Your Imagination: The Journalists Writing About Antifa Are Often Their Cheerleaders.”
Of all 15 verified national-level journalists in our subset, we couldn’t find a single article, by any of them, that was markedly critical of Antifa in any way. In all cases, their work in this area consisted primarily of downplaying Antifa violence while advancing Antifa talking points, and in some cases quoting Antifa extremists as if they were impartial experts.
“Why Are Top Obama Officials Working Cushy Jobs for Chinese Company We Now Consider a Threat?” (I think we all know the an$wer to that que$tion.) “Samir Jain — a former senior director for cybersecurity policy under Obama’s National Security Council and now a partner with the international law firm Jones Day — was recently hired by the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei as a lobbyist. Jain works alongside James Cole, who was Obama’s deputy attorney general from 2011 to 2015. Huawei hired Cole for legal representation in 2017, the Examiner reported.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
This is interesting: Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz and New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez are talking about teaming up to impose a lifetime ban on former members of congress becoming paid lobbyists. It’s a good idea that I expect to go nowhere, as it takes potential graft money out of too many congressional pockets. But this is not the only idea the hard left and the hard right could propose to fight the swampy center.
When my grandparents arrived in Israel, together with 850,000 other Jews who lived in the Middle East and North Africa, they understood three things.
First, they understood that they were being forced to leave their Arab homelands. My Iraqi grandparents, for example, had very clear memories of the Farhud, the 1941 pogrom that left more than 180 Jews dead at the hands of their neighbors. They finally fled their native country in 1951, pushed out by an Iraqi government determined to rid itself of all of its Jews.
When they arrived in Israel, my grandparents did not see themselves as Palestinian Jews—they had never before lived in Mandatory Palestine. They saw themselves as Jews of Iraqi descent returning to the ancient homeland they and their ancestors had dreamed of and prayed of for thousands of years, the land from which they were once expelled and to which they were overjoyed to return. And they also understood themselves to be distinct from their Ashkenazi brothers and sisters: They were all Jews, but my grandparents were proud of their Mizrahi heritage just as the 200,000 Israelis of Ethiopian descent are proud of theirs.
They’re hordes of freaks and geeks, socially promoted like the retards in Common Core to grease the retirement skids of a pack of careerist Courtney Massengales not fit nor capable to pour piss out of their own boots even with the instructions stamped on the heel.
Else we wouldn’t have Rangerettes who can’t climb a short wall, Navy officers who can’t conn a ship without hitting everything afloat, as they dredge up parts from museum pieces to keep their current aircraft flying, Air Force generals pimping for a white elephant plane that cannot fly, missile officers cheating on their proficiency tests, Marine recruits in combat arms who can’t throw a grenade without killing themselves, or “combat leaders” who couldn’t pass a ruck march, West Point “leaders” who condone open communism from faculty and students, and promote a pack of Affirmative Action cadets who couldn’t pass a PRT or meet basic weight and appearance standards, while flashing Black Power signs in uniform. We wouldn’t be doing gender reassignment surgeries instead of physical therapy for combat wounded, we wouldn’t be spending more money on gender sensitivity counseling than on marksmanship training, and we wouldn’t be wavering the insane and drug-addicted into the military in record numbers, just to appease a pack of blue- and pink-haired SJWs.
The US military is broken.
Hugely so. Nearly hopelessly so.
Nostalgia for a time long past when it was otherwise won’t paper over the reality that right now we’re as weak as kittens, with a military that’s going to have its own ass handed to it on a platter, and body bags filled by the gross, because it’s so hamstrung with PC that it cannot accomplish the most fundamental missions assigned to it, eight days out of seven.
Overstated? Probably. Almost certainly. And don’t underestimate “freaks and geeks.” Or both viewpoints are true: Our armed forces aren’t what they’re shaped up to be, but are still miles beyond other country’s armed forces. Or it could be a case of inter-service differences: The army, honed by two decades at the point of the knife in the global war on terror, is the best in the world but the Navy and Air Force have problems. Or anywhere in-between those extremes. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
Former Mississippi Republican Senator Thad Cochran has died at the age of 81. Cochran was Mississippi’s first Republican senator since Reconstruction, was a stalwart advocate of the Reagan revolution, and then slowly drifted into a more moderate direction as he stayed in the senate 45 years.
I think it's legitimate to prefer one culture to another
For example, I prefer cultures that do not tolerate female genital mutilation.
