‘Everything we built for 20 years, gone in a blink’ – life in the ruins of Aleppo

Ruth Maclean reports: A small group of boys play football, dodging tangled metal in the ruined Umayyad mosque of Aleppo’s old city. When they were last able to come here, before the war, the vast courtyard’s patterned floor was beautifully polished, and the pile of bricks in a corner was a millennium-old minaret.

Now, the boys pick at the sandbags piled in its huge, fire-blackened arches. For them, this ancient place-of-worship-turned-fortress is a playground in a hellscape.

“It seems bigger now, maybe because I didn’t see it for such a long time,” says Yamin Saeed, a sweet-faced 14-year-old in a fake Armani jumper. Before the war, he and his friends were like children anywhere – they went to school, they loved Tom and Jerry – but the battle for Aleppo aged them overnight.

“I saw a human head once,” says Mohammed Sheni, who is also 14. “We were walking and then there was a rocket and people died. I’m trying to forget it, but you can’t forget something like that.”

It is a windy day. The boys walk home, steering clear of the narrow back streets to avoid dangling steel and falling concrete.

Amid a countrywide uprising against Bashar al-Assad’s government, rebels took control of Aleppo’s eastern half in 2012. In the following years, it was held by a mishmash of different groups, often at war with each other as well as with forces loyal to Assad. [Continue reading…]

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Trump’s words could jeopardize his environmental rollbacks, too

Bloomberg reports: President Donald Trump’s words may come back to haunt him in court as he moves to roll back regulations that fight climate change, just as they did when he tried to ban travel from six predominantly Muslim countries.

Environmentalists are scrutinizing Trump’s tweets and the phrasing of presidential orders, looking for evidence that an action is driven by politics or that a review of regulations is being carried out with a specific outcome in mind. That could be used in a lawsuit to argue that the process is a sham and violates federal law governing rulemaking.

“If there’s anything that suggests that it’s a politically motivated decision instead of a rationally based decision, that’s always something we put before the court,” said Abigail Dillen, vice president of litigation for climate and energy at Earthjustice. “Explosive statements” in a White House order “can and will be used against them,” she said. [Continue reading…]

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Why Egypt’s ruler loves Donald Trump

The Economist reports: Donald Trump’s decision to give up his salary as president was not inspired by similar gestures made by previous American leaders, such as Herbert Hoover and John F. Kennedy. Rather, Mr Trump was “following in the footsteps” of Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, the president of Egypt, claimed two Egyptian newspapers. Mr Sisi, after all, is Mr Trump’s “role model”, said an Egyptian television host. He was on top of Mr Trump’s guest-list for the inauguration, reported an Egyptian news website.

Such fake news is easily debunked. Mr Trump promised to forgo his salary before ever meeting Egypt’s strongman. Mr Sisi, who cut his own salary only by half, did not attend the inauguration. But the relationship between the two leaders, who will meet in the White House on April 3rd, has captivated Egypt’s scribes and talking heads. Many of them see Mr Trump’s affection for Mr Sisi as a matter of national pride worth celebrating—and exaggerating.

Take Mr Trump’s phone call to Mr Sisi in January, which the White House described in anodyne terms. Egyptian journalists, by contrast, were ecstatic. Newspapers cited officials who claimed that the call heralded a new era in relations. A TV host, Amr Adib, suggested that Mr Trump was in awe of Mr Sisi’s leadership. “How have you guys survived the past 40 months?” Mr Trump asked Mr Sisi, according to Mr Adib, referring to Egypt’s many problems. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. diplomatic delays, Trump agenda snarl Italy’s G7 agenda

Reuters reports: Italy’s preparations for hosting this year’s Group of Seven major powers meetings have been hampered by the slow transition at the U.S. State Department, which has created decision-making bottlenecks, European diplomatic sources said.

The G7 draws together the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada, with countries taking it in turn to draw up agendas that they see as of pressing concern.

Italy holds the 2017 presidency and its objectives laid out this week appeared to put Rome on a collision course with U.S. President Donald Trump by promoting highly sensitive topics such as climate change, free trade and immigration initiatives.

The G7 foreign ministers meet in Tuscany on April 10-11, preparing for a leaders’ summit in Sicily at the end of May.

However, officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said efforts to reach an agreement on statements and strategy ahead of time – a normal part of pre-meeting G7 diplomacy – were going slowly.

