| | | | Did Trump Go Rogue in NATO Speech? | | President Trump's decision to not explicitly reiterate the U.S. commitment to NATO's Article 5 in a speech last month was a disappointment to allies – and came as a surprise to his own national security team, Susan Glasser reports for Politico magazine.
"National security adviser H.R. McMaster, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson all supported Trump doing so and had worked in the weeks leading up to the trip to make sure it was included in the speech, according to five sources familiar with the episode. They thought it was, and a White House aide even told The New York Times the day before the line was definitely included," Glasser reports.
"It was not until the next day, Thursday, May 25, when Trump started talking at an opening ceremony for NATO's new Brussels headquarters, that the president's national security team realized their boss had made a decision with major consequences -- without consulting or even informing them in advance of the change."
| | The Uncomfortable Question for Britain | | One of the most uncomfortable questions for Britain after Saturday night's attack is a simple one, suggests Steven Erlanger in the New York Times: What more, exactly, can it do to stop more attacks?
"British police and security services already have some of the most powerful surveillance laws in the world, with weak judicial oversight and little criticism on privacy issues from a public that generally trusts its government and Civil Service," Erlanger writes writes.
"Surveillance cameras are everywhere, especially in cities, and there are relatively few restrictions on the mass collection of telephone and internet data by the government."
| | Trump Creates Nightmare, for Himself: Feldman | | President Trump is going to lose when the travel ban case comes before the Supreme Court. The question after his Monday morning tweets is by how much, writes Noah Feldman for Bloomberg View.
"Taken together, they amount to a nightmare scenario for the office of the solicitor general that must represent the president in court. Short of actually saying that the point of the order was to express anti-Muslim animus, there's not much Trump could have done to weaken his case more," Feldman says. - Fareed says that those that have tried to downplay President Trump's statements simply because they are made on Twitter are missing the point: The platform is irrelevant.
"Remember, Winston Churchill used radio to broadcast messages because it was such an effective way of disseminating information at the time. Nobody said Churchill's radio speeches weren't British policy because he didn't say them in parliament, or because they didn't have the royal seal on them.
"Donald Trump is tweeting as the president of the United States. It seems almost absurd to claim that statements he makes on Twitter somehow don't really matter. So, when he deviates from his government's policies on this platform, it is consequential. And it is consequential when the president is personally choosing what to emphasize and not to emphasize. If we don't pay attention to what he is saying on social media, then what exactly are we meant to pay attention to?
"On the substance of the travel ban tweets, I think we are reminded again that this is a nonsense solution to a non-problem – it is increasingly clear, I think, that the ban is more than anything an attempt to make his base feel that he is tough on terrorism.
"The reality is that the vast majority of terrorist attacks in Europe and the United States have been homegrown. So, the problem we are facing is indoctrination and ideology – not someone coming in on a tourist visa.
"In fact, the Cato institute did a study recently, looking back to 1975, of the countries included in the travel ban. What did it show? That citizens of these countries 'have killed zero Americans in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil between 1975 and the end of 2015.'
"So, the empty nature of this policy is increasingly being exposed."
| | Qatar: Biggest Headache Yet for Team Trump? | | The decision by Egypt and three Gulf states to break diplomatic ties with Qatar could be the biggest diplomatic headache the Trump administration has faced so far, argues Peter Salisbury in the New Statesman.
"Riyadh and Abu Dhabi clearly feel that they have sufficient leverage in Washington to go on the offensive against Qatar," Salisbury says. "They may be doing so in the hope that the Trump administration, not known for its nuanced foreign policy thinking, picks a side in the fight. Their end goal remains unclear, but there is muttering in the region that the best-case scenario for the Saudi-Emirati axis is regime change, with a more agreeable (and perhaps malleable) member of the ruling family brought in.
"While Trump may be tempted to ditch Qatar -- which has faced repeated accusations of links to extremist groups across the region -- his closest advisers are likely remind him of the depth of strategic U.S. interests in Qatar."
| | Why Iran Won't Back Away from Its Proxies: Ostovar | | Anyone expecting that the reelection of Hassan Rouhani will encourage Iran to constrain its regional proxies is likely to be disappointed, argues Afshon Ostovar in Foreign Policy. Iran's regional clients are central to its strategic objectives.
"[I]n the battle for control of the Middle East, the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps]'s clients have been the great equalizer," Ostovar says.
"While Iran's neighbors have poured billions of dollars into conventional weaponry, Iran has invested in comparatively cheap proxy forces that have proven effective in numerous theaters. They have prevented Iraq from becoming an American puppet, saved Syria from being dominated by American- and Saudi-backed Sunni extremists, and redirected the attention and resources of Saudi Arabia and the UAE away from Syria by igniting war in Yemen. Iran's influence in each of those countries has grown as a result, as has its influence in the region."
| | Former FBI Director James Comey will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday. Julian Borger writes in The Guardian that Comey's testimony "will be one of the most dramatic moments in U.S. political history."
"Even in the Teapot Dome scandal that shook Warren Harding's administration in the early 1920s, and in the Watergate affair half a century later, it was not alleged that the president himself tried to intimidate an investigator," Borger writes.
Britons head to the polls for the country's general election on Thursday. Jane Merrick writes for CNN that police cuts under Prime Minister Theresa May when she was home secretary could come back to haunt her. | | | | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment