World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

Alida R. Haworth, Scott D. Sagan and Benjamin A. Valentino have published the results of a very interesting poll they conducted on the attitudes of American citizens about the use of nuclear weapons against North Korea. The authors constructed several different scenarios posing different probabilities of success in the use of conventional or nuclear weapons against different North Korean conventional and nuclear capabilities. Parsing through the scenarios requires close reading but the effort is worthwhile. The results offer some encouragement in that most Americans do not favor a preventive war against North Korea. But some of the results suggest that there is a sizable minority of Americans who do favor the use of nuclear weapons and that most Americans have an overly optimistic view of the efficacy of US missile defense systems against a North Korean nuclear attack.

“The first piece of disconcerting news, however, is that a large hawkish minority lurks within the US public; over a third of respondents approve of a US preventive strike across the scenarios and appear insensitive to informational cues that most security experts would expect to reduce such levels of support.

“Second, preference for the strike does not significantly decrease when the story says that the United States would use nuclear weapons in its attack; 33 percent preferred a preventive nuclear first-strike. Even more disturbing: There is no significant change in the percentage who would prefer or approve of a US nuclear strike when the number of estimated North Korean fatalities increases from 15,000 to 1.1 million, including 1 million civilians. As we have previously found, the US public exhibits only limited aversion to nuclear weapons use and a shocking willingness to support the killing of enemy civilians (Sagan and Valentino 2017 Sagan, S. D., and B. A. Valentino. 2017. “Revisiting Hiroshima in Iran: What Americans Really Think about Nuclear Weapons and Killing Noncombatants.” International Security 41 (1): 41–79.”

The authors also looked at how political preferences affected the attitudes of Americans.

“Across all scenarios, Republicans expressed greater preference for the use of military force than Democrats. This trend becomes even more stark when we tease out those who support President Trump specifically. A majority of Trump supporters prefer the US strike in every scenario, except when confidence in the effectiveness of the US conventional strike is 50 percent. Still, it is important to note that preference for the strike even in this scenario remains at 44 percent among Trump supporters, compared to only 8 percent among non-Trump supporters.”

One of the more depressing results of the poll is that it seems clear that the majority of Americans are deeply misinformed about the nature of nuclear weapons. There are a number of illusions–most notably concerning the effectiveness of missile defense systems–that make relying on public opinion in making nuclear decisions a highly problematic tactic.

A conference on Middle East peace began today in Bahrain and it was hosted by Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law. The plan represents two years of work by Mr. Kushner, but very few Israelis or Palestinians were present. It is a two part plan. Today was the unveiling of the economic part of the plan, labeled “Peace Through Prosperity” which calls for $50 billion investments (for the Palestinians, Jordanians, and Egyptians) over ten years. The source of the funds was not identified. The second part of the plan is political, but apparently a Palestinian state is not part of that plan.

The proposals are ridiculous and it is insulting to think that anyone would consider them seriously. To comprehend fully how unlikely the success of the plans is one need only read the op-ed written by the Israeli Ambassador to the US, Danny Danon. It is entitled “What’s Wrong With Palestinian Surrender?” Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of world politics would know that there are some things that money cannot buy.

The war of words between Iran and the US reached depths that have rarely been seen in diplomatic history. The Associated Press reports:

“Iran warned Tuesday that new U.S. sanctions targeting its supreme leader and other top officials meant ‘closing the doors of diplomacy’ between Tehran and Washington amid heightened tensions, even as President Hassan Rouhani derided the White House as being ‘afflicted by mental retardation.’

“President Donald Trump called that a ‘very ignorant and insulting statement,’ tweeting that an Iranian attack on any U.S. interest will be met with ‘great and overwhelming force … overwhelming will mean obliteration.’ His secretary of state said the Iranian statement was ‘immature.’”