The immediate concerns lay with the State Department, where new Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has left vacant numerous positions seen as vital to drafting summit accords. [Continue reading…]

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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spends his first weeks isolated from an anxious bureaucracy

The Washington Post reports: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson takes a private elevator to his palatial office on the seventh floor of the State Department building, where sightings of him are rare on the floors below.

On many days, he blocks out several hours on his schedule as “reading time,” when he is cloistered in his office poring over the memos he prefers ahead of in-person meetings.

Most of his interactions are with an insular circle of political aides who are new to the State Department. Many career diplomats say they still have not met him, and some have been instructed not to speak to him directly — or even make eye contact.

On his first three foreign trips, Tillerson skipped visits with State Department employees and their families, embassy stops that were standard morale-boosters under other secretaries of state. [Continue reading…]

Amberin Zaman writes: In meetings with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Tillerson is believed to have confirmed the administration’s decision to press ahead with plans to capture Raqqa, the Islamic State’s last remaining stronghold in Syria, with the help of the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Tillerson’s meeting with Erdogan lasted over two hours.

“What we discussed today are options that are available to us. They are difficult options. Let me be very frank, it’s not easy, they are difficult choices that have to be made,” Tillerson told a joint news conference with Cavusoglu.

In a highly unusual move, Erdogan excluded the US Ambassador to Ankara John Bass from his meeting with Tillerson and Cavusoglu, officials familiar with the participants confirmed on condition that their names be withheld. Bass, a highly regarded career diplomat, is counted as one of Turkey’s few passionate advocates in Washington. Brett McGurk, the US special envoy to the anti-IS coalition widely perceived in Ankara as a friend of the SDF, was also excluded from the meeting. [Continue reading…]

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Trump’s White House struggles to get out from under Russia controversy

The Washington Post reports: President Trump entered his 11th week in office Friday in crisis mode, his governing agenda at risk of being subsumed by escalating questions about the White House’s conduct in the Russia probe — which the president called a “witch hunt.”

Trump and his senior aides spent much of the day on the defensive, parrying the latest reports that senior administration officials had potentially acted improperly in the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Moscow’s meddling in the U.S. elections and possible links between Trump’s campaign and Russian officials.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer defended the actions of three senior White House aides who, according to media reports, helped facilitate the visit of the committee’s chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), to the White House grounds last week to view classified intelligence documents. [Continue reading…]

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Trump administration brags about how many wealthy people it has

The Washington Post reports: Starting Friday evening, the White House will begin to release financial disclosure forms filed by about 180 members of the Trump administration who are either commissioned officers or paid more than $161,755.

Already, the administration is bragging that its members are way wealthier than those who worked for former president Barack Obama — a point of pride that doesn’t quite match the president’s campaign pledge to “drain the swamp” of wealthy GOP donors, lifelong political operatives and those who are simply out-of-touch with everyday Americans. [Continue reading…]

The New York Times reports: Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, President Trump’s daughter and son-in-law, will remain the beneficiaries of a sprawling real estate and investment business still worth as much as $740 million, despite their new government responsibilities, according to ethics filings released by the White House Friday night.

Ms. Trump will also maintain a stake in the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. The hotel, just down the street from the White House, has drawn protests from ethics experts who worry that foreign governments or special interests could stay there in order to curry favor with the administration.

It is unclear how Ms. Trump would earn income from that stake. Mr. Kushner’s financial disclosures said that Ms. Trump earned between $1 million and $5 million from the hotel between January 2016 and March 2017, and put the value of her stake at between $5 million and $25 million. [Continue reading…]

The Washington Post reports: Stephen K. Bannon was running an investment banking company in Beverly Hills when his partner called with urgent news: a potential $10 billion deal was about to unfold in New York City involving a company they hoped to continue representing — and they didn’t want to be left out of the action.

Bannon, then in his mid-40s, told his business partner to meet him at the Los Angeles airport in an hour. Soon, they appeared at the Manhattan offices of PolyGram, a worldwide music company that they had previously represented in a film deal and now was for sale.

Before long, Bannon came up with an angle. He had represented Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, in a prior deal, and now he proffered the royal-family member, one of the world’s wealthiest Arabs, as a bidder. PolyGram was impressed and eventually paid Bannon a sizable fee for work on the overall deal. [Continue reading…]

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Russia backs Afghan Taliban demand to withdraw foreign troops

Bloomberg reports: Russia said it supports the Taliban’s demand for foreign troops to leave Afghanistan as it criticized agreements that allow U.S. and NATO forces to remain for the long term in the war-torn country.

