Turkey’s story tells the world just how fragile democracy is
KremlinGate and the limits of classified evidence
John R. Schindler writes: President Trump’s Russia problem is off the front pages for the first time in months. In retaliation for the Assad regime’s continued use of chemical weapons against civilians, Trump attacked a Syrian airbase using 59 cruise missiles launched from U.S. Navy ships.
To the great distress of many of the president’s most ardent fans, the Trump White House has honored Obama’s Syrian “red line,” which his predecessor so embarrassingly walked away from almost four years ago, thereby handing the Syrian problem—and much of the Middle East—over to Vladimir Putin. It’s no wonder that the Kremlin is suddenly critical of the new administration, using strong words to express its displeasure with Trump’s muscular act against the Assad regime, which is Moscow’s loyal client.
But none of this means the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation of KremlinGate is going away. In fact, we now know that it’s been underway for almost a year. According to a new report in The New York Times, John Brennan, the CIA director during President Obama’s second term, knew last summer that Kremlin interference in our election was a serious and fast-growing problem. He was so worried that, in late August, Brennan personally briefed eight senior members of Congress on new evidence of Russia’s meddling—in some cases, the CIA director interrupted their summer vacations to share the bad news.
The Times doesn’t indicate what that urgent new intelligence was, but members of the Intelligence Community with access to that evidence have told me there are several top-secret reports—mainly, but not exclusively, signals intelligence from NSA—demonstrating links between Team Trump and top Kremlin officials, hinting at collusion with Moscow during last year’s election. Although none of these reports individually is conclusive—there is no “smoking gun” as Beltway wonks like to say—taken together they lead to the disturbing finding that Trump’s campaign was in cahoots with Moscow to hurt Hillary Clinton. That the IC knew much of this last summer invites disturbing questions about the Obama administration’s puzzling inaction last fall, in the weeks leading to the election.
FBI director James Comey has tamped down expectations of any quick resolution of his Bureau’s investigation of KremlinGate. He is surely correct that this weighty matter is best addressed thoroughly and judiciously, not rashly. We need the facts—not assertions or unprovable claims from dodgy dossiers. The existence of top-secret evidence pointing to collusion between Team Trump and Team Putin means that investigators and prosecutors have red meat to work with, but that does not necessarily mean that indictments are coming soon.
Comey faces a particular problem, little understood by the public or even by most journalists covering KremlinGate. That’s the fact that classified evidence is inadmissible in court, and top-secret information will never be shown to a jury. FBI agents therefore face the uncomfortable difficulty of knowing (from highly classified reports) what was going on—and finding unclassified corroboration if they want to prosecute anybody.
Hence the pressing need to get co-conspirators to “flip” on each other and, even better, coercing confessions from those facing possible prison time. [Continue reading…]
Trump undercuts top adviser Steve Bannon, whose job may be in danger
The New York Times reports: Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s grenade-lobbing pugilist of a chief strategist, has a fitting nickname for his West Wing office: “The war room.”
But more and more, war is being waged on Mr. Bannon himself. And it is unclear how much longer he can survive in his job.
His isolation inside the White House, after weeks of bitter battle with other senior aides aligned with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, appeared to grow even starker this week after Mr. Trump undercut Mr. Bannon in an interview and downplayed his role as the Trump campaign’s chief executive.
“I didn’t know Steve,” Mr. Trump told the New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin in an interview on Tuesday, explaining that Mr. Bannon was a latecomer to his presidential campaign. “I am my own strategist,” the president added, a pointed reference to what aides described as his growing irritation that Mr. Bannon is receiving credit for being the mastermind behind Mr. Trump’s victory.
The remarks were at least, in part, not true — Mr. Trump has known Mr. Bannon for some time, and has appeared on the radio show he used to host. But it was an unusually public rejection by a chief executive who generally keeps such criticism behind closed doors.
One person with firsthand knowledge of internal White House dynamics, who asked not to be identified given how tense the situation had become, insisted that no immediate changes were likely. But by openly criticizing Mr. Bannon, Mr. Trump has created a situation that makes it hard for the swaggering chief strategist to remain in place without appearing deeply undermined.