Winston Churchill once defined diplomacy this way: “Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.” The current situation between Iran and the US hardly fits with that definition, but the US naively believes that there is a diplomatic course of action. The US National Security Adviser, John Bolton, made this comment: “The president has held the door open to real negotiations to completely and verifiably eliminate Iran’s nuclear weapons program, its pursuit of ballistic missile delivery systems, its support for international terrorism and other malign behavior worldwide,” Bolton said in Jerusalem. “All that Iran needs to do is to walk through that open door.”

I cannot even begin to measure Bolton’s chutzpah. After all, Iran maintained strict adherence to the JCPOA, but the US violated the agreement by pulling out. Why would Iran even think that the US would keep its end of a new agreement, particularly one that would demand that Iran abandon its allies, Hamas and Hezbollah, and unilaterally disarm by ending its missile program even though there has not been any lessening of the threats to Iran by the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel?

Iran’s only strategy is to remind the world–particularly France, Great Britain, Germany, China, and Russia, the other partners to the JCPOA–that a US-Iranian conflict would completely destabilize the global oil market and consequently the global economy. These other states would therefore have to decide whether they think the US reasons for going to war justify that horrific outcome. Given that the JCPOA was preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, it is highly likely that they would decide that going to war with Iran is a far less desirable method for obtaining that objective.

In reality, the US is negotiating from a very weak position, despite its overwhelming military superiority. Its objectives are actually limited, even though Iran would never agree to them. American allies in the region–Israel and Saudi Arabia–, however, have more ambitious objectives–the overthrow of the Iranian regime–which can only be attained with US military power. Whether they can persuade President Trump to do their dirty work remains to be seen. And whether the rest of the world can persuade Trump to back off from the threat of war.

In a stunning defeat for the AK Party of President Erdogan of Turkey, the opposition candidate, Ekrem Imamoglu, won a decisive victory in the election for the Mayor of Istanbul. Imamoglu narrowly won the election in March, but the government decided to hold another election because the margin of victory was alleged to have been too narrow. The results of yesterday’s election was decisive, with Imamoglu winning 54% of the votes. The results as seen as a challenge to the increasingly authoritarian conduct of President Erdogan and it is difficult to anticipate what his reaction will be. The Turkish economy is weakening and Turkey’s relationship to NATO and the US has been frayed over the situation in Syria and the Turkish purchase of an advanced air-defense system from Russia.

The White House released the economic part of its peace plan for the Middle East, labeling it the “Peace Through Prosperity” plan. The plan will be discussed in the coming week at a conference in Bahrain where a number of states will be involved but not, crucially, representatives from the Palestinians. They have decided to boycott the meeting since they do not believe that the US is an unbiased party. Several of the Sunni Arab Gulf states, notably Saudi Arabia, will attend the conference, where it is expected that they will indicate whether they will contribute substantially to the proposal which is expected to cost about $50 billion over ten years. According to Politico:

“Funds for the international effort would be dispensed by a multinational development bank and controlled by an appointed board of governors, according to details of the plan shared by the White House. The $50 billion would come from a mix of grants, subsidized loans and private investments, and would be put toward infrastructure projects as well as initiatives involving telecommunications, tourism and healthcare.”

The second part of the peace plan, which involves a political settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, is expected to be released later on in the fall. The Palestinians believe that the economic cart is being put before the political horse. The Palestinian Authority (PA) has very little control over its finances and is incredibly dependent on foreign donors for revenues as well as Israel, which collects certain taxes on behalf of the PA. Unfortunately, Israel and the foreign donors often withhold the payments in response to decisions made by the PA:

” While the PA has relied more and more on taxes to fund its budget, what should be a straightforward matter of state finances has been anything but.

“The PA directly collects domestic taxes from its citizens, amounting to $764m in 2017 out of a total domestic revenue of $1.15bn. 

“But under the Paris Protocol signed in 1994 as part of the Oslo Accords, Israel collects taxes on Palestinian imports and exports as well as VAT on behalf of the PA.

“In 2017, customs revenue transferred by Israel to the PA – also known as clearance revenues – amounted to $2.49bn.

“On average, Israel collects around $175m each month in taxes on Palestinian imports and exports on behalf of the PA.

“Like the rest of the Oslo agreements, what was intended to be a temporary arrangement pending the creation of a fully fledged Palestinian state remains until this day, shackling the Palestinian economy to a stalled peace process, US pressure and years of occupation that restrict the movement of goods and people, vital elements for any economy to grow….

“Moreover, Israel has yielded the Paris Protocol as a punitive tool against Palestinians, using the customs fees and taxes it collects on behalf of the PA as a means of pressure on the Ramallah-based government.

“The most recent case was in February, when Israel withheld $138m in tax transfers to the PA as retaliation over payments made by Palestinian institutions to Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, as well as to the families of Palestinians killed by Israelis.”

Middle East peace plans have a miserable record and there is little reason to think that this plan will be successful. The Sunni Arab Gulf states will likely support the plan in order to secure US support in containing Iran, but some of those states–like Saudi Arabia–are unsavory allies in any effort.

The Washington Blog has compiled an extraordinary list of “false flag” incidents that states have created in order to justify going to war. The list is well-documented although there are some incidents that I would probably dispute. But the list is an invaluable resource for those who believe that citizens are often manipulated into supporting wars that the ruling elites wish to conduct for their own purposes. The list is a sorry statement on how widespread the practice actually is, even as we often resist believing that we are being misled.

US President Trump ordered a military strike against Iran but called it off at the last moment, ostensibly because there would be many casualties. I am happy that he made that decision, but my relief is tempered by my certain knowledge that this crisis was entirely the result of President Trump’s decision to pull out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

I am not certain about what Mr. Trump was trying to accomplish by pulling out the JCPOA. He made the argument that he thought that the JCPOA did nothing about Iran’s support for Hamas and Hezbollah or the Iranian missile program, neither of which were covered by the JCPOA. But it did halt Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon for at least ten years. It now appears as if Iran will restart its enrichment program, although I am not convinced that it wishes to develop a nuclear bomb. And I am certain that Ian will continue to support its allies and continue with its missile program, no matter how severe US sanctions might become. I am also certain, moreover, that if the US did attack Iran, then Iran would have little choice but to develop a nuclear bomb. In other words, Mr. Trump has changed nothing for the better and has likely weakened the US position tremendously.

The Iranian strategy has been evolving since the US decision to leave the JCPOA. Iran actually waited an entire year under serious sanctions before it decided to act. Its objective now is to reproduce the pain it has endured onto the rest of the world by making the export of oil through the Persian Gulf very expensive or impossible. What it learned from President Trump’s decision to cancel the military strike is that it can succeed in this mission as long as no one is killed. Thus, the tankers were attacked above the water line and no sailors were killed. And Iran attacked the drone and not the manned airplane accompanying it.

Obviously, the Iranian strategy is dangerous because it will alienate the rest of the world by raising oil prices. But the Iranians will try to persuade the world that the price for stopping the chokehold on the export of oil is for the rest of the world to no longer allow the US to enforce its extra-territorial sanction strategy. But if the world believes that the US will not use its military power to open up the Strait of Hormuz, then the cost of alienating the US is less than the cost of supporting the US sanctions.

The Iranian strategy is an intelligent response of a weaker power to a superior power that does not understand the dynamics of power. I think that President Trump proved the point today.

Iran shot down a US reconnaissance drone in the Strait of Hormuz. The RQ-4A Global Hawk high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) drone is one of the most advanced drones in the US arsenal. Iran claims that the drone was in its airspace; the US claims it was flying in international airspace. The incident is a significant escalation of the recent tension. The information about the incident is still very limited and contested, so it is difficult to come to any conclusion. But it is important that the drone was unmanned, otherwise the political pressures for a response would be intense.

