Rnews Crooked Bough News Round-up: Responsible State Craft

Responsible State Craft

— Pew poll: Negative vibes for Israel in 36 countries: at 6/5/26 6:06am
After more than three years of waging war against its neighbors, Israel appears to be more negatively regarded not only in the United States, where Israel’s image has been sinking since shortly after the outbreak of its war in Gaza in October 2023, but in the rest of the world as well.According to a new poll released, majorities — in some key cases overwhelming majorities — of respondents in most of the three dozen countries surveyed by the Pew Research Center between early February and mid-May said they held an unfavorable view of Israel and had little or no confidence in its long-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.A median across the 36 countries of 67%, or two thirds, of the more than 44,000 respondents said they had either a “very” or “somewhat unfavorable” opinion of Israel, while a median of 25% said their views were either “very” or “somewhat favorable.”The poll found that views of Israel were most negative among respondents in predominantly Muslim countries; among younger adults, especially in North America and Europe; and among those who identified themselves as being on the left side of their countries’ political spectrum. Respondents who considered themselves on the right tended to be more favorable.Included in the survey were 10 European countries, 12 across Asia (including Australia), four in sub-Saharan Africa, six in Latin America, as well as Turkey, the Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem, Canada, and the U.S. itself. The results for the U.S. respondents of the new international survey, part of Pew’s annual Global Attitudes Project, were released in a separate report two months ago. It found that 60% of U.S. adults have an unfavorable view of Israel, an increase from 53% in 2025 and 42% in 2022. Conducted in the last week in March, it also found that majorities of respondents under 50 in both parties – albeit more among those who identified as Democrats or Independents than Republicans — viewed Israel negatively.While the global survey began interviewing respondents roughly three weeks before Israel and the U.S. launched their war against Iran February 28, Pew said most of the interviews took place after that dateViews were most negative among mostly Muslim countries, led by Turkey, where 99% of respondents said they held unfavorable views (91% “very unfavorable”); Pakistan, 95% unfavorable (87% “very unfavorable”); Malaysia, 89% unfavorable (79% “very unfavorable”); Indonesia, 86% unfavorable (79% “very unfavorable); and the West Bank/E. Jerusalem 85% unfavorable (80% “very unfavorable”). In Indonesia, “unfavorable” views increased by 6% compared to 2025; in Turkey, the increase was 4%.Elsewhere in Asia, “unfavorable” views in South Korea rose by 10 points — from 60% to 70% over the past year, the biggest increase for all countries that were surveyed in both 2025 and 2026, according to the survey. In Japan, “unfavorable” views were held by 93% of respondents. The only country on the continent where favorable views of Israel were greater than unfavorable views was India: 32% favorable, 28% unfavorable.Strong majorities in every European country surveyed by Pew also voiced unfavorable views of Israel. Spain and Sweden led the pack with 78% of respondents saying their opinion was negative. They were followed closely by the Netherlands (76%), Italy (75%), Germany (73%), and Poland (70%). The biggest year-to-year increase in the percentage of respondents who voiced unfavorable views were found in Italy (9 percentage points), Germany (9 percentage points), and Poland (8 percentage points). Even in Hungary, which had long cultivated close relations with Netanyahu under long-standing but recently ousted prime minister, Viktor Orban, a 54% majority of respondents said they held unfavorable views of Israel, compared to only 32% who expressed more positive opinions.Similarly, majorities of respondents – ranging from Chile (60%) to Brazil (52%) in five of the six Latin American countries – voiced unfavorable opinions of Israel. In the sixth, Peru, a 50% plurality agreed, while 28% of Peruvian respondents said they had either “somewhat” (22%) or “very” favorable views. Particularly notable were the results in Argentina, whose right-wing president, Javier Milei, has visited Israel three times since his inauguration in 2023 and who has declared himself to be “the most Zionist president in the world.” Fifty-five percent of respondents there described their views of Israel as “unfavorable” (34% “very unfavorable”). That marked an increase of 9 points from one year ago.The only continent in which pluralities of respondents said they held “somewhat” or “very favorable” opinions of Israel were found in sub-Saharan Africa. Half of Kenyan respondents said they held favorable views, as did 49% of Ghanaians, and 47% of Nigerians. Nigeria showed a sharp increase in unfavorable views compared to 2025 – from 32% to 41%. A 58% majority of respondents in South Africa, with which Israel has had a somewhat contentious relationship since the end of apartheid, said they had unfavorable views, 44% “very unfavorable.”
[Category: Pew-poll, Benjamin-netanyahu, Israel, Public-opinion, Iran-war, Gaza]
— How a shake-up in Senegal could strengthen Trump's hand in the Sahel: at 6/4/26 10:05pm
Senegal is navigating a major political crisis following President Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s dismissal May 22 of his longtime ally and prime minister, Ousmane Sonko. The power struggle between the former allies raises significantly the risk of the West African state becoming politically unstable. Such a predicament could undermine Senegal’s vital fence-mending role in the troubled Sahel. But, given Faye’s openness to working with the U.S., a post-Sonko administration in Senegal could also potentially bolster recent efforts by the Trump administration to boost Washington’s influence in the region by rebuilding ties with pro-Russia junta-led states and shoring up the region’s failing counter-terrorism operation.Faye and Sonko swept to power a little over two years ago. In their first few months, the administration, which was elected on a Pan-Africanist mandate, implemented a flurry of radical reforms. This included renegotiation of energy and fishing contracts as well as the closure of French military bases, as part of a push to reclaim Senegal’s sovereignty from its former colonial power. Despite this, the ties between Dakar and Washington survived and have improved somewhat. This is in part due to Senegal’s crucial importance to the U.S. as an anchor of stability in a region that is awash with jihadist violence and authoritarian reversals. Indeed, about 40 U.S. troops are currently stationed in the country in advisory and non-combat roles. Both countries also regularly conduct joint military exercises, and, last December, Washington provided Senegal with equipment to aid border security, tackle maritime threats, and support peacekeeping operations. The Senegalese president was also one of the 5 African leaders hosted by Trump in Washington last year. During a meeting at the White House, Faye flattered Trump with praise for his golf skills and even invited him to come to Senegal to invest in and play on a newly built Trump-branded golf course there. This contrasts sharply with the firebrand Sonko, who has publicly criticized the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, calling the U.S. president a “man of chaos” who is “destabilizing the world.” But the rift that split the allies arose from friction over domestic governance. It began with a disagreement over how to manage Senegal’s debt crisis, caused by the discovery of billions of dollars in undisclosed loans under the administration of former President Macky Sall. The discovery revealed that Senegal’s public debt had been grossly underreported and now stands at an all-time high of 132% of GDP. The result has been panic in the market and the freeze of a $1.8 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) credit facility for the country. Following his dismissal, Sonko was quickly elected as President of Senegal’s National Assembly, where the Patriotes Africains du Sénégal pour le Travail, l’éthique et la Fraternité (PASTEF) — the former ruling party that brought him and Faye to power — holds an absolute majority. Sonko received 132 votes of the 165-member parliament to replace El Malick Ndiaye, a loyal PASTEF supporter, who resigned to pave the way for his election. The deft legislative maneuver, which has been validated by Senegal’s constitutional court, now puts Sonko in direct opposition to the president. Predictably, PASTEF has announced it will not participate in Faye’s new cabinet, further cementing the split between the president and the movement that brought him to power.Although there are still a lot of moving pieces, Senegal appears to have entered an era of political uncertainty. A PASTEF-dominated parliament is likely to block Faye’s reforms, including compliance with IMF demands designed, among other things, to restructure the country’s massive debt and ameliorate its liquidity crisis. As Finance Minister Cheikh Diba prepares to resume high-stakes negotiations with an IMF delegation in Dakar next week, a lot rests on the ability of the government to mobilize bipartisan support to back concrete fiscal reforms demanded by the Fund. The unfolding institutional friction puts Faye in a very difficult situation as he struggles to execute his economic agenda without being hamstrung by parliament. To overcome it, Faye could seek to compromise with the 35 opposition members in parliament or appeal to moderate factions within the PASTEF party. He could also dissolve the National Assembly, triggering a snap legislative election to try to secure a more compliant parliament. But such a move would provoke a popularity contest with Sonko, who maintains a firm grip on PASTEF while enjoying massive popular support. There is now a real possibility that their power struggle will spill over into the 2029 general elections with the two former allies pitted against each other.After all is said and done, the rift over domestic governance is hardly an accident. On the contrary, it seems to reveal an ideological gulf between both men that had stayed hidden during their years in the opposition and only became manifest when they had to govern. With the fracturing of the alliance, the path is now opened for Faye to fully unfurl his pragmatist policies domestically and in foreign policy. This presents an opportunity to the Trump administration despite the possibility of instability. With the appointment of Ahmadou Al Aminou Lo, an economist who supports the CFA-Franc, as prime minister, Faye’s new government looks decisively pro-West and therefore is likely to be seen by Washington as more amenable to deepening bilateral ties and pursuing a detente with the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), a confederation set up by the military juntas that seized power in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger between 2020 and 2023. AES emerged after the group ended their membership of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which refused to recognize them as the legitimate authorities in their countries. One of Faye’s first overseas tasks upon taking power was to serve as a special envoy for ECOWAS to try to dissuade the military juntas from ending their membership in the bloc.Once in power, the juntas also expelled French troops alongside the French-led Operation Barkhane, which had been fighting the jihadist insurgency ravaging the Sahel for nearly a decade. But after two years of putting their fate in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hands through a security partnership with Russian mercenaries, Wagner Group, and now Africa Corps, the jihadist violence has only intensified, with the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) threatening to overrun Mali’s capital city, Bamako, and large swathes of Burkina Faso.After initially ignoring them, the Trump administration is now trying to rebuild ties with the AES countries and chart a "new course" in relations, moving beyond "past policy missteps.” This would give the U.S. leverage to counter Russia’s influence, which had grown considerably in the region since 2022. So far, Burkina Faso and Niger have received $147 million and $128 million, respectively, as part of Trump’s “America First” Global Health Strategy. This is alongside a $2.3 million worth of U.S. military equipment delivered to Niger last month to support its counter-terrorism operations. Senegal’s political stability could be crucial for the next steps in this realignment. Currently, the West African state and a few others are pursuing a pragmatic approach of their own, different from the hardline anti-junta stance of ECOWAS. This has seen Dakar and Bamako launch earlier in February joint counter-terrorism patrols in the Kayes region – a strategic tri-border under threat from the West-ward expansion of JNIM.With its unique credibility and geopolitical heft, Senegal is well positioned as a reliable partner for Washington’s effort to restore some stability to the Sahel. But the extent to which it is able to do so will be ultimately determined by how well Faye navigates the domestic storms, specifically those likely to be stirred up by Sonko and his allies in PASTEF, that lie ahead.