Allies of Mr. Trump say that he has become more impatient with the infighting — and the overwhelming attention it is receiving in the media. In a lengthy conversation with Mr. Bannon this week, the president repeated his admonition that the chief strategist and his adversaries needed to “knock off” their back-and-forth sniping.
Mr. Trump insisted as much in the Post interview, saying, “Steve is a good guy, but I told them to straighten it out or I will.” His comments in private, say people who have spoken with him, have been more pointed. [Continue reading…]
After campaign exit, Manafort borrowed from businesses with Trump ties
The New York Times reports: Aug. 19 was an eventful day for Paul Manafort.
That morning, he stepped down from guiding Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign, after a brief tenure during which Mr. Trump won the Republican nomination, Democrats’ emails were hacked and the campaign’s contacts with Russia came under scrutiny. Dogged by revelations about past financial dealings in Ukraine, Mr. Manafort retreated from public view.
But behind the scenes, he was busy with other matters. Papers were recorded that same day creating a shell company controlled by Mr. Manafort that soon received $13 million in loans from two businesses with ties to Mr. Trump, including one that partners with a Ukrainian-born billionaire and another led by a Trump economic adviser. They were among $20 million in loans secured by properties belonging to Mr. Manafort and his wife.
The purpose of the loans is unstated in public records, although at least some of them appear to be part of an effort by Mr. Manafort to stave off a personal financial crisis stemming from failed investments with his son-in-law.
The transactions raise a number of questions, including whether Mr. Manafort’s decision to turn to Trump-connected lenders was related to his role in the campaign, where he had agreed to serve for free. [Continue reading…]
Stunning drops in solar and wind costs turn global power market upside down
Joe Romm writes: Stunning drops in the cost of wind and solar energy have turned the global power market upside down.
For years, opponents of renewable power, like President Donald Trump, have argued they simply aren’t affordable. The reality is quite different.
Unsubsidized renewables have become the cheapest source of new power — by far — in more and more countries, according to a new report from the United Nations and Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).
In just one year, the cost of solar generation worldwide dropped on average 17 percent, the report found. The average costs for onshore wind dropped 18 percent last year, while those for offshore wind fell a whopping 28 percent.
The result is “more bang for the buck,” as the U.N. and BNEF put it. Last year saw 138.5 gigawatts of new renewable capacity. That not only beat the 2015 record of 127.5 GW, but it was built with a total investment that was 23 percent lower than in 2015.[Continue reading…]
Turkey confirms sarin was used in Syrian chemical attack
The Guardian reports: Traces of sarin gas have been detected in blood and urine samples from victims wounded in the town of Khan Sheikhun in Syria, giving “concrete evidence” of its use in the attack, Turkey’s health minister has said.
Doctors and aid workers who had examined the wounded of last week’s massacre, which provoked the first US military strikes against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, said they exhibited symptoms of exposure to a nerve agent similar to sarin, as well as a second chemical that may have been chlorine.
But the tests in Turkey, where many of the victims were taken for treatment due to the lack of medical facilities inside Syria, offer the first insight into the actual toxins used in the attack that killed over 80 people and drew worldwide condemnation and a renewed focus on the brutal conduct of the war.
The Turkish health minister Recep Akdağ said isopropyl methylphosphonic acid, a chemical that sarin degrades into, was found in the blood and urine samples taken from the patients who arrived in Turkey. Some 30 victims were brought across the border following the attack last Tuesday, and a number of them have died.
Autopsies on victims in Turkey shortly after the attack, monitored by the World Health Organization, had concluded there was evidence of sarin exposure. [Continue reading…]
The Guardian reports: Vladimir Putin has deepened his support of the Syrian regime, claiming its opponents planned false-flag chemical weapon attacks to justify further US missile strikes.
The Russian president’s predictions on Tuesday of an escalation in the Syrian war involving more use of chemical weapons came as US officials provided further details of what they insist was a sarin attack by Bashar al-Assad’s forces against civilians on 4 April, and accused Moscow of a cover-up and possible complicity.
The hardening of the Kremlin’s position, and its denial of Assad’s responsibility, accelerated a tailspin in US-Russian relations, just as the US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, arrived in Moscow for direct talks.
Tillerson had hoped to underscore the US position with a unified message from the G7, which condemned the chemical attack at a summit in Italy on Tuesday. However, G7 foreign ministers were divided over possible next steps and refused to back a British call for fresh sanctions. [Continue reading…]
The Washington Post reports on Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’s first news conference since taking over the Defense Department: A senior defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to describe sensitive information, said that chlorine has a different status than sarin under international law, but Mattis does not want to say what will happen if Assad continues to use it. The idea, the official said, is to give the regime pause before using any kind of chemical weapon.
During the news conference, Mattis said the United States will need to decide as a matter of policy how it will respond in the future to the use of any kind of chemical weapon, including chlorine, in Syria.
“There is a limit, I think, to what we can do,” Mattis said. “And when you look at what happened with this chemical attack, we knew that we could not stand passive on this.” [Continue reading…]
In a statement on Monday, Mattis claimed the U.S. missile strike resulted in the damage or destruction of “20 percent of Syria’s operational aircraft.”
No doubt Putin’s claims about false flag operations will gain easy traction in the Russia-friendly marginal media, but it’s worth remembering that sarin can’t be made in a kitchen sink (nor can it be easily dispersed on a battlefield), and the Assad regime possessed its chemical weapons production facilities through support from the Soviet Union.
Classified docs contradict Nunes surveillance claims, GOP and Dem sources say
CNN reports: After a review of the same intelligence reports brought to light by House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers and aides have so far found no evidence that Obama administration officials did anything unusual or illegal, multiple sources in both parties tell CNN.
Their private assessment contradicts President Donald Trump’s allegations that former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice broke the law by requesting the “unmasking” of US individuals’ identities. Trump had claimed the matter was a “massive story.”
However, over the last week, several members and staff of the House and Senate intelligence committees have reviewed intelligence reports related to those requests at NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland.
One congressional intelligence source described the requests made by Rice as “normal and appropriate” for officials who serve in that role to the president.
And another source said there’s “absolutely” no smoking gun in the reports, urging the White House to declassify them to make clear there was nothing alarming in the documents. [Continue reading…]
Spicer apologizes for saying Hitler didn’t use chemical weapons
Bloomberg reports: White House press secretary Sean Spicer apologized after a storm of criticism followed remarks in which he attempted to compare Syria’s Bashar al-Assad to Adolf Hitler by saying that even the Nazi leader didn’t “sink to using chemical weapons.”
“It was a mistake; I shouldn’t have done it,” Spicer said on CNN, acknowledging that host Wolf Blitzer’s characterization of his remarks as a “blunder” was accurate. “My goal now and then is to stay focused on Assad and I should have, and I’ll make sure to stay in my lane when I talk about that.”
During his briefing for reporters earlier in the day, Spicer was asked how the U.S. might persuade Russia to stop supporting Assad’s government. He responded, in part: “We didn’t use chemical weapons in World War Two. We had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons.”
The statement overlooked Hitler’s systematic killing of Jews and others using hydrogen cyanide pesticide, known as Zyklon B, in gas chambers at concentration camps. More than 6 million Jews died during the Holocaust.
As his remarks ricocheted across social media — on the Jewish Passover holiday — President Donald Trump’s chief spokesman was given the chance to elaborate. He only deepened the controversy.
“I think when you come to sarin gas, there was no — he was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing,” Spicer said. When reporters interrupted to note the millions of deaths in concentration camps, where many of the victims were Germans, Spicer tried to draw a distinction between those cases and battlefield use of chemical weapons.
“There was not in the — he brought them into the Holocaust centers and I understand that,” he said.
After the briefing, Spicer emailed a statement seeking to clarify his remarks.
“In no way was I trying to lessen the horrendous nature of the Holocaust,” Spicer wrote. “I was trying to draw a distinction of the tactic of using airplanes to drop chemical weapons on population centers. Any attack on innocent people is reprehensible and inexcusable.”