Will this will be considered racist by all those who hover, eagerly hoping that someone will offend them – on someone else's behalf, naturally https://t.co/4WbZDFjs3o
The week between Christmas and New Years is always odd. Work slows down with so many people on vacation, but there’s always a personal rush to get things done before the end of the year.
If you want to see what a bunch of half-baked idiots and kettle-corn psalmists in a political march are up to, the easiest thing to do is to march around with them, as I did for a while in Portland. I do not look much like Tucker Carlson, and I remain, for the moment, able to blend in with such groups.
Which I did — and a funny thing happened: As the march began to peter out, a group of Antifa loitered for a bit on a street corner, and I loitered with them for a while, observing. And then I got tired and decided to bring my labors to an end and go on my merry. As I walked off, a contingent, apparently believing that we were once again on the move against fascism, began to follow me, pumping their fists and chanting, until they figured out that I wasn’t leading them anywhere. And thus did a National Review correspondent end up briefly leading an Antifa march through Portland.
Of course they followed me. They’ll follow anything that moves.
There has never been any vacuum in Syria (or Iraq). Sharia supremacism fills all voids. In focusing on ISIS, David discounts sharia supremacism as “an idea.” But it is much more than that. It is a cultural distinction — even, as Samuel Huntington argued, a civilizational one. It will always be a forcible enemy of the West. It doesn’t matter what the groups are called. You can kill ISIS, but it is already reforming as something else. In fact, it may no longer even be the strongest jihadist force in Syria: Its forebear-turned-rival al-Qaeda is ascendant — after a few name changes (the latest is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Levant Liberation Organization) and some infighting with other militant upstarts. There is a better chance that ISIS will reestablish ties with the mothership than fade away.
The fact that al-Qaeda, which triggered the “War on Terror,” does not factor into American clamoring about Syria is telling. The anti-ISIS mission David describes was not always the U.S. objective in Syria. First we were going to pull an Iraq/Libya redux and help the “moderates” overthrow Assad. But the “moderates,” in the main, are Muslim Brotherhood groups that are very content to align with al-Qaeda jihadists — and our fabulous allies in Syria, the Turks and the Saudis, were only too happy to abet al-Qaeda. Syria had thus become such a conundrum that we were effectively aligning with the very enemies who had provoked us into endless regional war.
When ISIS arose and gobbled up territory, beheading some inhabitants and enslaving the rest, Obama began sending in small increments of troops to help our “moderate” allies fend them off. But the moderates are mostly impotent; they need the jihadists, whether they are fighting rival jihadists or Assad. Syria remains a multi-front conflict in which one “axis” of America’s enemies, Assad-Iran-Russia, is pitted against another cabal of America’s enemies, the Brotherhood and al-Qaeda factions; both sides flit between fighting against and attempting to co-opt ISIS, another U.S. enemy. The fighting may go on for years; the prize the winner gets is . . . Syria (if it’s the Russians, they’ll wish they were back in Afghanistan).
Degrading ISIS into irrelevance would not degrade anti-American jihadism in Syria into irrelevance. If sharia didn’t ban alcohol, I’d say the old wine would just appear in new bottles. It was, moreover, absurd for President Trump to declare victory just because ISIS has been stripped of 95 percent of the territory it once held. Caliphate aspirations notwithstanding, ISIS’s mistake was the attempt to be an open and notorious sovereign. It was always more effective as a terrorist underground, and it still has tens of thousands of operatives for that purpose.
If we stayed out of the way, America’s enemies would continue killing each other. That’s fine by me. I am not indifferent to collateral human suffering, but it is a staple of sharia-supremacist societies; we can no more prevent it in Syria than in Burkina Faso. And I am not indifferent to the challenge David rightly identifies: terrorists occupying safe havens from which they can plot against the West. But that is a global challenge, and we handle it elsewhere by vigilant intelligence-gathering and quick-strike capabilities. We should hit terrorist sanctuaries wherever we find them, but it is not necessary to have thousands of American troops on the ground everyplace such sanctuaries might take root.
Trump campaigned on his promise to build a wall. He told Frisco Nancy and Chuck Odd that he would shut down the government if he didn’t get his wall money. The Republican establishment, which does not really want a wall because the GOP corporate donor class doesn’t want to turn off the spigot of cheap foreign peasant labor even though those illegals are all future Democrat voters, led Trump on and on. They put continuing resolution after continuing resolution in front of him, each time promising to really, truly, cross-my-heart-and-hope-you-die fight next time. He gave them a chance. He gave them too many chances. And they expected he’d go along again this time. But conservatives drew the line and Trump realized that he needed to do what he did best to get back inside the ruling class’s decision cycle.