[Category: Trump-administration, Sahel, Counterterrorism, Senegal]
— Pro-Israel voices win out, kill bill to stop US-Israel military integration: at 6/4/26 2:53pm
A House committee summarily struck down an amendment that would have stripped a measure from the massive annual defense policy bill that would provide Israel “a higher level of military-industrial integration" with the U.S. than Washington has "with any other country in the world.”Pro-Israel voices on the House Armed Services Committee argued that reports about Section 224 — that Congress was trying to integrate U.S. and Israeli military systems as a way to entrench aid without proper oversight — were disingenuous and wrong. In fact, members claimed that these were “existing initiatives” and that Section 224 “actually improves oversight and accountability of these programs by designating a single official responsible for them,” according to Chairman Mike Rogers, (R-Ala.)Not quite true, said the Quincy Institute’s Ben Freeman, who broke the initial story of Section 224 for RS last week. “Members of Congress supporting the proposal laid out caricatures of critiques against Section 224. And when they did actually talk about the provision itself they spread half-truths and outright inaccuracies about how far this provision will go to integrate the U.S. and Israeli defense sectors.”According to Freeman, as reported in these pages, Section 224 would lay the groundwork for:…bilateral research and development, co-production of weapons, joint ventures, licensing agreements, and seemingly every manner of U.S.-Israeli military-industrial complex cooperation. The U.S. and Israel already work together heavily on missile defense, but this provision would greatly expand coordination to seemingly every area of defense tech, including AI, quantum, autonomous systems, directed energy, cyber, biotech, and many more. It also proposes “network integration” and “data fusion.” In other words, the U.S. military’s data could soon be the Israeli military’s data.Critically, it would shift the annual $3.8 billion the U.S. now gives Israel (a 10-year memorandum of understanding soon up for renewal) to these programs and partnerships, i.e. “co-production” and other “fusion” deep inside Pentagon procurement and acquisitions process, where sunlight is rare and often fleeting. A perfect solution — which is, by the way, endorsed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — to the dwindling American support for Israel’s wars and U.S. military assistance for them.In his remarks on Section 224, Khanna spoke vociferously against what he saw as a blank check at a time when a majority of Americans say they do not want to send more military aid to Israel. “The American people are tired of the arrogance and insolence of Prime Minister Netanyahu telling America what we should do. The entire country of Israel has a GDP that is less than a single town in my district, yet somehow Netanyahu thinks he could tell the American people what we should do,” he charged. “I am for Team America. I am for the interests of this country, and I believe that's what Donald Trump ran on. That includes American interests against any foreign country,” Khanna said. “We should have American sovereignty and make it clear that we strike 224. If we want to give aid to Israel, if we want to sell them weapons, that should be a vote for the entire Congress.”Unfortunately for Khanna, the majority on the committee did not agree. According to several members, not only is Israel the only friend we have in the region, it helped us create new technologies and capabilities, and we would only benefit from a deeper relationship. “This is a win-win relationship. We have Silicon Valley, Israel has Tel Aviv, and it's like Silicon Valley number two. We have gained so much technology advantages from our partnership with Israel, and vice versa,” declared Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb). “They gain as well, and this is what we're trying to do, is create that synergy. They support our foreign policy, they've been the most supportive of us in the U.N. They're the only democracy in Middle East, and so I'll oppose the amendment.”Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) warned that American national security would be at risk if such synergy didn't occur. After “the bad actors” of the world go after Israel they will then “exercise their free will against us," he charged.Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) took the line that the reports about Section 224 were overblown. “It's not a new framework at all. We have three existing programs right now where we do military cooperation with Israel to develop technologies. Those programs already exist," he said. "This amendment ... suggests some other areas where maybe we should look at opportunities, and as the chairman noted, we had somebody now appointed to coordinate those programs.”He said he, too, was “frustrated with Netanyahu’s leadership” and Israel's support for a “war with Iran that has strengthened Iran and weakened our position,” but he disagrees that Section 224 “is Congress just bowing to what Netanyahu wants — this is to our benefit.” In fact, such sharing should occur with Ukraine, too, he added.Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) was the only other member who spoke out in favor of Khanna’s amendment, pointing out that current laws prohibit transfers of weapons to countries committing war crimes and violating international law, but Section 224 makes no such provisions, and takes oversight away, despite what some of her colleagues were arguing on Thursday.She raised the issue of Israeli-owned Pegasus spyware, which was blacklisted for its use against Americans. “Two administrations from both parties left it on that list, and that same company is right now trying to buy its way into the American market, fusing our defense and technology sectors together permanently,” she said. A proposal “with no conditions in the exact area where we have already been burned (Section 224) is reckless on its own terms, and it would do it through a must-pass bill with almost no oversight and with none of the human rights conditions that govern the rest of security assistance.”Next steps: Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) says he will work with Khanna to strip the language from the final House NDAA. If the parade of voices that insist Israel must have this relationship with the U.S. military is any indication, it will be a hard road ahead.
