In response to the latest political firestorm Donald Trump has created, he has done what he usually does: jumped onto Twitter.
As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017
…to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017
In other words, Trump divulged highly classified information with Russia because when it comes to fighting terrorism we’re all on the same side.
That’s the way it might look to an ignorant president and his equally ignorant supporters, but in reality the situation is much more complicated.
Just days ago, Alan Dershowitz criticized the hyperbolic tone of political discourse these days by tweeting:
everything’s the worst or the best. We’re looking for mature leadership & we’re not getting it – from either party https://t.co/xLtGE4uMZL
— Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) May 13, 2017
Dershowitz’s reaction to the latest turn of events, however, showed that he is no less susceptible to extreme reactions — or that in this case he is correctly assessing the gravity of what just happened.
.@AlanDersh reacts to WaPo story: "This is the most serious charge ever made against a sitting president" https://t.co/Q2nW0Fic1v
— OutFrontCNN (@OutFrontCNN) May 16, 2017
Dershowitz speculates that Israel may have been the source of intelligence that Trump revealed to the Russians:
“Let’s take the following hypothetical: What if it was Israel who provided this intelligence?” he said on an interview on MSNBC.
He warned that if Israeli intelligence was shared with Russia, then Russia could send it to Iran and Hezbollah, two of Israel’s foes.
The issue here may or may not be the content of the intelligence if it was gathered by Israel. Just as important would be the implied cooperation of any states in the region being seen to facilitate Israeli operations.
If, for instance, Israel, with Saudi Arabia’s consent, is gathering intelligence in Yemen, there can be little doubt that Russia and Iran could use this information to apply political pressure on the Saudis both in Yemen and Syria.
If as a result these intelligence gathering operations are curtailed this will then help ISIS and al Qaeda.