He needed to disrupt, so he kept his promise. He refused to play along with the wall scam anymore. And the gleeful Dem senators singing carols as they expected to get away with another grift ended their serenade with a sad trombone. Now the government is going to shut down, and Trump has zero to lose by holding out.
Then he cranked up the disruption when he announced he was getting out of Syria, and it’s clear that Afghanistan is probably next. The establishment reacted with surprise and horror. It’s hard to understand the “surprise” part, since he campaigned on getting us the hell out of foreign hellholes and has always wanted to. Again, he played along, giving the establishment a chance. And another. And nothing happened. So now he’s done. He’s doing what he promised.
Is this withdrawal a good idea? That depends – we definitely need to provide for the safety of our Kurdish allies, and how that will happen remains unclear at this writing. ISIS is a danger; departing necessarily accepts risk. While the conservative anti-nation building attitude is blind to our successes doing it (like in Kosovo), neither Syria nor Afghanistan seem particularly fertile soil for it. And who is eager to dump more money into them after all the trillions we’ve wasted since 2001?
But beyond the substantive considerations is the fact that the overwrought reaction of the establishment to the idea of actually ending a war supports Trump’s plan. What is our objective anyway? What’s the endstate? In the War College they taught us we should have those things. But the screamers never tell us – instead, it’s always invective about how we love Putin, or how we are stupid or whatever, when we ask, “Okay, how much more in time, money and American lives should we devote to these projects?” We never get a timeline, or a dollar figure, or the number of coffins that they consider whatever their unarticulated objective happens to be is worth.
We keep hearing ISIS might return and we have to stay to stamp out those creeps again, and fine, killing jihadists is cool, but if the goal is to keep Mideastern jerks from being themselves then we will never, ever leave. The elite always denies it wants us to be the world’s policemen, but then it always demands that we keep walking a beat that never ends.
President Trump hasn’t destroyed free trade, he’s split it into two: One set of trading partners for us and our allies, and another set for China:
The status quo with China is crumbling. Businesses have grown disillusioned with China’s restrictions on their activities, forced technology transfer and intellectual-property theft, all aimed at building up domestic competitors at foreign expense. Meanwhile, legislators in both parties are alarmed at increased military assertiveness and domestic repression under President Xi Jinping.
Dan Sullivan, a Republican senator from Alaska, personifies these broader forces reshaping the U.S. approach to the world. Mr. Sullivan has followed the rise of China for decades—as a Marine sent to the Taiwan Strait in 1996 in a response to Chinese provocations; as an official in George W. Bush’s National Security Council and State Department; and for a time as Alaska’s commissioner of natural resources.
When Mr. Xi visited the U.S. in 2015, Mr. Sullivan urged his colleagues to pay more attention to China’s rise. On the Senate floor, he quoted the political scientist Graham Allison: “War between the U.S. and China is more likely than recognized at the moment.”
Last spring, Mr. Sullivan went to China and met officials including Vice President Wang Qishan. They seemed to think tensions with the U.S. will fade after Mr. Trump leaves the scene, Mr. Sullivan recalled.
“I just said, ‘You are completely misreading this.’” The mistrust, he told them, is bipartisan, and will outlast Mr. Trump.
While delivering one message to China, Mr. Sullivan gave a different one to the administration and its trade negotiators: Don’t alienate allies needed to take on China.
“Modernize the agreements but stay within the agreements,” he says he counseled them. “Then we have to turn to the really big geostrategic challenge facing our country and that’s China.”
His was one voice among many urging Mr. Trump to single out China for pressure. Presidents Obama and George W. Bush sought to change China’s behavior through dialogue and engagement. Obama officials had begun to question engagement by the end of the administration. Last year, in its National Security Strategy, the Trump administration declared engagement a failure.
The Trump administration regards economic policy and national security as inseparable when it comes to Beijing, because China’s acquisition of Western technology both strengthens China militarily and weakens the U.S. economically.
“We don’t like it when our allies steal our ideas either, but it’s a much less dangerous situation,” said Derek Scissors, a China expert at the American Enterprise Institute whose views align with the administration’s more hawkish officials. “We’re not worried about the war-fighting capability of Japan and Korea because they’re our friends.”
Snip.
Michael Pillsbury, a Hudson Institute scholar close to the Trump team who has long warned of China’s strategic threat, sees three plausible scenarios. At one extreme is a new cold war with drastically curtailed economic ties. At the other, the U.S. and China resolve their tensions, continue to integrate and run the world together.
