| | | | How We Know Mueller Is Just Getting Started: Farias | | Special Counsel Robert Mueller is just getting started, argues Cristian Farias for New York Magazine after former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. You just need to look at what Flynn wasn't charged with.
"What about Flynn's failure to register as a foreign agent of Turkey, from which he received handsome payments? Or the reported plot to whisk away Fethullah Gulen, the Turkish cleric living a quiet life in Pennsylvania, to the tune of several million dollars? Shouldn't he get pinned for conspiracy and other greater sins, some of which may have been committed while he was already privy to the nation's biggest secrets?" Farias writes.
"Make no mistake: Mueller already has dirt on all of this, and likely much more that the public may never learn. That he's choosing to charge Flynn for only one count of lying to the Feds is proof that not only has he flipped his target, but that the target is also cooperating with an investigation that's after an even bigger fish—despite insistence by the biggest fish of them all that this is all a witch hunt." - Trumpworld has a really big problem now. Mueller's move on Flynn has created a far bigger headache for President Trump than the charges against former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, writes Chris Cilizza for CNN.
"The Flynn guilty plea comes from someone who, until the day he was reluctantly fired by Trump as national security advisor, sat at the absolute epicenter of Trumpworld. And, unlike Manafort, Flynn's charge deals directly with his interactions with the Russian ambassador—and goes to the very core of Mueller's investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election and any possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
"In short: The calls are now coming from inside Donald Trump's house."
| | What Trump Gets About His Base that Others Don't | | The conventional wisdom has been that many of President Trump's strongest supporters are voting against their own interests. After all, "the Republican Party is pursuing an economic agenda for the 0.1 percent," Fareed notes in his latest Washington Post column. But Trump's supporters may have a different view of what their key interests are.
"There is increasing evidence that Trump's base supports him because they feel a deep emotional, cultural and class affinity for him. And while the tax bill is analyzed by economists, Trump picks fights with black athletes, retweets misleading anti-Muslim videos and promises not to yield on immigration," Fareed writes. "Perhaps he knows his base better than we do. In fact, Trump's populism might not be as unique as it's made out to be. Polling from Europe suggests that the core issues motivating people to support Brexit or the far-right parties in France and Germany, and even the populist parties of Eastern Europe, are cultural and social."
"The real story might be that people see their own interests in much more emotional and tribal ways than scholars understand. What if, in the eyes of a large group of Americans, these other issues are the ones for which they will stand up, protest, support politicians and even pay an economic price? What if, for many people, in America and around the world, these are their true interests?"
| | Why America Should Give Up with Kim | | It's time for the United States to "give up" on trying to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear program, writes Eli Lake for Bloomberg View. America doesn't have to accept a nuclear North Korea, but at this point its diplomatic energies would be better spent elsewhere.
The Trump administration "can end the pointless cycles of pressure and negotiation. The North Koreans have used all that posturing to buy time to perfect their nukes, and the Chinese have artfully used that dance to distract us from countering China's own predations," Lake writes.
"Instead of wasting the resources of an already depleted State Department on preparing for more talks with representatives of an Asian prison state, America's diplomats and strategic planners can focus on improving our deterrence against North Korea. American diplomacy and military bandwidth can be devoted to countering China's militarization of the South China Sea and its broader economic and political strategy to turn our Pacific and east Asian allies into vassals of Beijing. In the future, Trump and his diplomats won't have to spend their meetings with Chinese counterparts pleading with them to get their client state to behave. That's China's problem now." "Whatever North Korea did, it is wrong to impose a full trade embargo or to sever ties with the country. China has no obligation to cooperate with the U.S. on this impractical idea. The U.S. has no right to direct China or the UN Security Council."
"China will face whatever comes next. Beijing is fully prepared to use its prowess to defend its national interest. China owes no one anything, and other countries must know this."
| | Exhibit A for the (Troubling) Impact of America First? | | Anyone looking for signs that the sidelining of democracy under the Trump administration is providing succor to autocrats need look no further than Southeast Asia, argues Joshua Kurlantzick for Project Syndicate. That's bad for the region—and hurts America's long-term interests.
"In February, [Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen] compared his disdain for Cambodia's media to Trump's distrust of the mainstream media in the U.S.," Kurlantzick writes.
"Other Southeast Asian autocrats, or elected leaders with autocratic tendencies, have also celebrated the arrival of Trump's 'America First' foreign policy. Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who led a coup against an elected government three years ago, was welcomed at the White House this year. So was Malaysian leader Najib Razak, whose wealth may be questioned by the U.S. Justice Department as part of a wide-ranging investigation into fraud at a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund."
"Trump's policies are placing America's long-term interests at risk. As in Cambodia, many of Asia's strongest supporters of democratic change are young men and women. Opposition parties in Malaysia, Cambodia, and other Southeast Asian countries attract a high share of young people, as do many of the media organizations and civil-society groups now under pressure."
| | What Britain Still Doesn't Get About Brexit Talks | | The Brexit negotiations appear to be making enough progress to let the next phase of talks—on the transition and future ties—to begin early next year, writes Charles Grant for the Financial Times. But Britain still doesn't seem to understand two things: the EU holds all the cards, and it's not all about the money.
"Some British ministers have a touching faith in the desire of the other 27 members to forge a partnership that maximizes economic benefits for all concerned. Unfortunately for the UK, however, the EU's approach is driven less by economics than by a mix of high principles and low politics," Grant argues.
"Its principles are to maintain the unity of the 27, the autonomy of its decision-making procedures, and the indivisibility of the single market's 'four freedoms' (of goods, services, capital and people). This means that a country restricting free movement cannot be in the single market. The politics are to protect services firms from UK competition and to steal business in areas such as finance and aviation—while demonstrating to everyone that leaving the EU does not pay." | | | | | | |
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