In his CNN interview, Spicer did not directly answer when Blitzer asked if viewers “could assume” Trump had told him to publicly apologize.
“You can assume that I realized that I had made a mistake and I did not want to be a distraction to the president’s agenda,” Spicer said. “When you make a mistake, you own it.”
Other administration officials have drawn historic parallels as they denounced the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime. Defense Secretary James Mattis, speaking later in the afternoon, said that “even in World War II, chemical weapons were not used on the battlefield.”
But Spicer’s bungled phrasing prompted calls for his dismissal. [Continue reading…]
Why would Assad use sarin in a war he’s winning? To terrify Syrians
Annia Ciezadlo writes: In the summer of 1925, rebels from the Syrian countryside mounted a guerrilla uprising against French colonial rule. The French retaliated by looting, burning and carrying out massacres in villages they suspected of supporting the rebels. That October, French authorities executed around 100 villagers outside Damascus. They displayed 16 of the mutilated corpses in the capital’s main public square; La Syrie, the government newspaper, called the row of bodies “a splendid hunting score.”
The French had no military reason to do this. Although they had underestimated the rebels at first, they were sure to defeat the vastly outgunned Syrian peasants in the end. The line of butchered bodies was there to send a message: This is the fate of rebels and those who support them.
Last week, warplanes dropped a chemical agent — most likely sarin gas, according to doctors who treated the victims — on a town in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib called Khan Sheikhoun. As gruesome pictures emerged of men, women and children convulsing and foaming at the mouth before dying, a simple question came to dominate the discussion online. From the far right of Mike Cernovich and Ron Paul to the anti-imperialist left, the question was: Why would Assad gas his own people when he was already winning the war? The Syrian regime had already regained control of rebel-held east Aleppo and was in the midst of evacuating the country’s few remaining rebel-held enclaves. So why would Assad provoke international outrage with needless carnage, when he had much to lose and little concrete military gain?
“We still don’t know exactly what happened in Syria and who was responsible,” wrote the far-left writer and commentator Rania Khalek on Twitter, “but fact remains that Syrian govt gains nothing from a CW attack.” The far-right conservative commentator and talk-radio host Michael Savage put it more succinctly: “Now what would Assad have gained by doing that? Is he stupid?”
In the increasingly influential world of conspiracy websites like Infowars, this simple question — and the lack of definitive answers — has managed to sow doubt. As it spread online, the idea that Assad had nothing to gain from a chemical attack fed into a vortex of claims that the Khan Sheikhoun gas attack was a false flag, an elaborate hoax designed to justify a U.S. military intervention in Syria. President Trump’s missile strikes on April 6, and his administration’s abrupt about-face on the question of regime change, have only bolstered that theory.
What these American observers don’t grasp is that Assad doesn’t care about them: He plays less to the West than to his internal audience. The videos of children and first responders dying from sarin gas horrified people, but this is exactly what they were intended to do: They were meant to strike fear into rebels, and send the message that the war was over. [Continue reading…]
FBI obtained FISA warrant to monitor former Trump adviser Carter Page
The Washington Post reports: The FBI obtained a secret court order last summer to monitor the communications of an adviser to presidential candidate Donald Trump, part of an investigation into possible links between Russia and the campaign, law enforcement and other U.S. officials said.
The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant targeting Carter Page’s communications after convincing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia, according to the officials.
This is the clearest evidence so far that the FBI had reason to believe during the 2016 presidential campaign that a Trump campaign adviser was in touch with Russian agents. Such contacts are now at the center of an investigation into whether the campaign coordinated with the Russian government to swing the election in Trump’s favor.
Page has not been accused of any crimes, and it is unclear whether the Justice Department might later seek charges against him or others in connection with Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The counterintelligence investigation into Russian efforts to influence U.S. elections began in July, officials have said. Most such investigations don’t result in criminal charges. [Continue reading…]
White House warns of potential U.S. ‘red line’ over Syria barrel bomb attacks
The Guardian reports: The Trump administration has signalled much broader grounds for future military intervention in Syria, suggesting it might retaliate against the Assad regime for barrel bomb attacks.