Between those extremes, Mr. Pillsbury sees a more likely and desirable middle path—a transactional U.S.-China relationship of the sort that prevailed during the 1980s in which the two decide, case by case, when to do business and when to decouple.
Stray thought: With the U.S. disengagement with various Middle Eastern conflicts, there’s a possibility that the less-Trump Derangement Syndrome-besotted ranks of the neocons might pivot to back Trump against China. After all, there was no end to neocon Jeremiads against China prior to the 2016 election…
These reporters can’t even begin a news account of a presidential visit to a military base without working in a compilation of Mr. Trump’s controversies, contradictions, and failings.
The point isn’t to feel sorry for Mr. Trump, whose rhetorical attacks on the press have often been contemptible. The point is that such gratuitously negative reporting undermines the credibility of the press without Mr. Trump having to say a word.
Speaking of scumbag sexual abusers, Kevin Spacey has finally been indicted for sexual assault. The one tiny bright spot is that it was an 18-year old man, so it’s slightly less reprehensible than the statutory rate charges made against him. [Insert innocent until proven guilty disclaimer here.]
Shocking news: Washington Post readers actually blame the illegal alien father who brought his son along as a pawn in his plan to enter the U.S., only to see him die. “Reading these comments, I believe the American culture has changed radically since the fall of 2016, when Trump was painted as a racist for saying the situation at the border had to change. I think, for all the press resistance to Trump’s fight against illegal immigration, minds have changed.”
Speaking of Brit Hume: Six days after hip replacement surgery and he’s already walking around:
Wonders of modern medicine: Here I am just six days after my right hip was replaced. I’m still sore, but so grateful for the work of Dr. Anthony Unger and his team at Sibley Memorial Hospital in D.C. Merry Christmas indeed! pic.twitter.com/onB87keKtT
Late Sunday, President Donald Trump announced that the Canadian government had given in and was joining the United States and Mexico in a revision of the NAFTA trade agreement, one of Trump’s key 2016 campaign promises.
Late last night, our deadline, we reached a wonderful new Trade Deal with Canada, to be added into the deal already reached with Mexico. The new name will be The United States Mexico Canada Agreement, or USMCA. It is a great deal for all three countries, solves the many……
….deficiencies and mistakes in NAFTA, greatly opens markets to our Farmers and Manufacturers, reduces Trade Barriers to the U.S. and will bring all three Great Nations together in competition with the rest of the world. The USMCA is a historic transaction!
Canada agreed to ease protections on its dairy market, among them, it will now provide US access to about 3.5% of the market (Canada is likely to compensate dairy farmers);
The US relented on its demand to eliminate the dispute settlement system on Chapter 19, a big win for Canada;
Canada agreed to the terms of the US-Mexico deal, among them a de minimis of US$100 (the amount of imports without duties, which in NAFTA is US$20), stricter rules of origin for autos, a 10 year sunset clause with a 6 year revision and an update on several topics from labor to commerce to intellectual property; and
The US and Canada reached an agreement to protect Canada’s autos from high auto tariffs if the US imposes them under law 232 with a quota of 2.6 million vehicles exported. The latter is similar to the “side-letter” that Mexico agreed with the US that protects 2.4 million vehicles. So far there are no exemptions from steel and aluminum tariffs.
What strikes me is that the most contentious ongoing U.S. Canada trade dispute issue, softwood lumber, does not seem to have been addressed. (I say “seem” because a search of the document on the ustr.gov site just brought up an error.)
I’m still going through the USMCA text (even speed reading, it will likely take a while); here’s the link to the AGREEMENT DETAILS. However, many people have asked about how the NAFTA loophole was being closed.
Well, the answer is exactly what it had to be – there was really no option. The U.S. now has veto authority over any trade deal made by Canada and/or Mexico with third parties. This is what Ambassador Lighthizer described as the “Third pillar”.
Last year, despite the inevitability of it, we didn’t think Canada and Mexico would agree to it. The NAFTA loophole was/is a zero-sum issue: Either Can/Mex agree to give veto authority to the U.S. –OR– President Trump had no option to exit NAFTA completely.
Well, Canada and Mexico have agreed to the former, so there’s no need for the latter.
Both Canada and Mexico structured key parts of their independent trade agreements to take advantage of their unique access to the U.S. market. Mexico and Canada generate billions in economic activity through exploiting the NAFTA loophole. China, Asia (writ large), and the EU enter into trade agreements with Mexico and Canada as back-doors into the U.S. market. So long as corporations can avoid U.S. tariffs by going through Canada and Mexico they would continue to exploit this approach.