US Lieutenant General Joseph Guastella, who commands US air forces in the region spoke to the US press over a audio link and insisted that the drone was in international airspace: ” “At the time of the intercept the RQ-4 was at high altitude, approximately 34 kilometers from the nearest point of land on the Iranian coast.” Unfortunately, Guastella took no questions from the press.

The Iranian Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif posted a hand-drawn map of the route taken by the drone in the Persian Gulf.

Curiously, US President Trump initially downplayed the significance of the attack in a meeting in the White House with Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau:

“Trump called Iran’s move a big mistake in remarks to reporters before a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but kept open the possibility of talks with Iran.

“He also suggested that the shooting down of a US drone by Iran might have been a mistake.

“’I find it hard to believe it was intentional,’ Trump said at the White House in comments that appeared to downplay the incident, despite soaring tension in the strategic Strait of Hormuz area.

“’I have a feeling that it was a mistake made by somebody who should not have been doing,’ he said.”

The comments may have been an attempt to provide some wiggle room for the US as it considers its response. But the statement will only contribute to the confusion of the moment. Note that the Pentagon statement only says that the drone was intercepted in international airspace; it does not say that the drone was always in international airspace. Both the US and Iran would simultaneously be telling the truth.

The messages being sent by Iran thus far are both provocative and restrained. The earlier attacks on the oil tankers (if they were indeed done by Iran–that point has yet to be uncontested) were calibrated to ensure that the damage was above the waterline of the tankers and resulted in no causalities at all. Similarly, the attack on the drone avoided fatalities. If the Iranians wanted war with the US, they likely had more lethal options. It is also important to remember that the Iranians are the aggrieved party in this dispute: it has yet to violate the nuclear agreement but has nonetheless been targeted by crippling sanctions imposed by the US on all who trade with Iran, even those states that do not believe that Iran deserves to be sanctioned.

So the thing we should look for next is the response of the US which is inevitable. Will the US take action that results in the deaths of Iranian personnel or will it make sure that the only message is that further military actions by Iran will not yield any advantage–the most important element of deterrence. As indicated in earlier posts of this blog, there are strong voices in the Administration (Pompeo and Bolton) that are committed to regime change in Iran.

The second thing to look for is the Congressional response. The Trump Administration may seek to justify any retaliation against Iran as covered by the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF). That law authorized the President to use force to address the terrorist threat posed by al Qaeda. According to Lawfare:

“The Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), Pub. L. No. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224 (2001), enacted shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, constitutes the main source of congressional authorization for the war on terror. The AUMF grants the President the authority to use all ‘necessary and appropriate force’ against those whom he determines ‘planned, authorized, committed or aided’ the September 11th attacks, or who harbored those persons or groups.”

Despite assertions by Secretary of State Pompeo that Iran and al Qaeda are allied, there is precious little evidence that the assertion is accurate. But the current Attorney General, William Barr, has an extraordinarily expansive view of the President’s war-making powers. Tess Bridgeman, Rebecca Ingber and Stephen Pomper, writing for Just Security do an excellent job of dissecting Barr’s position.

Third, if the US does retaliate in a disproportionate manner, we should be prepared for deafening silence from US allies. There are very few states that have supported the US position on Iran, and there is virtually no chance that any of them would support US action that could potentially disrupt the global energy system and, consequently, the global economy. Such an outcome would clearly signal the end of the liberal international order that the US has supported since 1945, but which has been unraveling since 2001.

The Pew Research Center has released the results of a poll in 27 countries in 2018 on levels of satisfaction/dissatisfaction with democracy. The results are consistent with many specific examples of a more general loss of faith in democratic institutions. The results of the poll indicate that the state of the economy and perceived levels of corruption were the most important determinants of this loss of faith:

” And majorities in seven of the 12 countries most dissatisfied with democracy said that in their country, no matter who wins an election, things do not change very much. Skepticism in elections’ ability to change things ran highest among Greeks – 82% of whom doubted their elections led to much change – and was also common in Tunisia (67%), the UK (65%), Japan (62%) and South Africa (61%).