[Category: Israel, Enewsletter, Us-military, Congress, Us-israel]
— Trump's art of the deal meets Iran's long memory of foreign exploitation: at 6/3/26 10:05pm
As the government’s standing plummets to an all-time low due to a reckless disregard for the welfare of its people, mass protests sweep across major Iran’s cities, including Shiraz, Tabriz and Tehran. Driven by a threat to their economic survival, the merchant class, or bazaaris, are leading the demonstrations. This is not a news report from December 2025. This is the spring of 1891, the opening salvos of the Persian Tobacco Protest. Recognizing that unfettered concessions to foreigners pose a threat to both national sovereignty and their own economic interests, the powerful Shia clergy joined the merchants in an open revolt. It was Iran’s first bitter lesson in what happens when a ruler sells out the nation to ensure his own political survival. It wouldn’t be the last.Iranians know their history well, especially when it comes to confronting foreign aggressors. Amid whispers of diplomatic backchannels and leaks about potential deals, Iranian officials have taken to the social media platform X to send cryptic, and at times humorous, references to past triumphs. Most notably, foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei invoked the Sasanian Empire's victory over Roman Emperor Philip the Arab, when Rome was forced to accept peace on Persian terms in the 3rd century. But make no mistake: these posts are not cautionary tales directed at the United States and Israel alone. They can also be read as stern warnings to Tehran's own negotiators. Any concessions, or capitulations, made by the Islamic Republic can trigger severe domestic backlash because in the Iranian historical imagination, yielding an inch inevitably leads to Western exploitation and destabilizing protests. For Iran’s hardliners, a deal is tantamount to surrender.This mindset can be traced to what Hamid Dabashi, professor of Iranian studies and comparative literature at Columbia University, describes as a “long historical memory which is very much alive and resonant in their contemporary politics.”According to Dabashi, even the current ruling government is “entrusted with the responsibility of safeguarding that memory.”Two examples of historical violations of Iran’s economic sovereignty illustrate why this memory remains so potent today. The French, Russian and British empires all vied with each other to extract concessions from Iran in the late 19th century. In 1890, the Qajar Shah granted British entrepreneur Major G.F. Talbot total control over the cultivation, sale and export of Iranian tobacco. Britain had already forced the opium trade on China and fought a war when its emperor tried to ban its sale decades earlier. By commodifying a daily staple in Iran, the secret deal ignited the tobacco riots, uniting merchants and the Shiite clergy in a boycott of the drug, this time leading to a successful campaign to force the Shah to cancel the concession. The D’Arcy Concession would later allow the British government, at the direction of then-Lord of the Navy Winston Churchill, to establish an “Anglo-Iranian Oil Company,” today’s British Petroleum, in 1911. The company would later control 84% of Iran's oil profits. When Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh nationalized that wealth in 1951, the response was an Anglo-American-backed coup in 1953 that reinstated the shah’s absolute royal rule. The suppression of Iranian independence sowed decades of popular resentment against Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, ultimately erupting in the 1979 Iranian Revolution. For Iranian nationalists, these episodes prove that concessions to foreign entities inevitably lead to intelligence infiltration and total loss of sovereignty.It is this legacy that Western powers tend to misjudge. As Dabashi points out, “the most significant part of Iranian anticolonial nationalism” that the U.S. and Israel have failed to understand is that these two formative episodes “have been paramount in the minds of all Iranians since this war began, and it informs every single sentence in their negotiations with United States.” Cutting through the rhetorical noise from both sides, it would be politically suicidal for any Iranian government to accept the full terms the U.S. and Israel are attempting to impose. The White House is pushing for an expansive, face-saving surrender that demands Iran give up its 60% enriched uranium, halt its missile program, dismantle its regional alliances and permanently relinquish state control over the Strait of Hormuz. For Tehran, these are contemporary equivalents of the 19th-century concessions and non-negotiable pillars of national defense that cannot be bartered away. More significantly, despite domestic hardships, Tehran retains significant leverage, holding the global energy market hostage through its grip on Hormuz and still waving the disruptive wildcard of the Red Sea via its alliance with the Houthis. To concede the inconceivable when they have weathered the initial military onslaught would not be in their interest and would completely undermine the regime’s narrative of resistance.Some former U.S. officials have acknowledged this problem. As former CIA Director Bill Burns noted in an interview with The Economist, “We’ve kind of boxed ourselves in at this point. You can declare victory and walk away, but with the future of the Strait of Hormuz up in the air, it’s hard to make that a plausible option.” He argued that escalation through blockades and infrastructure strikes alone would be unlikely to force “this hard-bitten regime to run up the white flag,” leaving serious diplomacy backed by leverage as the “least bad” remaining option. The more difficult challenge, he suggested, would be the future of the Strait of Hormuz itself. Having rediscovered the immense strategic leverage the waterway provides, Tehran is unlikely to relinquish influence over it willingly. The realistic path to a settlement lies in a formulation where both sides can claim victory without crossing their respective red lines. Iran enters the room with a clear objective of clawing back its frozen funds and assets, which remains the primary leverage the United States wields. A viable middle ground requires Washington to narrow its sights to a strict nuclear framework, temporarily shelving its demands for regional disarmament or the integration of the Abraham Accords. Still, the path forward will depend on who has the luxury of time. Tehran has historically counted on American impatience to force a diplomatic breakthrough, but President Donald Trump seems to be in no rush. He recently shrugged off domestic political pressure, saying “I don’t care about the midterms,” and that he could “out-wait” the Iranians.Recent history suggests that a drawn-out dispute is more likely than a rapid resolution. The Russia-Ukraine war has stretched over five years without a peace deal, the Doha accords required 18 months, the original Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or “Iran Deal” took 20 months, and the Paris Peace Talks after World War I dragged on for nearly five years. By contrast, the current war began just three months ago.Tehran can afford to sit at the table, but it can only concede up to the point where its core interests remain intact. To cross that red line would mean repeating the fatal mistakes of the Qajar and Pahlavi shahs, sparking severe domestic backlash that no Iranian government can survive. The lessons of Talbot's tobacco monopoly and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company’s oil exploitation remain absolute truths for the current leadership. Trump may view these talks as a standard business transaction, but history has taught Iran that a compromise with the West is a trap where the foreign superpower always walks away with the ultimate prize.
[Category: Diplomacy, Iran, Iran-nuclear-deal, Shah-of-iran, Iran-war]
— Oman walks a tightrope amid Trump's threats to 'blow them up': at 6/3/26 10:05pm
Up until last week, it would have been unthinkable that a partner and mediating stalwart like Oman would be a target in Washington. Yet, here we are.President Donald Trump, in a characteristically offhand remark during a cabinet meeting, warned that Oman would “behave just like everybody else, or we’ll have to blow them up.” The comment was in response to reports that Oman was considering joining Iran in controlling and levying fees on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent followed up with a threat of “aggressive” sanctions.Oman, it should be remembered, has hosted U.S. naval port calls for decades. It mediated nuclear talks between Iran and the U.S. for years and has maintained nearly two centuries of uninterrupted diplomatic ties with Washington. This history makes the recent turn of events especially surprising.Iran, which effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz after the U.S.-Israeli strikes against it on February 28, now wants to reopen it while maintaining sovereign control. Tehran initially spoke of “tolls” for passage to offset damages from the conflict, but by May, after intense international backlash and questions surrounding legality of the move, it reframed the proposal as fees for navigation, security and environmental services.Tehran has reportedly discussed a joint arrangement with Oman, whose territory (the exclave Musandam governorate north of the United Arab Emirates) borders the strait’s southern flank. Oman however, has not publicly agreed or officially signed onto the idea. According to Bessent, Oman’s ambassador in Washington assured him that there are “no plans for tolling.”Indeed, the deeper source of American frustration stems from Muscat’s still-cozy ties with Iran against the background of a war that is not going in America’s favor. While other Arab Gulf states issue statements condemning Iran and sign U.N. resolutions against its actions, Oman has maintained silence.When Iranian drones struck Omani ports, Muscat acknowledged the attacks but stopped short of naming Iran as the culprit. Oman’s head of state, Sultan Haitham bin Tarik, was the only Gulf head of state to congratulate Mojtaba Khamenei on his appointment as Iran's new supreme leader after his father was killed by Israeli airstrikes in the opening blow of the joint U.S. and Israeli campaign against the Islamic Republic.And of course there’s the stunning essay in The Economist that Oman’s foreign minister, Badr al-Busaidi, penned a few weeks into the war. In it, he claimed that the U.S. “lost control of its foreign policy” and framed Iran’s retaliatory moves against Gulf neighbors as “the only rational option available.”For an administration that sees the world through the lens of “with us or against us,” such language registers as betrayal.But Oman’s approach has served it well in ways that became apparent during this war. Because of its openness to Iran and refusal to host permanent U.S. bases, it experienced a lower volume of attacks than its neighbors.Before the war, it mediated five rounds of nuclear talks between Washington and Tehran, and just before talks collapsed and strikes began, al-Busaidi flew to Washington personally and went on American television to make one last plea for diplomacy.The last ditch effort didn’t work, but this record of hosting, shuttling and being willing to tell both sides uncomfortable truths is what makes Oman irreplaceable, not just to the region's diplomatic architecture, but to any serious American effort to end the war.Washington appears to have reached the opposite conclusion. Multiple U.S. officials told Middle East Eye that frustration with Muscat’s messaging has been growing for months. More recent reporting suggests that the U.S. is applying pressure on Oman to sever its ties with Iran altogether.Apart from a carefully worded statement from May 29 — a readout of a phone call between Oman's foreign minister and his Iranian counterpart, which emphasized their “commitment to ensuring freedom of navigation in accordance with their sovereign responsibilities” — Muscat has been eerily quiet. Omani officials have not rushed to television studios or to social media platforms to clarify its relationship with Iran.But this silence reflects pressure Oman faces due to its unique geographic position. The Strait of Hormuz is just 21 miles wide at its narrowest, where Iran’s coastline faces Oman’s Musandam peninsula. Given the proximity, Muscat and Tehran have always had to coordinate on the strait. They are doing so now, and whatever this war’s settlement says about fees or tolls, they will continue to do so in the future.Iran has already signalled where it wants that coordination to lead. The New York Times reported on May 21 that Tehran had proposed a formal partnership, and that Oman — after initially rejecting the proposal — discussed sharing the revenue generated from fees charged. While Oman’s transportation minister publicly ruled out a pure toll in early April, citing international law, Muscat hasn’t publicly closed the door on a service-fee arrangement. Moreover, the sourcing is worth noting. It was Iranian officials that gave these accounts. Tehran has every incentive to project an acquiescence it has not yet secured. Oman’s participation would not make a fee regime legal, but it would make it considerably harder to characterize as a simple seizure of an international waterway by one party acting alone.Yet the fact that Oman has not denied these reports or clarified its position publicly does not necessarily mean that it is colluding with Iran to exploit the new conditions the war has created. Its ports are seeing increased traffic, owing to the fact that most of its coastline sits outside of the Strait of Hormuz. As a result of this and higher oil prices, which have bolstered its financial position, Oman’s economy is outperforming its neighbours. The International Monetary Fund predicts 3.5% growth in 2026. A naked pursuit of profit is therefore not only unnecessary, but would contradict the Sultanate's diplomatic heritage.The silence then is better understood as a recognition of the new reality that Iran will press its newfound advantage over the world's most important chokepoint. With its economy devastated by war and sanctions, Iran cannot ignore the leverage it derives from controlling the world's most important energy chokepoint.Iran knows it needs Oman’s cooperation to give any fee arrangement credibility. Oman knows it can de-escalate by making sure those fees never harden into an arrangement that is permanent or that looks like a toll. Caught between these two competing positions, silence begins to look like the most rational response.Muscat is not alone in trying to find a win-win. Qatar’s Deputy Prime Minister, speaking from Singapore on Saturday, stated that Doha opposes permanent fees, since “charging fees will always impact the consumer,” but added that a temporary levy (for mine-clearing or other services rendered) was “negotiable.” This follows the logic of Iran’s current proposal: not fees for passage, which are prohibited by international law, but fees for services provided, which are permitted — provided the fees are genuine and not tolls in disguise.The picture that emerges is of Oman and Qatar trying to find a formula that gives Iran enough to claim victory, gives the U.S. enough to avoid acknowledging that any of its red lines were crossed, and gives the global economy and shipping industry enough confidence to believe the strait is reopened. Against that backdrop, Oman’s studied ambiguity reads less like evasion and more like the neutral posture it has refined over decades, one that is designed to to keep all sides at the table.The Trump administration is reading Oman’s posture as sympathy for Iran, but this is a fundamental misunderstanding of how the sultanate has always operated. Its record speaks for itself: its back-channels helped produce the 2015 nuclear deal, it brokered the face-saving ceasefire between the Trump administration and Yemen’s Houthi’s last year, and it played a crucial role throughout the years securing the release of American hostages and prisoners in Iran and Yemen.By threatening to bomb and sanction one of the few U.S. partners Iran genuinely trusts, Washington risks eliminating an interlocutor whose help it will need to close whatever deal eventually ends this war.