“Of course it’s justified” for the Taliban to oppose the foreign military presence, President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, said in an interview in Moscow. “Who’s in favor? Name me one neighboring state that supports it.”

Russia and the U.S. are increasingly at odds over Afghanistan. Officials in Moscow disclosed at the end of last year that they’ve been having contacts with the fundamentalist Islamic movement that ruled the country from 1996 to 2001, when it was overthrown in a U.S.-led invasion to destroy terrorist training camps run by Osama Bin Laden. U.S. generals say Russia may be supplying weapons to the Taliban, which is waging an expanding insurgency against the pro-Western Afghan government. Moscow denies the allegation. [Continue reading…]

The Hill reports: The relationship between the U.S. and Russia may be more antagonistic now than it was during the decades-long Cold War, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top spokesman said Friday.

Asked by ABC’s “Good Morning America” host George Stephanopoulos if the U.S. and Russia were in a “new Cold War,” Dmitry Peskov said the current situation may be worse, blaming the U.S. for disintegrating cooperation between the two countries.

“New Cold War? Well, maybe even worse. Maybe even worse, taking into account actions of the present presidential administration in Washington,” Peskov told Stephanopoulos. [Continue reading…]

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Removing Assad no longer a priority for U.S.

BBC News reports: The US representative to the United Nations has said that the US is no longer prioritising the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Ambassador Nikki Haley told reporters on Thursday “we can’t necessarily focus on Assad the way that the previous administration did”.

Under President Barack Obama, the US said Assad must go and backed rebels fighting against him.

But US resources shifted after the rise of the so-called Islamic state.

“Our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out,” said Mrs Haley.

“Our priority is to really look at how do we get things done, who do we need to work with to really make a difference for the people in Syria,” she added.

BBC State Department correspondent Barbara Plett Usher says Mrs Haley is stating something quite bluntly that has quietly been US policy for some time.

The battle against IS in Syria became the overriding priority in the last year of the Obama administration, says our correspondent. [Continue reading…]

The New York Times reports: A United States military spokesman said Thursday that Islamic State fighters had been herding local Iraqi residents into buildings in western Mosul, calculating that rising civilian casualties would restrain the United States from using airstrikes to help retake that half of the city.

“What you see now is not the use of civilians as human shields,” said Col. Joseph E. Scrocca, a spokesman for the American-led task force that is battling the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. “ISIS is smuggling civilians into buildings so we won’t see them and trying to bait the coalition to attack.”

An episode this week in which Islamic State fighters forced civilians inside a building, killing one who resisted, was observed by American surveillance aircraft. Islamic State fighters then positioned themselves inside the same structure to fire on Iraqi forces, according to an account provided in a briefing for Pentagon reporters by Colonel Scrocca. [Continue reading…]

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These are the right people to get the truth about Russia — and do it quickly

Suzanne Spaulding writes: Most Senate committees adjust the number of majority and minority seats they include in proportion to the overall Senate and have a member of the majority preside if the committee chairman is not present. The Intelligence Committee, on the other hand, is required to have a majority of only one seat, and in the chairman’s absence the vice chairman, chosen from the minority party, presides. Importantly, the vice chairman can issue a subpoena without the chairman, so long as it is “authorized by the committee.’’ As few as one-third of committee members constitute a quorum, and decisions of the committee require only a majority of those present and voting. This helps achieve a greater balance of power that fosters bipartisanship.

By tradition, the Senate’s leadership tends to take care in appointing members to the Intelligence Committee, understanding that the committee can do its work only if it maintains the trust of the intelligence community and the public. The members of the committee also need the trust of their colleagues, who will not have ready access to the intelligence shared daily with the committee. At the moment, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s members tend to be less ideological than their respective caucuses, and the committee has a better record than many others of operating in a bipartisan fashion. [Continue reading…]

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Michael Flynn’s immunity request rejected by Senate Intelligence Committee

NBC News reports: The Senate Intelligence Committee turned down the request by former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s lawyer for a grant of immunity in exchange for his testimony, two congressional sources told NBC News.