Between 2017 and 2018, dissatisfaction with democracy grew in 14 of the 27 countries surveyed, with the largest increases in India and Germany – as well as Brazil, where two-thirds of the public already had a negative view in 2017.”

This loss of legitimacy is deeply troubling since it suggests that many people are willing to give up their rights as citizens in order to secure what they regard as necessary change.

The United Nations Human Rights Council has issued a report written by UN extrajudicial executions investigator Agnes Callamard on the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey last October. The report is gruesome, including audiotapes of conversations before and during the murder. Most importantly, the report states:

“The Special Rapporteur has determined that there is credible evidence, warranting further investigation of high-level Saudi Officials’ individual liability, including the Crown Prince’s.  She warns against a disproportionate emphasis on identifying who ordered the crime, pointing out that the search for justice and accountability is not singularly dependent on finding a smoking gun and the person holding it. The search is also, if not primarily, about identifying those who, in the context of the commission of a violation, have abused, or failed to fulfill, the responsibilities of their positions of authority. ”

The implicit charge against the Crown Prince is extraordinary for the United Nations. I sincerely doubt that President Trump will alter his policy toward Saudi Arabia, but the report will likely find strong supporters within the US Senate. The US needs to rethink its policies toward Saudi Arabia.

There seems to be a rather dramatic change in the foreign policy team of the Trump Administration. The Acting Defense Secretary, Patrick Shanahan, has dropped out of his confirmation, after 7 months of being in a temporary position. Shanahan was a corporate executive at Boeing and not a military person and the Defense Department has sorely missed the expertise of the first Defense Secretary, General Mattis. That vacuum at the Defense Department has allowed John Bolton, the National Security Adviser, and Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, to take on an outsized role in the decision-making process. Both of these men have been outspoken advocates of regime change in Iran for a very long period of time.

On Monday, Pompeo went to Central Command in Tampa, Florida which is the command center for all US forces in the Middle East. He was not accompanied by any member of the Defense Department. It is highly unusual for the Secretary of State to make such a visit and signals Pompeo’s primacy in US foreign policy–not a good sign for a productive relationship with Iran. Adam Weinstein notes the significance of the visit:

” When I asked State Department officials for any similar past trips by other secretaries of state, they provided none. I found one occasion when Secretary Condoleezza Rice visited the Tampa base in 2006—accompanying the commander-in-chief, George W. Bush—to greet Afghan and Pakistan leaders for a state summit. Secretary Hillary Clinton also visited the base, also not for operational reasons, to deliver a dinner address to a Special Operations Command gala in 2012.

“Neither of those visits came close to what appears to be the case this week: The United States’ top diplomatic officer, who is not in the military’s chain of civilian command, is traveling to a war headquarters to discuss prospects for military action with the generals there. He will not be without Pentagon minders at CENTCOM in Shanahan’s absence, State Department sources tell me, but if proximity is power, there’s a clear suggestion that Pompeo and Bolton are acting as primary movers behind military plans for Iran.”

The military now knows that it does not have a strong voice in the White House. It also knows that very few in the White House have a deep grasp of military capabilities, limitations, and culture.

What makes matters worse is that the US Iranian policy lacks coherence. President Trump insists that his primary objective is to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb; his chief aides, however, have regime change as their primary objective–an objective that the most of the world would condemn and which is more than likely unattainable. Now that Iran has decided that it will no longer abide by all the terms of the agreement, President Trump finds himself trying to persuade Great Britain, France, Germany, China, and Russia to persuade Iran to continue to abide by the agreement that he himself disavowed. A very strange situation.