By shipping parts to Mexico and/or Canada; and by deploying satellite manufacturing and assembly facilities in Canada and/or Mexico; China, Asia and to a lesser extent EU corporations exploited a loophole. Through a process of building, assembling or manufacturing their products in Mexico/Canada those foreign corporations can skirt U.S. trade tariffs and direct U.S. trade agreements. The finished foreign products entered the U.S. under NAFTA rules.
Why deal with the U.S. when you can just deal with Mexico, and use NAFTA rules to ship your product directly into the U.S. market?
This exploitative approach, a backdoor to the U.S. market, was the primary reason for massive foreign investment in Canada and Mexico; it was also the primary reason why candidate Donald Trump, now President Donald Trump, wanted to shut down that loophole and renegotiate NAFTA.
This loophole was the primary reason for U.S. manufacturers to relocate operations to Mexico. Corporations within the U.S. Auto-Sector could enhance profits by building in Mexico or Canada using parts imported from Asia/China. The labor factor was not as big a part of the overall cost consideration as cheaper parts and imported raw materials.
If the U.S. applies the same tariffs to Canada and Mexico we apply to all trade nations, then the benefit of using Canada and Mexico -by those trade nations- is lost. Corporations will no longer have any advantage, and many are likely to just deal directly with the U.S. This is the reason for retaining the Steel and Aluminum tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
I reached out to Vance Ginn of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, who is much more of a fan of the original NAFTA than President Trump, and asked him a few questions about the new agreement:
1. How big a win for President Trump is this, if it is indeed a win?
I’m cautiously optimistic about the USMCA because even though certain industries, like producers of autos and dairy products, will likely benefit, the provisions related to the auto sector will cost Americans more for autos along with potentially reducing profitability of the auto sector as higher priced cars reduce the number consumed. People prosper from trade so the focus should be on reducing trade barriers, which the USMCA may have done but we won’t know until all details are available. Based on what we do know, it appears that there is reason to believe the original NAFTA should have remained intact.
2. What do you see as the most important provision for increasing free trade?
Most important is that there aren’t many changes to the original, beneficial NAFTA. However, the USMCA provision to ban tariffs on digital trade appears to be the most important. In addition, removing trade uncertainty is a big plus, though there is now a 60 day waiting period before it can be voted on by Congress.
3. The summaries I’ve seen don’t cover the longest-running and thorniest US/Canadian trade dispute, namely softwood lumber subsidies and tariffs. What, if anything, does the agreement do to address that dispute?
I haven’t seen anything. Mostly covers the trade dispute of dairy products. One of the things to look for when the details are revealed.
4. How applicable will the 2018 NAFTA precedent be for President Trump’s other trade disputes?
The USMCA could provide a framework to get marginal gains while protecting specific sectors, like manufacturing, comes at a cost. The takeaway shouldn’t be that tariffs are a good bargaining chip because taxes aren’t a reasonable tool to use for that purpose. Taxes should be used to only collect revenue to fund limited government spending. Instead of looking at trade deficits and fair trade rhetoric, there should be a focus on making the U.S. and states as competitive as possible in the global market by instituting sound policies while working to eliminate barriers to trade.
My own impression is that President Trump scored a solid single here thanks to his unorthodox negotiating style, and probably increased his trade negotiating leverage somewhat with other countries.
President Donald Trump said Monday the U.S. and Mexico have reached a new trade deal, paving the way for the possible revision of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
In an Oval Office announcement, Trump said the new agreement would be called the United States Mexico trade agreement and would replace NAFTA, which he said had “bad connotations” for the United States.
“It’s a big day for trade,” he said. “It’s a big day for our country.”
Trump said he intends to terminate NAFTA and that the U.S. would immediately begin negotiations with Canada, the third party in the trilateral trade pact that he has called the “worst deal ever.”
“If they would like to negotiate fairly, we will do that,” Trump said. He said it’s possible that a separate deal could be reached with Canada.
The announcement of a deal between the U.S. and Mexico comes after five consecutive weeks of talks between the two nations to revise key parts of the NAFTA.
In a phone call with Trump, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto called the deal “something very positive for the United States and Mexico.”
The U.S. and Mexico are hoping to get a final deal signed before Peña Nieto leaves office on Dec. 1. But before the U.S. can sign the deal, Congress must be given 90 days’ notice. A formal notice will be sent to Congress on Friday.