[Category: Iran, Iran-war, Trump-administration, Qatar, Oman]
— Finally: House votes to end Trump's war with Iran: at 6/3/26 4:41pm
The House of Representatives successfully passed a resolution Wednesday that would direct President Donald Trump to remove U.S. armed forces from hostilities with Iran absent congressional approval.The legislation passed by a vote of 215-208, with all Democrats voting in favor. They were joined by four Republicans. Seven members, including six Republicans, missed the vote. “A War Powers Resolution to end the war in Iran just passed the House! The American people are tired of presidents abusing their power by spending billions of our taxpayer dollars on unnecessary wars.,” Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) wrote on X following the vote. “I urge the Senate to quickly pass this bill to end Trump’s illegal war in Iran.”Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Tom Barrett (R-Mich.), Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) broke with the rest of their party to support the resolution, which was introduced by the ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.). Davidson was the only one of the four defectors who had not voted in favor of a previous WPA resolution, which ended in a tie. This attempt had been expected to pass after the House GOP leadership abruptly canceled a vote on it in May, when it seemingly was on track to garner enough votes. The Senate passed a similar procedural vote on Iran war powers last month. The votes in both chambers mark a meaningful symbolic rebuke of the Trump administration's increasingly unpopular war. Some Republican members had said that they hoped the administration would come to Congress for authorization after the 60-day limit imposed by the 1973 War Powers Act. Instead, the war has blown past not only that deadline, but also the additional 30 days that the WPA allows for the orderly withdrawal of forces.“It should have passed after 60 days,” Fitzpatrick said after the vote. It is unclear if or when the Senate will next vote on its own version of the bill (S.J. Res. 185) or take up this House version, which is a concurrent resolution and therefore does not necessarily have the force of law and does not go to the president to sign. Like other administrations since the WPA became law, the Trump administration has said it considers the War Powers Act unconstitutional. Proponents of diplomacy with Iran said the outcome showed that the war was becoming increasingly politically untenable. “President Trump has now received two clear and unmistakable signals from a majority of the Republican-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate: end this war before more harm is done to American security and the American economy,” the president of the National Iranian American Council, Jamal Abdi, said in a statement. “President Trump needs to stop dithering and bring this disastrous war to a close before more harm is done. Otherwise, more harm to the nation and more political blowback will follow."For its part, the Trump administration has argued that “the war is over,” – and therefore not subject to congressional approval – because, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified on Wednesday, the U.S. military is no longer “conducting sustained strikes” against Iran, even as the region experienced some of the heaviest attacks over the past five days since the U.S. and Iran entered a ceasefire in April, and the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Trump, speaking from the Oval Office on Wednesday, said that “in that part of the world, a ceasefire is when you're shooting in a more moderate manner.”
[Category: War-powers, Congress, Congressional-democrats, Iran-war]
— Finally: House vote to end Trump's Iran war wins: at 6/3/26 4:41pm
The House of Representatives successfully passed a resolution Wednesday that would direct President Donald Trump to remove U.S. armed forces from hostilities with Iran absent congressional approval.The legislation passed by a vote of 215-208, with all Democrats voting in favor. They were joined by four Republicans. Seven members, including six Republicans, missed the vote. “A War Powers Resolution to end the war in Iran just passed the House! The American people are tired of presidents abusing their power by spending billions of our taxpayer dollars on unnecessary wars.,” Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) wrote on X following the vote. “I urge the Senate to quickly pass this bill to end Trump’s illegal war in Iran.”Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Tom Barrett (R-Mich.), Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) broke with the rest of their party to support the resolution, which was introduced by the ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.). Davidson was the only one of the four defectors who had not voted in favor of a previous WPA resolution, which ended in a tie. This attempt had been expected to pass after the House GOP leadership abruptly canceled a vote on it in May, when it seemingly was on track to garner enough votes. The Senate passed a similar procedural vote on Iran war powers last month. The votes in both chambers mark a meaningful symbolic rebuke of the Trump administration's increasingly unpopular war. Some Republican members had said that they hoped the administration would come to Congress for authorization after the 60-day limit imposed by the 1973 War Powers Act. Instead, the war has blown past not only that deadline, but also the additional 30 days that the WPA allows for the orderly withdrawal of forces.“It should have passed after 60 days,” Fitzpatrick said after the vote. It is unclear if or when the Senate will next vote on its own version of the bill (S.J. Res. 185) or take up this House version, which is a concurrent resolution and therefore does not have the force of law and does not go to the president to sign. . Like other administrations since the WPA became law, the Trump administration has said it considers the Act unconstitutional. Proponents of diplomacy with Iran said the outcome showed that the war was becoming increasingly politically untenable. “President Trump has now received two clear and unmistakable signals from a majority of the Republican-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate: end this war before more harm is done to American security and the American economy,” the president of the National Iranian American Council, Jamal Abdi, said in a statement. “President Trump needs to stop dithering and bring this disastrous war to a close before more harm is done. Otherwise, more harm to the nation and more political blowback will follow."For its part, the Trump administration has argued that “the war is over,” – and therefore not subject to congressional approval – because, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified on Wednesday, the U.S. military is no longer “conducting sustained strikes” against Iran, even as the region experienced some of the heaviest attacks over the past five days since the U.S. and Iran entered a ceasefire in April, and the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Trump, speaking from the Oval Office on Wednesday, said that “in that part of the world, a ceasefire is when you're shooting in a more moderate manner.”
[Category: War-powers, Congress, Congressional-democrats, Iran-war]
— US-Israel integration is far from 'America First': at 6/3/26 9:21am
The war against Iran may have resulted in some tactical victories for Israel and the United States on the battlefield, but Israel is not winning American public opinion and neither are those American leaders who ardently support it. This dwindling popularity could put in jeopardy the $3.8 billion that Israel receives in U.S. military aid each year. And that $3.8 billion is not all we provide to Israel — we also offer invaluable diplomatic cover on the world stage, in addition to direct U.S. military support during specific crises. Separately, the war in Iran has mostly benefited Israel’s regional agenda and has cost the U.S. taxpayer more than an estimated $50 billion so far. Because of these factors, most Americans are growing wary of the support we give to Israel. To get ahead of the changing sentiments, Israel and their American allies, like U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, are attempting to rebrand the aid we give to Israel each year. Rather than the annual Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) outlays, anything we give Tel Aviv will be “based on trade," according to Huckabee. The goal of this shift is to undermine the notion that Israel is dependent on American hand-outs and that the U.S. taxpayer is footing the bill for the horrific scenes coming out of Gaza and Lebanon. There is, of course, a major catch. The catch is Section 224, cleverly buried deep in the massive National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which is entitled “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative.” This initiative transitions the traditional aid relationship into a deeper partnership between the U.S. and Israel in many aspects of technological research and development and defense production, and would also give Israel unprecedented access to U.S. technology development and "data fusion." Section 224, which has been literally endorsed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, essentially transforms Israel from a top U.S. aid recipient to a full member of the U.S. defense and intelligence apparatus.When it comes to counterintelligence and strategic messaging, the Section 224 initiative is far more damaging to U.S. national security than the previous arrangement. By embedding Israel in the production of critical defense technologies, we are creating access and control mechanisms for a nation that has drastically different goals than America does.We should instead keep the development of key technologies restricted to Americans only. The dangers of allowing any other nation to access our sensitive military technologies are obvious, including the fact that back doors and spyware can be installed that will most certainly be used by the Israelis to influence U.S. policy. From a strategic messaging perspective, Section 224 is a nightmare for the Trump administration and any lawmaker who supports it. Sentiment in America is turning against Israel, and Section 224 will not help quell the prevailing narrative that Israel has too much influence on the American government. A more troubling aspect of this scheme is that it allows Israeli manufacturers to operate production facilities in the U.S. with an American partner. This stands in contrast to the standard way America provides military support to nations; historically the weapons that the U.S. provides in arms packages are all made in the U.S. by American manufacturers. Section 224 will give Israel the ability to actually create jobs in America. This is a powerful talking point that will give Israel leverage with many members of congress and the American public. Sure, Israeli defense companies and subcontractors currently operate in the U.S. — however they still must compete with American companies, and lack the access to the U.S. government that American defense companies enjoy. Section 224 would turn that on its head as US.-Israel would be co-producing weapons systems, giving Israeli companies an unprecedented edge inside the Pentagon. The idea of Israel creating American jobs by manufacturing military technologies in the U.S. may sound positive on its face. After all, who doesn’t want more American jobs? But this argument is built on the same fallacy that is used to justify the $3.8 billion in military aid that we currently give to Israel: that the aid is mostly spent on American weapons systems, so it’s not actually aid but an investment in American industry, as the pro-Israel lobby claims. First, the idea that we need to give billions to a foreign country to manufacture American weapons systems is ridiculous. Supporters of Israel like Ambassador Huckabee like to say that the $3.8 billion we give to Israel goes back into the American economy. This assumes that we need to give a foreign nation money to fund our defense industry. This is nonsense, We should instead invest the $3.8 billion directly on weapon systems for our own inventories or sell them to nations that don’t need to pay for it with American aid money. Second, the majority of the profits from the defense sector don’t go into creating American jobs or back into American communities, they go to the CEO’s profits and stock buy backs. This has been an issue that President Trump himself has raised.Moreover, how have Israel’s actions in Iran, Gaza, or Lebanon made America safer and more prosperous? Some of the intelligence we get from the Israelis can be useful, but our increasing over-reliance on it has caused our own capabilities to atrophy.We are a sovereign nation. We cannot outsource components of our national security to nations that do not share our interests; they will put their own interests first every time. No other government prioritizes the needs of a different country before its own, because that would be foolish. Israel can still be a decent partner, so long as we are clear-eyed about the differences between our two countries and act accordingly.We must put America’s needs first.
[Category: Israel, Iran, Pentagon, Us-military, Israeli-military, Israel-aid, Enewsletter, Congress, Us-israel]
— Dems: $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget a ‘blank check’ for war: at 6/3/26 6:28am
Amid the U.S. war on Iran and the looming prospect of conflict with Cuba, Democrats are gearing up for an especially bitter fight over next year’s Pentagon budget.As Punchbowl News reported Tuesday, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) will introduce an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2027 to cut $150 billion from the proposed and record-breaking $1.15 trillion dollar Pentagon budget.Advocates say Moulton’s proposal is a rare one this early in the annual defense budget process. “Even the fact that we have [this] topline challenge… is indicative that [lawmakers] are willing to push back on this total dollar amount in a way that they have not on a committee level before,” Savannah Wooten, Public Citizen's People Over Pentagon Advocate, said at a press briefing yesterday on the subject. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) said she will support Rep. Moulton’s amendment at the press briefing.“Frankly, the $150 billion [cut] isn't even enough,” Rep. Jacobs said. “If [the] Armed Services Committee passes this authorization, it hands [Defense] Secretary Hegseth a blank check to keep the war in Iran going, to pursue regime change in Venezuela and Cuba, and wherever else, and to continue the lethal strikes off the coast of South America.” “I won't stand idly by and let it happen, not when it's my community who pays the human price for what's happening,” Rep. Jacobs said. But other political dynamics are at play. On the condition of anonymity, a congressional aide told Responsible Statecraft that Rep. Moulton wants to cultivate a more progressive profile ahead of his senate race against Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) later this year. “I suspect he's trying to strengthen his credentials,” the aide said.“The NDAA is an authorization bill, and cutting the top line from the NDAA doesn't save any money, and it doesn't preclude or prevent appropriators” from funding the DoD, the aide pointed out. Rep Moulton’s amendment “is a symbolic motion.”Meanwhile, Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) will introduce an amendment to strike down section 224 of the NDAA, which, as RS reported last week, moves to more closely integrate the U.S. and Israeli militaries. Jacobs plans to support that amendment, a staffer from the lawmaker’s office told RS.But the effort also faces an uphill battle, even as a growing number of Americans oppose Israel's actions in the Middle East. Those include its wars on Gaza and Iran, and its escalating attacks on Lebanon.For many Republicans, Massie is “an example of what could happen to them if they break with the admin,” an advocate who works on the NDAA told RS, referencing Massie’s recent primary loss. “It is a [political] risk for Republicans to support his amendment.”Rep. Khanna “has his work cut out for him,” they said.As the advocate who works on the NDAA told RS, the U.S.-Israel war on Iran is “definitely the elephant in the room” in debates on the upcoming defense legislation. Democratic lawmakers, they said, want to show constituents they are taking action against it."Voters feel [the war] at the gas pump, and…they have seen the reports of more than 100 school girls killed in a U.S. bombing at the school in Minab," the advocate said. "They're telling their lawmakers, 'we want you to fight against this.'"Ultimately, congressional Democrats are up against a Pentagon budget fueled by endless wars, but also by decades of runaway spending and lack of fiscal accountability.“The administration cares more about spilling blood abroad than about the communities bleeding right here at home, and what makes it even worse is that we don't know where the money goes,” Jacobs said at the briefing. “They can't account for the trillions we've already given them, and they still want more money for war toys that aren't even necessary or useful for the war fighting of the 21st century.”“That further emboldened our country to reach for military tools first, even though we know that development and diplomacy tools are cheaper and actually work better,” Jacobs said.