On the eve of a critical visit to Moscow at a time of high US-Russian tensions over Syria, the US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, appeared to go even further, saying his country would come to the defence of innocent civilians “anywhere in the world”.
The administration had initially stressed strictly limited objectives for a cruise missile strike last week on a Syrian air force base, saying it was intended to deter the repeat of a chemical attack on Tuesday against civilians and that the focus of US efforts in Syria remains combating the Islamic State (Isis).
On Monday, however, the White House spokesman, Sean Spicer, widened the criteria for retaliation. “When you watch babies and children being gassed, and suffer under barrel bombs, you are instantaneously moved to action,” he said. “I think this president’s made it very clear that if those actions were to continue, further action will definitely be considered by the United States.”
On Tuesday diplomats gathered in Italy for a second day of G7 talks dominated by the war in Syria, as officials in Washington, the UK and elsewhere floated the possibility of new sanctions on the Syrian and Russian military.
US intelligence believes Assad carried out last week’s attack with the chemical agent sarin, killing dozens of civilians including children. But Spicer made the first mention of the use of barrel bombs – crude munitions that can cause indiscriminate casualties.
Pressed on whether chemical warfare as opposed to conventional warfare constitutes a red line, he replied: “I think the president’s been very clear that there were a number of lines crossed last week … The answer is if you gas a baby, if you put a barrel bomb into innocent people, I think you will see a response from this president. That is unacceptable.”
The White House said later that Spicer was referring to barrel bombs carrying industrial chemicals like chlorine. But that would still represent a substantial expansion of the US rules of engagement in Syria. The regime is suspected of using chlorine gas in its attacks on dozens of occasions since 2013. [Continue reading…]
U.S. defense chiefs say they want to deter more chemical attacks, not oust Assad
The Guardian reports: The US defense chiefs have said that Washington’s objectives in Syria are limited to deterring additional chemical weapons attacks by Bashar al-Assad.
After days of contradictory messages from the Trump administration, the US defense secretary, James Mattis, used his first Pentagon press conference on Tuesday to clarify that the US seeks no wider military involvement in a conflict he defined as extraordinarily complex.
Seated aside army Gen Joseph Votel, the US military commander for the Middle East, Mattis repeatedly brushed aside suggestions of ousting Assad, a diplomatic objective that secretary of state Rex Tillerson intends to raise in Moscow on the first visit by a senior US official since Donald Trump took office. He is due to meet his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, but it is not clear whether an expected session with Vladimir Putin would go ahead.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Putin compared the US intervention in Syria to the ill-fated Iraq invasion of 2003. He claimed to know “from different sources” that the US had been duped into carrying out a missile strike by rebels intent on dragging Washington into the conflict. He predicted there would be more poison gas attacks to come, which he said would be false flag operations by rebels in order to justify more US missile strikes.
“Similar provocations – and I can’t call it anything other than that – are being prepared in other parts of Syria,” Putin said.
Russia has claimed that the deaths of more than 80 people by poison gas in the town of Khan Sheikhun on 4 April, were caused by a Syrian regime strike on a chemical weapons facility run by terrorists but has provided no evidence. The Guardian visited Khan Sheikhun after the attack and saw no evidence of any such facility having been bombed. [Continue reading…]
Why Vladimir Putin may be in too deep in Syria to ditch Assad
Martin Chulov writes: Five years of political capital, over a million tonnes of weapons, tens of billions of dollars, Russia’s role as both dominant regional presence and rising global force – these are all at stake if Vladimir Putin abandons Syria’s leader.
This is the reckoning faced by the US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, as he travels to Moscow to try to prise the Russian president away from his support of Bashar al-Assad in the aftermath of last week’s nerve agent attack on Khan Sheikhun.
Ahead of the first high-level summit between Russia and the US since the election of Donald Trump, hopes have been raised that the atrocity could be a catalyst for change in a country destroyed by war and failed by global politics.