Pena Nieto repeatedly expressed interest for Canada to be incorporated into the agreement. Trump said the U.S. would have a deal with Canada “one way or another.”
“It’ll either be a tariff on cars or it’ll be a negotiated deal,” he said. “Frankly, a tariff on cars is a much easier way to go. Perhaps, the other would be much better for Canada.”
In Mexico City, Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s incoming foreign minister under President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, said Monday he was pleased to see the U.S and Mexico craft a new trade deal, according to Reuters.
“We see the agreement announced today as positive progress … in the coming days we will continue in trilateral negotiations with Canada, which is vital to be able to renew the (trade) pact,” said Marcelo Ebrard, the future foreign minister.
Douglas George, the Detroit-based consul general of Canada responsible for Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky, sounded upbeat on Monday.
“We’re encouraged by the optimism shown by our negotiating partners,” George told the Detroit Free Press on Monday. “Progress between Mexico and the U.S. is a necessary requirement for any renewed NAFTA agreement. While they’ve been negotiating, we’ve been in regular contact with them over the last weeks. We’ll continue to work toward a modernized NAFTA. We have a three-way negotiation that’s been ongoing.”
How can we analyze the costs and benefits of this agreement compared to NAFTA?
Well, we can’t yet. The text of the agreement isn’t available. Ace of Spades zeroes in on this:
According to a fact sheet from the United States Trade Representative, the agreement includes new rules of origin to incentivize manufacturers to source goods and materials in North America — including requiring 75 percent of auto content be made in the United States and Mexico.
I’m going to guess that the point of this is to require Mexico to buy the bulk of the steel used in making cars from US/Mexican steel-makers, which probably means “US steel makers” in practice. Rather than, say, Chinese or Canadian or other makers.
I’m not a fan of the trade warrior fetishization of steel over other industries, but as previously noted, President Trump’s unorthodox negotiating style seems to be lowering trade barriers for American products. The success with Mexico will likely increase pressure on Canada and Mexico to do the same.
When President Donald Trump announced that he was raising tariffs in an attempt to force other countries to lower trade barriers to American goods, All The Best People scoffed. That simply wasn’t the way the trade game was played, old bean. Other countries wouldn’t lower tariffs, they’d raise them on American goods and start a trade war, plunging the world into recession.
President Trump announced during a Wednesday press conference that his meeting with European officials yielded key trade concessions, including an increase in American soybean and liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports to Europe, and a commitment to work toward eliminating non-auto tariffs entirely.
“We have agreed today to work toward zero tariffs, zero tariff barriers and zero subsidies on non-auto industrial goods,” Trump said, reciting a joint statement crafted with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker. “We will also work to reduce barriers and increase trade in services, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, medical products, as well as soybeans. The European Union is going to start almost immediately to but a lot of soybeans, they’re a tremendous market, to buy a lot of soybeans from our famers in the midwest primarily.”
“The European Union wants to import more liquefied natural gas from the United States and they’re going to be a very big buyer. We’re going to make it much easier for them but they will be massive buyers, so that they will be able to diversify their energy supply,” he added.
Trump pledged to “not go against the spirit” of ongoing negotiations, presumably by refraining from implementing further tariffs, and said he would “resolve” existing “retaliatory tariffs.”
Juncker also vowed to work toward reducing existing tariffs, which were first implemented last month in tit-for-tat fashion after the Trump administration slapped 10 and 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum respectively and the EU retaliated by placing tariffs on just over $3 billion in American goods. The E.U. trade chief also confirmed that he had in fact committed to importing more soy-beans and natural gas from the U.S.
The agreement comes after a series of reports Wednesday morning that indicated Trump is advocating the implementation of 25 percent tariffs on foreign-made cars, against the advice of his trade advisers. The specifics regarding auto tariffs were reportedly still being developed as Trump’s meeting with Juncker came to a close.
As always with trade agreements, the devil is in the details. If the EU does drop all the tariffs Juncker has promised, then this will be a big win for President Trump’s unorthodox negotiating style. His immediate presidential predecessors seemed to mostly leave the issue of achieving lower trade barriers to underlings negotiating multilateral agreements like TPP or GATT. President Trump is the first to pursue a policy of personally negotiating from strength to lower trade barriers to American commerce. This was a risky strategy that most (myself included) believed would not work. But right now it appears to be working.
There’s no doubt that if President Trump’s trade strategy does work, those decrying it now will still sniff at Trump “winning the wrong way” by “alienating allies…”