[Category: Iran-war, Cuba, Iran, Ndaa, Budget, Venezuela, Democrats, National-security, Pentagon-budget]
— How not to prevent a war over Taiwan: at 6/2/26 10:05pm
As the Trump administration seeks to steady U.S. relations with China, the issue of Taiwan has once again made its way to the front pages. Skeptics of a U.S.-China detente worry that any attempt to cozy up to Beijing will undermine hopes of maintaining Taipei’s independence. So what alternative approach would these China hawks provide? In the new book “Defending Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War with China,” Eyck Freymann of the Hoover Institution offers a comprehensive, if not altogether convincing, answer to this question.Meticulously researched, boasting over 1,000 citations for fewer than 300 pages of prose, Freymann’s book draws together the political, military, strategic, and economic aspects of preventing various levels of Chinese aggression against Taiwan – up to and including a full invasion. Further, the book presents a variety of possible policy responses to deal with the range of scenarios that could follow if deterrence fails.While Freymann’s work deserves plaudits for its ambitious scope and detail, including its treatment of the oft-neglected subject of potential nuclear exchanges, the book contains several serious flaws — flaws that are potentially all the more serious since the book is aimed directly at policymakers.Before dissecting these worrisome errors, it is necessary to present Freymann’s arguments regarding why Americans should be willing to risk war with Beijing on behalf of Taipei, and what Freymann believes is the optimal policy prescription for preventing such a war in the first place.Freymann writes at the outset that “Taiwan matters mainly for reasons relating to regional and global order” and argues that Washington has interests in “maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific, protecting U.S. technological security through AI primacy, fostering regional alliances, preserving global geopolitical stability, and, to a significant but lesser extent, preserving Taiwan’s democracy.” In a new iteration of the Cold War-era domino theory, he argues that, “if the Indo-Pacific is not free and open, the Western Hemisphere and American homeland cannot be kept secure.”Having defined Taiwan as a key component of American security, Freymann proceeds to lay out all the likely ways Beijing might try to pressure Taipei to join the mainland, from gray zone pressure to outright blockade or invasion. He then lays out all the possible U.S. responses, including a blockade of the Malacca Strait, sweeping economic sanctions, attacks on mainland China, or an effort to break through a Chinese blockade with force.Freymann’s book starts from the point that preventing a war with China over Taiwan is the goal, so he spends relatively little time speculating on the outcomes of a horrifying and self-defeating conflict that neither side really wants. Instead, he largely focuses on explaining the various elements of political, military, and economic deterrence that he thinks are most likely to prevent Beijing taking steps that might lead to said conflict. Freymann argues for building up a coalition of states to support Taiwan and develop joint military and economic responses to developments between China and Taiwan. One proposal is to pursue “structured ambiguity,” whereby Washington clearly communicates to Beijing how the coalition would respond to different kinds of gray zone efforts vis-a-vis Taiwan. On the sharper end is so-called “avalanche decoupling,” which Freymann recommends in the event of a Chinese attempt to seize Taiwan by blockade or invasion: the initially slow but gradually accelerating decoupling of Washington and its core coalition from Beijing.Here, Freymann’s argument shows its first cracks. Noting that China is well positioned to withstand economic pressure from the U.S., and that Washington’s attempt to use sanctions and other forms of economic pressure have been largely counter-productive, Freymann outlines a rather outlandish plan whereby Washington would immediately form a new trade group sans China, whose central position in the global economy would gradually be eroded as its trading partners in Europe and South East Asia abandoned it for the new Economic Security Cooperation Board (ESCB). While better than a rapid push to war, this approach represents yet another highly unrealistic effort at decoupling. And even if the U.S. succeeded in creating the bloc, there is good reason to believe that trying to force China (along with Russia, Iran, and North Korea) out of the global economy would provoke hostilities with Beijing rather than deter them.With regard to the errors that seriously detract from the book, the most worrying comes from the following paragraph:“The United States would have a legal basis for escalating politically and militarily if China tries to seize indirect control over Taiwan. The Taiwan Relations Act states that ‘the United States shall maintain the capacity to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system of the people of Taiwan.’ A quarantine would clearly fall into the category of ‘other forms of coercion.’ The TRA also states that ‘blockades and embargoes’ would count as ‘grave’ threats to U.S. interests. While ‘quarantine’ is a convenient term for distinguishing the scenario where China masks a partial blockade as a law enforcement exercise, there would be an extremely strong argument that China had crossed U.S. red lines under the TRA. This would legally require a decisive U.S. response.”This is, simply put, not true.Whether purposefully or mistakenly, Freymann is conflating strategic preference with legal obligation. The Taiwan Relations Act commits the United States to maintaining the capacity to resist coercion against Taiwan and determining an appropriate response through constitutional processes. It does not legally mandate military intervention, much less the strikes on mainland China he proffers elsewhere in the book as a possible option in a conflict over Taiwan. Indeed, the TRA was written with ambiguity in mind, preserving flexibility for both Congress and the executive rather than creating a defense guarantee akin to NATO’s Article 5. In practice, the Act functions much like the Monroe Doctrine once did: not as a binding legal commandment, but as a statement of policy backed by power and discretion. Freymann’s interpretation transforms a deliberately elastic framework into a quasi-automatic trigger for escalation — a reading difficult to square with either the text of the TRA itself or the broader history of Washington’s long-standing (and remarkably effective) policy of strategic ambiguity toward Taiwan.Another concerning contention regards Washington’s capacity to fight and win a war against China right now in Beijing’s own back yard. Despite Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s comment last year that Team Blue loses in Pentagon simulations of such a conflict “every time,” Freymann argues that the “best open-source wargames suggest the United States would probably win” an all-out air-naval war in the first island chain.In a particularly glaring omission, especially given that he provides citations for virtually every other claim in the book, Freymann provides no citation to back up this particular point.Highly questionable, too, are the historical case studies in American foreign policy Freymann repeatedly chooses to praise for their efforts at deterrence, including the United States in the Pacific during the 1930s, and the Biden administration’s efforts in the run-up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Neither of these worked. In point of fact, Washington’s economic warfare in the Pacific and the Biden administration’s blanket unwillingness to address any of Moscow’s concerns likely helped provoke the very hostilities they were supposed to be deterring.The burden of proof that this is not likely to happen in the case of Taiwan should clearly fall on those who insist on arming Taiwan, moving more U.S. forces into the region, and trying to draw China’s neighbors into a military alliance against it.For whatever one makes of these problematic exceptions to an otherwise rigorous offering, no one interested in a restrained American foreign policy can ignore the clear implications of Freymann’s proposal, or others like him: “The ultimate goal should be to establish NATO-style structures in the Indo-Pacific.”As I’ve argued elsewhere, this is the last thing Americans need – and if Freymann is serious about preventing war between the United States and China, he should hope such a thing is never realized.
[Category: China, Us-china-relations, Trump-administration, Book-review, Taiwan]
— Trump taps loyalist with no intel experience to replace Tulsi Gabbard: at 6/2/26 9:36am
President Donald Trump named Bill Pulte, currently the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, as the new acting director of national intelligence on Tuesday. Pulte will replace Tulsi Gabbard, who announced her resignation from the role last month.“William has deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post, praising in particular Pulte’s attention to the “safety and soundness of the Markets.” Trump added that Pulte will maintain his role as the Chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.The new acting director has no background serving in intelligence or military related roles. He is seen as a close ally of the president. In his role at the housing agency, Pulte sent the Department of Justice criminal referrals that alleged mortgage fraud by several of Trump’s political enemies, including Letitia James, the Attorney General of New York, and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).Democrats pounced on the announcement, saying that it made clear that Trump was appointing somebody to serve his personal interests rather than those of the country.“This appointment speaks volumes about what this president expects from the nation's top intelligence official.” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Vice Chair of the Intelligence Committee, said in a statement. “[H]e appears to have been selected precisely because the White House believes he will provide the narrative it wants, not the intelligence we need,” Warner said. “Americans have every reason to worry about what happens when the official charged with overseeing everything from counterterrorism to foreign election threats is chosen for his willingness to advance the president's political agenda rather than his experience.”Gabbard's forthcoming departure from the office is officially because of personal reasons relating to her husband’s health. But given her long-standing opposition to regime change wars, there has been speculation that the intelligence chief was pushed out because of disagreements over the administration’s foreign policy. Gabbard had reportedly been sidelined from White House meetings during military interventions in Venezuela and Iran. One of Gabbard’s colleagues in the ODNI, Joe Kent, resigned in March in protest of the war with Iran. Unlike his predecessor, Pulte appears to have virtually no public record on foreign policy issues. In rare comments related to national security, he raised vague concerns about Chinese nationals buying U.S. farmland and investing in mortgage-backed securities during a March 2025 appearance on Donald Trump Jr.’s podcast.The transition from Gabbard to Pulte has fueled concerns that the administration is prioritizing political loyalty in its appointments. “[Pulte] has zero experience in the IC and no formalized training, which is troubling considering how volatile the world is right now. However, it’s not exactly a surprising move,” James Webb, a national security and political consultant and an Iraq war veteran, told RS. “Trump has long prized personal loyalty to him over professional competence, and this is another example of it.” Though the head of ODNI is a Senate-confirmed position, Pulte’s appointment as acting director will not require confirmation. It is unclear if Trump intends to make him the permanent choice for this role.
[Category: Tulsi-gabbard, Director-of-national-intelligence, Intelligence-community, Joe-kent, Bill-pulte, Trump-administration]
— Touting battlefield successes, Ukraine leans into peace talks: at 6/2/26 7:55am
Ukraine is hoping to reach a peace deal with Russia by winter, a top aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday.“This is the president's ⁠instruction: to try to end this war as soon as possible ... preferably before winter,” Kyrylo Budanov, Zelensky’s chief of staff, said Monday, adding that the goal is “timely and realistic.”The comment came a day after Zelensky himself said he wanted serious progress on talks in the next few months, citing his desire to capitalize on recent Ukrainian successes on the battlefield, including a few instances in which his country’s forces retook territory from the Russians.The sudden outpouring of enthusiasm for diplomacy appears to be Ukraine’s attempt to attract the attention of the Trump administration, which has evinced little enthusiasm for Ukraine-Russia peace talks since launching a war with Iran in late February. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said just two weeks ago that there are “no such talks occurring at this time,” though he insisted that the U.S. would return to its mediator role if it saw a path to “productive” negotiations. Underpinning the shift in Ukrainian rhetoric is a growing sense among some military analysts that Russia is losing its advantage on the battlefield. Western observers say Ukraine has stopped Russian advances and even retaken some territory, largely thanks to advances in Ukrainian drone tactics as well as improved targeting of Russian radar and air defense systems.The precise extent of this change remains unclear. Zelensky said that the tide started shifting in Ukraine’s favor last December. But as of late March, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency assessed that Russia maintained an advantage over Ukraine in everything from manpower to weapons stockpiles and force protection, according to a report from the Pentagon’s inspector general. In practice, neither side has made major advances in several years. But, at this point, the narrative may be more important than the reality on the ground. After years of grinding war, Ukraine is making a consequential rhetorical shift. While it once trumpeted battlefield successes as evidence of the need to continue the war indefinitely, Kyiv is now framing military advances as a signal of increased leverage at the bargaining table. The message to the Trump administration is that Ukraine is ready to make a deal — perhaps even an agreement that could secure President Donald Trump a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts at mediation.Of course, the Kremlin is also seeking to shape perceptions of its leverage, and it has responded to increased Ukrainian attacks within Russia by making its own threats of escalation. Just last week, Russian officials called on Western states to withdraw their diplomats from Kyiv ahead of “systematic strikes” on the Ukrainian capital. Moscow backed up these threats with a series of large missile barrages, including one that killed at least 11 people Monday night.One could read this as an indication that Russia is determined to continue the war and force Ukraine to submit to far-reaching demands. But another plausible interpretation is that Moscow sees a need to shore up its leverage ahead of negotiations that could end a war that is steadily becoming more unpopular within Russia.Whatever the case, it appears that diplomacy is now back on the table. According to Budanov, a U.S. delegation will soon visit Moscow and Kyiv for further talks.