Those hopes, however, are almost certain to be dashed. Throughout the conflict, and especially since the Kremlin doubled down on its support for Assad in September 2015, Russia has pursued a win-at-all-costs strategy, which has regularly defied the bounds of modern warfare and edged Assad’s regime towards a winning position on the battlefield. [Continue reading…]
Why the Russians aren’t likely to break with Assad
Vali Nasr writes: By punishing Syria for its use of chemical weapons, President Donald Trump effectively broke with Barack Obama’s foreign policy toward the Middle East. In a bit of irony for a committed anti-interventionist, Trump enforced Obama’s red line in Syria against the use of chemical weapons, ending the U.S. prohibition on military strikes targeting the regime of Bashar al-Assad. This is not necessarily the start of a larger American war in Syria, but it could be the beginning of the end of the Syrian conflict.
For opponents of Assad who hope Washington will seek regime change in Damascus, news of the strikes on a Syrian airbase was welcome. The Trump administration may not escalate much further, but some expect it to push Russian President Vladimir Putin to break with Assad. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and Secretary of State of Rex Tillerson have, in turn, called Moscow either complicit in Assad’s chemical attack, as at least one U.S. official has alleged, or incompetent in fulfilling the promise of preventing it. Either way, Tillerson is expected to use his visit to Moscow this week to demand Russia break with Assad.
But the promise of a break is wishful thinking. The chemical attack and the retaliatory U.S. strike may have embarrassed and angered Russia—even if it was given heads up, as reporting suggests—but they’ve given Putin no reason to turn on Assad. [Continue reading…]
Why food insecurity ‘over there’ matters right here
Ivo Daalder writes: Earlier this year, one of the world’s leading authorities on famine declared that 70 million people across 45 countries would need food assistance this year. Already 20 million in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen face famine, an unprecedented situation that prompted the United Nations in March to declare the worst humanitarian crisis the world has faced since World War II.
This global calamity needs our immediate and full attention. Yet saving millions from starvation is not only a moral obligation, it is also a national security necessity. We know from past food-related crises that lack of adequate food tends to create cycles of instability. A decade ago, protests over food prices toppled governments in Haiti and Madagascar. Popular grievances over food policy and prices also were a major driver of the Arab Spring and helped catalyze the instability and migration we see today across the Middle East and North Africa.
As the United States debates the appropriate balance of military, diplomatic, and economic levers at its disposal, the link between global food security and global stability has never been more clear, nor more urgent the need for U.S. leadership to confront and mitigate the risk of food insecurity. [Continue reading…]
Attacks show ISIS’ new plan: Divide Egypt by killing Christians
The New York Times reports: Grief and rage flowed through Egypt’s Christian community on Monday as tear-streaked mourners buried the victims of the coordinated Palm Sunday church bombings that killed 45 people in two cities. The cabinet declared that a state of emergency was in effect. A newspaper was pulled off newsstands after it criticized the government.
It was just the reaction the Islamic State wanted.
Routed from its stronghold on the coast of Libya, besieged in Iraq and wilting under intense pressure in Syria, the militant extremist group urgently needs to find a new battleground where it can start to proclaim victory again. The devastating suicide attacks on Sunday in the heart of the Middle East’s largest Christian community suggested it has found a solution: the cities of mainland Egypt.
Since December, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, has signaled its intent to wage a sectarian war in Egypt by slaughtering Christians in their homes, businesses and places of worship. Several factors lie behind the vicious campaign, experts say: a desire to weaken Egypt’s authoritarian leader, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi; a need to gain a foothold in Egypt beyond the remote Sinai deserts where jihadists have been battling the army for years; and a desire to foment a vicious sectarian conflict that would tear at Egypt’s delicate social fabric and destabilize the state.
“There’s a significant propaganda factor to this,” said Mokhtar Awad, a militancy expert at George Washington University. “ISIS wants to show that it can attack one of the Arab world’s most populous countries.” [Continue reading…]
Trump’s strike against Syria doesn’t change the narrative
Anne Applebaum writes: I’m not sure if neophilia is a real disease or a literary invention, but having a love for novelty certainly describes a large part of the American and indeed the international press corps. My neophiliac colleagues and I love news, particularly news that changes the paradigm, news that lets you describe the world in a different way, news that means you can abandon the previous, stale conversation and turn with relief to something fresh.