Paul Pillar is one of the most perceptive analysts of US foreign policy. While with the US CIA, he accused the BUsh Administration of “cherry-picking” evidence to justify the invasion of Iraq (Paul was also a personal friend of mine while we were students in College). He has written a short essay on the current tension between the US and Iran. He blames the US policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran as the reason for the spike in tensions:

“Despite the continued uncertainty, Iran may well have been the perpetrator. Assume for the moment what the administration wants everyone to assume, which is that the Iranian regime attacked the ships. It is in asking why Iran might have done so that Pompeo’s statement is most questionable. Twice Pompeo applied the term unprovoked to Iranian actions (“40 years of unprovoked aggression against freedom-loving nations” and “these unprovoked attacks present a clear threat to international peace and security”).

“Unprovoked”? The Trump administration reneged completely over a year ago on U.S. commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the multilateral agreement that has restricted Iran’s nuclear program and closed all possible paths to a nuclear weapon. Since then the administration has waged economic warfare on Iran, despite Iran continuing for a whole year to observe its obligations under the JCPOA. The administration has piled sanction upon sanction in a relentless effort to cripple Iran’s economy, make life miserable for Iranians, and weaken Iran in every way possible. It has pressured countries around the world not to do any business with Iran. The administration has accompanied this campaign with unlimited hostility, threats of military attack, and saber-rattling that has included escalating military deployments in Iran’s backyard. If this isn’t provoking Iran, then the term provocation has lost all meaning.”

I doubt that the essay will receive the attention it deserves, but we should remember his words as the rhetoric against Iran increases in intensity.

The Guardian has started a special series called “Where does your plastic go? Global investigation reveals America’s dirty secret” It is a revealing investigation, tracking US exports of plastic to many different countries. China used to take most of US exports of plastic waste, but stopped importing it last year. Since then, the US has tried to find alternatives and is now sending its plastic waste to countries that are poor and have very weak environmental laws such as Bangladesh, Laos, Ethiopia and Senegal. The UN passed a new treaty last week regulating the export of plastic waste. According to the treaty: “Exporting countries – including the US – now will have to obtain consent from countries receiving contaminated, mixed or unrecyclable plastic waste. Currently, the US and other countries can send lower-quality plastic waste to private entities in developing countries without getting approval from their governments.” The treaty was signed by 187 countries, but the US was not among the signatories. The dangers of plastic waste and the process of recycling plastic waste are legion and well-documented by the NGO Gaia.

Plastic waste on the beach in Sihanoukville, Cambodia.

Temperatures in the Arctic have risen dramatically in the month of June, leading to a large ice melt in Greenland. Indeed, the rate of melt rivals that of the record ice melt in 2012. Temperatures are also very high in Alaska. The melting ice and permafrost will aggravate the situation by decreasing the albedo of the north pole and by releasing more methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Science Alert explains the dynamic:

“Sea ice loss over the Chukchi and Beaufort seas along Alaska’s northern coast has been ‘unprecedented’ according to Rick Thoman, a climatologist based in Fairbanks.

“Labe [a climate researcher at the University of California at Irvine] said there’s sufficient open water that you could sail all the way from the Bering Strait into a narrow opening just north of Utqiagvik, Alaska’s northernmost city, clear into the Beaufort Sea. ‘It’s very unusual for open water this early in this location,’ he said.”

Fareed Zakaria has written a very good essay for Foreign Affairs entitled “The Self-Destruction of American Power”. The argument is straightforward but still complex: that the US lost its standing in world affairs because it did not remain true to its values:

“There is an analogy here with the United States. Had the country acted more consistently in the pursuit of broader interests and ideas, it could have continued its influence for decades (albeit in a different form). The rule for extending liberal hegemony seems simple: be more liberal and less hegemonic. But too often and too obviously, Washington pursued its narrow self-interests, alienating its allies and emboldening its foes. Unlike the United Kingdom at the end of its reign, the United States is not bankrupt or imperially overextended. It remains the single most powerful country on the planet. It will continue to wield immense influence, more than any other nation. But it will no longer define and dominate the international system the way it did for almost three decades.”

It is a rich essay, worthy of close attention.