[Category: Ukraine-war, Russia, Trump-administration, Ukraine]
— Ukraine's military has a real Nazi problem: at 6/1/26 10:05pm
When Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he claimed one of his goals was the country’s “denazification.” The Kremlin still uses this narrative as a cornerstone of its war propaganda.Both Ukraine and the West reacted by dismissing the claim outright as a cynical abuse of Holocaust history. Politicians, media outlets, academics, and educational institutions rushed to prove that Putin’s argument was fraudulent. But in their zeal to deconstruct Russian propaganda, Western elites created a propaganda myth of their own: there are no Nazis in Ukraine. Or, if there are, they are supposedly isolated cranks with no influence.This fiction required the whitewashing of Azov, a unit founded in 2014 by the neo-Nazi group Patriot of Ukraine under the leadership of Andriy Biletsky. Azov became notorious for extremist ideology, Nazi symbolism, and allegations of war crimes in the Donbas. In 2018, the U.S. Congress banned the group from receiving American weapons, funding, or training. After Russia’s full-scale invasion, that stigma vanished almost overnight. Kyiv repackaged Azov, separating the most radical elements into a new formation, the 3rd Assault Brigade. Western media rebranded and whitewashed it. The language of “de-radicalization” and “depoliticization” became mainstream. Questioning this narrative became taboo and labeled as “Russian propaganda.” The result is a culture of deliberate silence.Neo-Nazi networks are deeply embedded in parts of Ukraine’s military structure. Their presence is visible in units such as Azov, the Third Assault Brigade, the Russian Volunteer Corps, Bratstvo, the German Volunteer Corps, Karpatska Sich, and others. Yet Ukraine’s Western backers continue to arm, fund, and train these units without meaningful scrutiny.Even more striking is the normalization of Nazi imagery itself. Official Ukrainian military channels and mainstream media regularly publish images of soldiers wearing swastikas, Waffen-SS insignia, and patches linked to neo-Nazi groups like Combat 18 and Misanthropic Division. This is no longer treated as scandalous. It has been normalized. Most disturbing of all, some Ukrainian military units have incorporated Nazi-linked symbols into their official insignia.The far right and Ukraine’s military cultureMany Ukrainian military units using Nazi symbols are led by men shaped by Azov and the far-right milieu around it. For example, there is Oleksandr Kravtsov, the well-known commander of the Vedmedi unit, which was part of Azov. His body is covered in Nazi imagery, including 1488 — references to the white supremacist “14 Words” slogan coined by David Lane and the coded salute “Heil Hitler.” (“H” is the eighth letter of the alphabet.) Tattooed across his chest is the SS motto: “My Honor Is Loyalty.” He turned that slogan into the motto of his own unit. SS lightning bolts became part of its official insignia.After returning from Russian captivity, Kravtsov’s unit was folded into the Ukrainian military structure — first the 36th Brigade, then the 39th Coastal Defense Brigade. Nothing changed. The SS symbols and motto remained.Many commanders in the 3rd Assault Brigade also came out of Azov and still hold extremist views. Unsurprisingly, they openly embrace the corresponding symbolism. A subunit of the 3rd Assault Brigade adopted a modified insignia (replacing two grenades with three) of the Dirlewanger SS Brigade — one of the most notorious Nazi formations of World War II. In 2025, the brigade unveiled the emblem publicly at a memorial in Kyiv. No scandal followed.Azov also normalized the Black Sun — a symbol born in Himmler’s SS cult headquarters at Wewelsburg Castle and now used globally by neo-Nazis and white supremacist terrorists, including the 2019 Christchurch mosque terrorist in New Zealand and the recent San Diego Islamic Center shooter.After 2022, Black Sun spread rapidly through Ukrainian military culture. It appeared in Azov-linked units such as the Decepticons platoon and the Mortars unit of the 3rd Assault Brigade. Soon it migrated further — into units with no openly ideological profile at all — and became part of the insignia of the 156th Zvaha Battalion and the Unmanned Systems Battalion of the 110th Brigade named after Marko Bezruchko.Azov mainstreamed another Nazi-linked emblem as well: the Wolfsangel, used historically by several Waffen-SS divisions. Rebranded as the “Idea of the Nation,” it became one of the most recognizable symbols in Ukraine’s wartime military culture. The symbol now appears far beyond Azov itself. The newly created Nachtigall Battalion — named after the Nachtigall Battalion formed by German military intelligence in 1941 — uses the same Wolfsangel-inspired insignia.Some units within Ukraine’s military do not hide their fascination with the Third Reich's military culture. For example, the 422nd Regiment of Unmanned Systems calls itself “Luftwaffe” and uses virtually the same eagle as Hitler’s air force. Its commander, Mykola Kolesnyk, regularly appears with the symbol on patches and clothing. The unit even sells merchandise featuring the Nazi eagle — hoodies, mugs, T-shirts, caps, keychains — to fundraise for the war.Not just aesthetic choicesThe use of Nazi symbols in Ukraine’s military is not merely an aesthetic problem. It is moral, political, historical, and legal.First, it represents a form of historical revisionism and the gradual rehabilitation of Nazism itself — a direct challenge to the postwar Western consensus built on the memory of World War II. Within far-right military culture, Nazi imagery is often wrapped in romanticized narratives about anti-Soviet struggle. In practice this trivializes the sacrifice of the seven million Ukrainians who fought Nazism in the ranks of the Red Army alongside the Western allies (in contrast to the 300,000 who served in various military formations and police units on the side of Nazi Germany). It also desecrates the memory of Nazism’s victims in Ukraine: 1.5 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, along with millions of Slavs, prisoners of war, Roma, the mentally ill, forced laborers, and countless others consumed by the machinery of racial extermination and exploitation. Second, the problem is not only historical. It is profoundly contemporary. Every SS rune, Black Sun, or Wolfsangel displayed by Ukrainian soldiers hands the Kremlin another propaganda victory. Russian propagandists do not need to invent imaginary Nazis in Kyiv. They simply point to the insignia openly worn by some of Ukraine’s most celebrated military units — including formations branded as “elite,” such as the 3rd Assault Brigade.Third, there is also a glaring legal contradiction. By openly using Nazi imagery, these units violate Ukraine’s own 2015 memory laws, which explicitly ban the propaganda of the Nazi regime and the public use of its symbols. The law describes such acts as an insult to the memory of millions of victims and have penalties of up to five years in prison. Yet no one is prosecuted.Why?Because the Zelensky government — and President Volodymyr Zelensky himself as commander-in-chief — have made a political bargain with the far right. Since 2022, far-right activists and networks have flooded into the security and defense sector. In conditions of total war and chronic manpower shortages, this alliance became politically convenient, perhaps even inevitable. Now it is becoming entrenched.The state depends on radicalized military formations for manpower and battlefield effectiveness. The far right, in turn, receives legitimacy, weapons, influence, and institutional protection. What emerged from wartime necessity is evolving into mutual dependence.Ukraine’s Western partners have made their own bargain. They, too, depend on Ukrainian manpower to weaken Russia. And so they tolerate extremists inside Ukraine’s armed forces as long as those extremists continue fighting. More than that, they remain largely silent about the ideology and symbols involved, because acknowledging them would mean admitting an uncomfortable truth — that the neo-Nazi problem in Ukraine is not simply a Kremlin invention.