President Trump’s decision to bomb an air base in Syria seems like exactly that kind of news. It changes the paradigm because it apparently contradicts everything Trump has ever said about Syria, either as president, as a candidate or even before that. For as long as he has been in public life, Trump has opposed humanitarian military intervention, which he has always interpreted in the most cynical fashion possible. On Oct. 9, 2012, he tweeted, for example:
Now that Obama’s poll numbers are in tailspin – watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is desperate.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 9, 2012
On Aug. 29, 2013, he tweeted again:What will we get for bombing Syria besides more debt and a possible long term conflict? Obama needs Congressional approval.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 29, 2013
And Sept. 5, 2013, he tweeted — in all caps:AGAIN, TO OUR VERY FOOLISH LEADER, DO NOT ATTACK SYRIA – IF YOU DO MANY VERY BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN & FROM THAT FIGHT THE U.S. GETS NOTHING!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2013
Now it seems that Trump has had an abrupt change of heart, thanks, he says, to the (truly horrific) photographs of children dying of chemical poisoning in Idlib province. Relieved to see this American use of military power, pundits and journalists have filled the airwaves with a thousand different speculations. A BBC producer called me to ask whether I thought that this means “a new departure.” A CNN pundit and Post columnist declared that Trump, with this bombing raid, “became president of the United States.”Really? Look again at what just happened: A president who has told us he believes military intervention happens when “poll numbers are in tailspin” has just intervened while his poll numbers are in a tailspin. [Continue reading…]
On Trump’s Syria strategy, one voice is missing: Trump’s
The New York Times reports: In the days since President Trump ordered a cruise missile strike against Syria in retaliation for a chemical attack on civilians, his administration has spoken with multiple voices as it seeks to explain its evolving policy. But one voice has not been heard from: that of Mr. Trump himself.
As various officials have described it, the United States will intervene only when chemical weapons are used — or any time innocents are killed. It will push for the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria — or pursue that only after defeating the Islamic State. America’s national interest in Syria is to fight terrorism. Or to ease the humanitarian crisis there. Or to restore stability.
The latest mixed messages were sent on Monday in both Washington and Europe. Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson — during a stop in Italy on his way to Moscow for a potentially tense visit, given Russian anger at last week’s missile strike — outlined a dramatically interventionist approach. “We rededicate ourselves to holding to account any and all who commit crimes against the innocents anywhere in the world,” he said.
Hours later, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, said at his daily briefing that Mr. Trump would act against Syria not just if it resorted to chemical weapons, like the sarin nerve agent reportedly used last week, but also when it used conventional munitions. “If you gas a baby, if you put a barrel bomb into innocent people, I think you will see a response from this president,” Mr. Spicer said.
For Mr. Trump, who came to office espousing an “America first” policy that stayed out of the affairs of other countries where the United States had no interest of its own, responding to barrel bombs in Syria or to “any and all” humanitarian abuses “anywhere” would be a far more sweeping standard for American leadership. If anything, it sounds more like the activist advisers around President Barack Obama, such as Samantha Power, his ambassador to the United Nations, who pushed for more intervention to protect civilians in various conflict zones, often to no avail.
Just as likely, analysts said, neither Mr. Tillerson nor Mr. Spicer really meant it or, possibly, fully understood the potentially far-reaching consequences of what they were saying. Unlike chemical weapons, barrel bombs — typically oil drums filled with explosives — are used with vicious regularity in the Syrian civil war. According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, the government dropped 495 barrel bombs in March alone, and 12,958 in 2016.
By the end of the day Monday, fearing that a new “red line” had been drawn, the White House sought to unwind Mr. Spicer’s comment. “Nothing has changed in our posture,” officials said in a statement emailed to reporters. “The president retains the option to act in Syria against the Assad regime whenever it is in the national interest, as was determined following that government’s use of chemical weapons against its own citizens.” [Continue reading…]