| | | | Trump and Putin Overplayed Their Hands: Sanger | | The Trump administration and Vladimir Putin both wanted sanctions eased, not tightened. The reason they didn't get what they wanted? "Two global leaders overplaying their hands," argues David Sanger in the New York Times.
"Mr. Putin is beginning to pay a price for what John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director, described last week as the Russian president's fateful decision last summer to try to use stolen computer data to support Mr. Trump's candidacy. For his part, Mr. Trump ignited the movement in Congress by repeatedly casting doubt on that intelligence finding, then fueled it by confirming revelation after revelation about previously denied contacts between his inner circle and a parade of Russians," Sanger writes.
"As one of Mr. Trump's aides pointed out last week, there is a long history of granting presidents that negotiating leverage when dealing with foreign adversaries. But by constantly casting doubt on intelligence that the Kremlin was behind an effort to manipulate last year's presidential election, Mr. Trump so unnerved members of his own party that even they saw a need to curb his ability to lift those sanctions unilaterally."
| | Forget the speculation over the relationship between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Instead, keep an eye on Chinese President Xi Jinping, suggests Alexander Gabuev in the Financial Times. "Beijing and Moscow are stealthily scaling up their co-operation in areas that are likely to pose challenges to Western interests and policies."
"The dominant view in the West is that the 'bromance' between Mr Putin and Mr Xi masks an awkward relationship, in which mutual trust is conspicuously absent. But this obscures a more complex picture. The truth is that Russian and Chinese national interests tend to coincide precisely in areas where they oppose those of the West," Gabuev writes.
"Co-operation between China and Russia might be transactional, but it has geo-strategic consequences. At times, Mr Putin and Mr Xi have found an unlikely ally in Mr Trump. The latter's clumsy approach to foreign policy and fractious relations with long-time allies leave the West poorly equipped to push back. Nor should we expect that an increasingly isolated U.S. administration will have the political capital to manage conflict and competition between great powers in the post-cold war era."
| | How Trump Can Avoid Obama's Syria Mistakes: Rogin | | | The current mess in Syria isn't the Trump administration's fault. But it needs to spend less time blaming former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State John Kerry and instead focus on not making the same mistakes, writes Josh Rogin in the Washington Post.
For a start, "the Trump administration ought not to repeat Kerry's chief mistake, which was to negotiate with Russia without leverage," Rogin says. "That's why Trump's reported decision to cut off the CIA program to train and equip some Syrian rebel groups fighting Assad is so shortsighted. Trump is giving up what little leverage he has for nothing in return."
In addition, "Trump should increase support to local Sunni Arab communities, if not with weapons then with support for local governance, education and basic services. Empowering local leaders is a prerequisite for any kind of long-term stability, and it will be crucial if and when a political process emerges." | | The Folly of "Buy American" | | Americans might think they are performing some kind of patriotic duty by pledging to buy American. But they're largely wasting their time, suggests Kevin Williamson in National Review. In a world of globalized supply chains, it's almost impossible for consumers to know who their dollars are benefitting most.
"Does 'Buy American' create or protect American jobs? Almost certainly not. That's because we all buy lots of different things, and paying more than you have to for an inferior General Motors product doesn't stick it to Honda so much as it sticks it to…everybody else you might have bought something from with that money you spent making yourself feel patriotic about buying a car assembled in Michigan out of components from all over God's green Earth," Williamson writes.
"There is a word for making a national economy policy out of 'buy local' or 'buy national,' and that word is 'autarky.' Autarky is what happens when a country tries to produce everything it uses and use everything it produces. There are a few countries organized around something like that principle, and they are desperately poor…"
| | No, Qatar Crisis Isn't a Crisis for U.S. | | The United States should keep out of the Qatar crisis. Despite the high-profile diplomacy and talk of a crisis, there are no vital U.S. interests at stake, suggest Aaron David Miller and Richard Sokolsky in Foreign Affairs.
"The core U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf are to maintain the free flow of oil, to prevent terrorist attacks emanating from the region against the United States and its European allies, and to prevent Iran from establishing its hegemony over the region," they write.
"None of these interests are jeopardized by the dispute. There is no threat to freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf and none is likely to materialize as a result of this crisis. Neither Qatar nor Bahrain is going to boot U.S. forces out of its bases. The Saudis are not going to cut off counterterrorism cooperation with the United States. And although Iran has increased its influence in Qatar thanks to the Saudis, Doha is not about to join Iran's Shiite crescent."
| | Science Under Threat In Trump's America: Report | | Political interference in science is nothing new. But from sidelining independent scientific advice, to leaving key science positions vacant, to reducing public access to data, the Trump administration has dramatically increased the threat to the "federal scientific enterprise," the Union of Concerned Scientists argues in a new report.
"When the federal government does not uphold principles of scientific integrity, our nation's ability to respond effectively to complex challenges to public health, the environment, and national security is compromised. Furthermore, the loss of scientific integrity in federal agencies can create hostile environments for scientists, often chilling basic scientific activities," the reports says. "Most important, a loss of scientific integrity betrays the public's trust in our government and undermines the democratic principles upon which this nation was founded."
| | President Trump is scheduled to host Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri at the White House on Tuesday. "For Mr Hariri, continuing U.S. support for the Lebanese military and maintaining his governing coalition -- which includes members of Hizbollah's Loyalty to the Resistance parliamentary bloc -- will define the success of the visit," writes Joyce Karam in The National.
Vice President Mike Pence visits Estonia, Georgia and Montenegro this week and early next. Noah Buyon notes in Foreign Policy that earlier this month, "Russia quietly annexed 'about 10 hectares' of Georgian territory on behalf of the Republic of South Ossetia, a polity recognized by just four countries (including Russia)."
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says he will press on with a planned vote for a new Constitutional Assembly on Sunday, "despite the opposition of most Venezuelans, a crescendo of international criticism, and some dissent within his ruling Socialist Party," Reuters reports. | | | | | | |
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