A senior congressional official with direct knowledge said Flynn’s lawyer was told it was “wildly preliminary” and that immunity was “not on the table” at the moment. A second source said the committee communicated that it is “not receptive” to Flynn’s request “at this time.” [Continue reading…]

Alex Whiting writes: The Wall Street Journal is reporting that former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn told the FBI and Congress that he is willing to testify in exchange for immunity. But it’s not a serious offer, and it suggests he has nothing to say (or is not willing to say anything that would incriminate others). Although Flynn’s lawyer, Robert Kelner of Covington & Burling, refused to comment for the article, he tweeted out a statement teasing that “General Flynn certainly has a story tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit.”

As an experienced lawyer, Kelner will know that the Justice Department would never grant immunity for testimony on these terms. Prosecutors would first require that Flynn submit to what’s called a proffer session in which Flynn would agree to tell everything he knows in exchange for the prosecutors agreeing not to use his statement against him. Only after the prosecutors heard what Flynn could offer in terms of evidence against others, and had an opportunity to assess his credibility, would they be willing to discuss any grants of immunity or a cooperation deal. At a minimum, the prosecutors would require Flynn’s lawyer to make a proffer outlining the information that Flynn could provide.

The fact that Flynn and his lawyer have made his offer publicly suggests that he has nothing good to give the prosecutors (either because he cannot incriminate others or is unwilling to do so). If he had something good, Flynn and his lawyer would approach the prosecutors quietly, go through the proffer process in confidence, and reach a deal. Why? Because prosecutors have an interest in keeping their investigation secret, and Flynn’s lawyer knows that. The last thing Flynn’s lawyer would do if he thought he had the goods would be to go public, because that would potentially compromise the criminal inquiry and would certainly irritate the prosecutors, the very people Flynn’s lawyer would be trying to win over. [Continue reading…]

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Trump’s failing presidency has the GOP in a free fall

Michael Gerson writes: Republicans got an administration that is incompetent. The White House policy process has been erratic and disorganized. It has failed to provide expert analysis or assistance to Congress and did little to effectively advocate the president’s policy in ways that could have united the party.

Republicans got an administration that is morally small. Trump’s proposed budget would require massive cuts in disease research, global development and agricultural programs — just as a famine gathers a hideous strength. The proposed budget practices random acts of gratuitous cruelty.

This is a pretty bad combination: empty, easily distracted, vindictive, shallow, impatient, incompetent and morally small. This is not the profile of a governing party. [Continue reading…]

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Putin’s no populist, but he can gain from populist movements worldwide

Yulia Netesova and Torrey Taussig write: To what extent does the rise of populist forces around the world benefit Russian president Vladimir Putin? Many right-wing and nationalist parties sweeping across Europe have proven more pro-Russian than their mainstream counterparts. They see Putin as an ad hoc ally in their rebellion against the liberal and globalized world order, while Putin sees them as an opportunity.

Contrary to popular belief, the Russian president is no fan of populism. His support for populist parties in Europe and the United States is simply opportunistic: he will seek to bolster their chances, if they can fracture support for mainstream parties that tend to view Russia as a threat and the transatlantic bond as vital for countering it. His support is a pure calculation in order to survive.

Nowhere is the rise of populism more consequential for Russia than in the United States. But will Trump’s populist flair and desire to shake up the Washington establishment benefit Putin in the long run?

Despite Putin’s support for antiestablishment forces abroad, he stands as a bulwark against populism at home. For Putin, populism is the “headless chicken” that destroyed the Soviet Union, unleashing unprecedented and uncontrollable political and economic forces for which no one was prepared. [Continue reading…]

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Trump chases arms sales – whatever the human cost

The Guardian reports: The Trump administration’s decision to press ahead with a multibillion-dollar arms sale to Bahrain will dismay Shia opposition groups and international human rights campaigners critical of the Sunni-led state’s authoritarian regime.

However, the sale of 19 advanced Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter jets fits an emerging pattern since Donald Trump took office in January, indicating a new US willingness to pump hi-tech weaponry into global trouble spots and fuel lucrative but destabilising regional arms races.

Barack Obama declined to approve the Bahrain deal last year amid concern over the latest crackdown on opposition leaders since the Shia uprising in 2011. Obama said Bahrain had failed to fulfil promises to improve its record, a verdict confirmed in Human Rights Watch’s latest report.

Trump’s decision reflects his priority of strengthening ties with the Sunni monarchies of the Gulf in the fight against Islamic State, and in their ongoing confrontation with Iran’s Shia theocracy.

Bahrain, which claims it faces Iranian-inspired subversion, is the home port of the US fifth fleet. Britain is building a naval base there, and has maintained arms export sales worth £45m since 2011.

In another move overriding human rights concerns, Trump is also expected to give the go-ahead soon for an expanded new arms package for Saudi Arabia. The sale, of $300m (£240m) of precision-guided munitions, was also blocked by Obama over fears the weapons would be used in Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition is fighting Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. [Continue reading…]

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How the Syrian civil war has transformed Hezbollah

Jesse Rosenfeld writes:  The rattle of tracer fire jolts a cellphone camera resting in the gun hole of an upper-level apartment on a shelled-out east Aleppo street. Moments after the Hezbollah fighter has fired incendiary ammunition into the neighborhood below, it’s enveloped in flames.

In another fighter’s video from the battle of Aleppo last fall, a burst of machine-gun fire erupts as Hezbollah militiamen charge forward and take up positions behind pockmarked walls. They shoot indiscriminately at an unseen enemy, which they say is the rebel force Jaysh al-Islam.

In stills taken by a Hezbollah fighter on the front lines of the Aleppo countryside just before the cease-fire was declared on December 30, fighters from Hezbollah (the Party of God) operate tanks flying the flag of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Damascus. The images provide a glimpse at how the most consequential battle of the Syrian war looked through the eyes of the conquering forces—and they indicate how crucial Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia has been in defending the Assad regime.

The destruction the Syrian government and its allies brought to east Aleppo changed the course of the nearly six-year civil war. Indeed, it could mark the beginning of the end of what started in 2011 as a popular revolution against an authoritarian regime. By laying siege to the unofficial capital of the revolution—indiscriminately bombarding it into rubble, starving and displacing its residents, and committing massacres—Assad’s counter-revolution seems to have ensured the government’s future.

Abu Hussein has been on the front lines of Assad’s strategy and features prominently in the footage and photos from Aleppo that he flips through on his phone. He is a Hezbollah commander in charge of a rapid-intervention unit of 200 fighters. They participated in the regime’s retaking of Aleppo last year as well as the ongoing fighting around Palmyra. The boisterous militant, who uses a nom de guerre because he is not authorized to speak to the media, contends that Hezbollah has been the Assad regime’s backbone, changing the course of the war on the ground. [Continue reading…]

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Israel approves first new West Bank settlement in 20 years

BBC News reports: Israel has approved the establishment of its first new Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank in two decades.

The security cabinet voted unanimously late on Thursday to begin construction on a hilltop known as “Geulat Zion”, near the Palestinian city of Nablus.

It will be used to house some 40 families whose homes were cleared from an unauthorised settlement outpost.

Palestinian officials have condemned the move and called on the international community to intervene.

It comes despite US President Donald Trump asking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month to “hold back” on settlement construction. [Continue reading…]

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The blind spots in Trump’s foreign policy

Javier Corrales writes: President Trump’s “skinny budget” might be a misnomer, because in foreign policy, at least, it is actually giving us fat nationalism. The biggest winners are the military, the Homeland Security Department and, of course, the wall. The biggest loser is the State Department and thus diplomacy. Mr. Trump is all about intimidating more and negotiating less. This is the hallmark of xenophobic nationalism.

Mr. Trump is also blending xenophobic nationalism with protectionism. The jury is still out on how protectionist the Trump administration wants to be. But in relation to Latin America, even before revealing his budget, Mr. Trump already showed a clear preference for protectionism.

He walked away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which was as much about United States trade with Latin America’s rising Pacific economies as it was about trade with Asia. He has trashed Nafta, a trade agreement that is more important as a symbol of the reconciliation between the United States and Mexico than it is as a change in the economic fortune of the United States. His administration has expressed reservations about trade normalization with Cuba and the peace accord in Colombia, a nation with which the United States has a major trade agreement and a history of close cooperation.

One problem with nationalist protectionism is that as an ideology, it is prone to double blindness: It is blind both to its exaggerations and to its consequences.

Xenophobic nationalists exaggerate the extent to which the outside world takes advantage of the nation. The Chinese are manipulating their currency, Mexicans are taking jobs away, military allies are free-riding, and the rest of the world is misbehaving because it doesn’t fear you enough. And all of this happens “while we sit here like a bunch of dummies,” as Mr. Trump has tweeted.

Nationalists thus exaggerate both the relative gains that others make at their expense, and the relative costs their own nations incur. They are blind to the concept of mutual gain; they see only abuse. [Continue reading…]

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