[Category: Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine-war, Volodymyr-zelensky, Enewsletter]
— Why the plan to disarm Hamas is destined to fail: at 6/1/26 10:05pm
On October 13 of last year, shortly after signing a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, President Donald Trump addressed a room of world leaders congregated in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. “At long last we have peace in the Middle East,” Trump proclaimed, basking in the praise pouring in from across the globe. While this statement may have been an exaggeration, there was indeed reason for optimism at the time. The U.S. had just brokered an agreement between Israel and Hamas. Palestinian prisoners would be released, Israeli hostages would return home, and the mass slaughter of Gazans would come to a halt. Phase 1 of the plan also included the full entry of humanitarian aid and a withdrawal of Israeli forces to an agreed on “yellow line.” Tasked to oversee the process was the Board of Peace (BoP), a U.S.-led international panel.Israel never fully implemented its side of Phase 1, opting instead to continue striking the enclave and restricting the flow of aid into Gaza. Nonetheless, on January 16, the U.S. announced the beginning of Phase 2. This step was set to include Hamas’ disarmament and further Israeli withdrawal, coinciding with the arrival of the International Stabilization Force and a transitional governing authority.But more than four months in, none of this has happened. In March, the head of the BoP, Nikolay Mladenov, laid out a five-stage, eight-month vision for how Hamas should disarm. The group rejected the proposal, citing ongoing ceasefire violations and demanding full Israeli withdrawal. Israel, the U.S., and much of the international community have pointed to this rejection to frame Hamas as the sole obstacle to peace, blaming the militant group for the stalled second phase. While this narrative may be politically convenient, an analysis of past agreements shows that the current proposal lacks several elements that will be necessary if a durable peace is to be achieved.Biased Mediator Historically, one of the most important factors in peace settlements has been a neutral mediator. Thomas Leahy, senior Lecturer at Cardiff University, explains that such a presence is essential from the outset in creating conditions for fair negotiations.In Northern Ireland, even after the Irish Republican Army and the British government signed a ceasefire in 1994, a lack of proper mediation led to two years of stalling. Leahy notes that the Irish government "took the initiative to bring in a third party because talks were going nowhere."This third party was U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, who assumed the position of chairman throughout the negotiations and introduced the Mitchell Principles before formal all-party talks began in 1996. The principles, a set of six rules, bound all sides to use exclusively peaceful means to resolve political issues. While the Board of Peace fills this third party role in Gaza, it has so far proven itself to be far from neutral. Despite boasting representatives from around the world, the organization is U.S.-led, with Trump self-appointed as chairman, a role that he could potentially hold for life. In Northern Ireland, mediating bodies were composed of countries with no historical or current stake in the region. In Gaza, the mediator is dominated by the U.S. — not only Israel’s most important financial backer, but also its largest arms supplier.In Gaza, obliging both parties to uphold the ceasefire is where the Board of Peace has shown itself to be most biased.According to the Gaza Health Ministry, over 900 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the ceasefire began. Humanitarian groups say the delivery of aid, which is entirely controlled by Israel, has also been insufficient, leaving the population malnourished and exposed to a growing rodent infestation. Hamas has also been accused of ceasefire violations, having killed four Israeli soldiers.The Board of Peace has not treated these violations equally. The organization has issued firmer warnings to Hamas than towards the Israeli government, despite the lopsided number of breaches. In a leaked memo, Mladenov explicitly stated that he would not hold Israel to truce terms if Hamas refused the disarmament framework. By allowing Israel to continue killing with impunity and threatening to void the ceasefire's terms, Mladenov’s strategy runs directly counter to the successful one implemented by Mitchell. Improper SequencingThe order in which the demands are being made is equally problematic. This plan first requires Hamas to surrender all weaponry and destroy its tunnel network. After that, fighters would have to turn in both guns and rifles. Only then would the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) complete its withdrawal from the Strip, and reconstruction presumably begin. Notably, the 12-point plan makes no mention of Palestinian statehood. In Northern Ireland, by contrast, the IRA only decommissioned its weapons several years after the accord was signed, and once tangible political gains, including a power-sharing agreement, were put in place. The same could be said about the FARC in Colombia, which received limited amnesty and guaranteed congressional seats as it surrendered its weapons. Disarmament is “rarely the beginning of peace,” said Alpaslan Özerdem, dean of George Mason University’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution. Özerdem lists a slew of reciprocal steps usually required before disarmament such as “ceasefire consolidation, withdrawal arrangements, security guarantees, third-party monitoring, humanitarian access, and reconstruction.” While Hamas has previously stated, on numerous occasions, that it would lay down its weapons in exchange for the creation of a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders, Israel has repeatedly rejected such an offer. In fact, the IDF has pushed deeper into Gaza since the ceasefire was signed and now occupies 60% of the strip instead of the 53% that was originally agreed on. By refusing to consider Hamas’s core demand, a mutually respected long term peace deal becomes difficult to envision. According to Özerdem, “armed groups do not usually disarm simply because they are pressured to do so; they disarm when they believe there is a viable pathway to security, political inclusion, social reintegration, and dignity.” Given that the current plan offers none of this, the obligation to disarm feels more like a one-sided surrender. For Leahy, Israel is in no position to make such a demand. “This can only work if the group is defeated, and accepts that defeat,” says Leahy. “I think it’s quite clear that this is not something Hamas accepts.” Despite the improper sequencing, non-existent concessions and seemingly biased guarantor, Israel and its allies insist that Hamas is the one sabotaging the peace process. Ironically, rushing the issue could actually result in further chaos for all parties; botched decommissioning agreements have often led to the creation of splinter groups, or outright rearmament. In recent years, the most devastating example of such can be found in Iraq, where after the U.S. disposed of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi army was quickly disbanded with no reintegration plan. Hundreds of thousands of armed men were now without income, many later becoming a core contingent of ISIS fighters. For Özerdem, the biggest risk is that disarmament can be perceived as surrender rather than transition. “If an armed group gives up weapons before credible guarantees are in place, it may fear political marginalization, arrest, revenge attacks, or loss of bargaining power.” Perhaps deadlock is the goal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly argued that he is ready to return to war in Gaza “at any moment.” The deeply flawed disarmament process gives him one more way to justify such a step — and shields him from making concessions that his political opponents could hold against him.The Board of Peace has continued to pay lip service to the idea of a prosperous and even futuristic Gaza. But, with a peace process like this, the board’s most lasting legacy could well be as a validator for continued war.
[Category: Board-of-peace, Hamas, Conflict-resolution, Donald-trump, Israel-palestine, Gaza-war]
— Congress wants proof Trump-class battleship isn’t a dud: at 6/1/26 11:31am
As the White House proceeds full speed ahead on battleships that will bear President Donald Trump’s name, lawmakers want to know it won’t be a flop first. The House draft of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2027, released last week, authorizes $1 billion for the prospective Trump-class battleship program. But the bill bars contracts from being granted until the Navy secretary can certify the ships’ technologies are “sufficiently mature.” “It's rare to see the majority challenge the president on a major priority with language like this,” Gabe Murphy, a policy analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, told RS. The provision “means that there's strong bipartisan concern about rushing to production on the Trump-class battleship as the budget request envisions.”Dan Grazier, who directs the Stimson Center’s National Security Reform program, told RS the provision is a positive move, given the recent history of failures in major Navy acquisition programs. “It should be common sense that, before we start building a [ship costing billions of dollars], let’s make sure that the design actually works before we fully commit,” he said.Grazier said plans for the Trump-class ships resemble those of vessels that have underperformed because of the Navy’s misguided yet continued focus on making vessels with ambitious yet unproven technologies. “They took all the worst [design] ideas that led to the Littoral Combat Ship…the Zumwalt-class destroyers, and the Constellation class, and [are] doubling down on it” with the Trump-class, Grazier said, listing some of those ships.Slated to be three times the size of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the Trump-class ships will have nuclear weapons-armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missiles (SLCMNs), hypersonic missiles, railguns, and lasers. But these weapons are still in development. These planned capabilities “will make [the new vessels] prone to design flaws and maintenance issues,” Murphy explained. “And they only plan to build a handful of them. This runs directly counter to the Navy's stated goals of developing a more agile and distributed force.”The administration has said the Trump-class battleship will be the “centerpiece” of the Navy’s new Golden Fleet initiative, announced in December. The vessels will be an expensive endeavor if they proceed; the first three Trump-class ships together are slated to cost $43.5 billion. The fleet’s lead ship, the USS Defiant, will cost more than $17 billion alone. “Congress would be wise to go beyond simply pumping the brakes and move to zero out this wasteful vanity project,” Murphy said.
[Category: Golden-fleet, Trump-class, Ndaa, Military-industrial-complex]
— DoD not allowed to fix most of its own stuff. Guess who's cashing in?: at 5/31/26 10:05pm
Because defense contracts often prevent the military from repairing its own equipment, critics say weapons companies are price-gouging the Pentagon at every turn.As experts and observers tell RS, the military’s lack of a “right to repair” doesn't just allow defense contractors to charge thousands of dollars, for fixes that could be done for free or very cheaply. Rather, the Pentagon’s dependence on weapons makers for maintenance undermines military readiness. Namely, contractors’ extensive repair delays and sweeping decisions about whether to service gear routinely leave warfighters without critical equipment and weapons systems — even while deployed.Defense contractors rake in the doughUntil the early 1990s, the Pentagon often purchased complete technical data packages for its equipment, allowing the military to handle its repairs as needed. But, as the number of major weapons contractors shrank during that time from dozens to just five major defense “primes,” the Department of Defense ultimately ceded some leverage over the issue. Consequently, many DoD contracts now leave repair and maintenance, which can make up as much as 70% of a military program’s lifetime cost, to the vendors. “It's a cash-cow for them,” Ben Freeman, director of the Quincy Institute’s Democratizing Foreign Policy Program, tells RS. “They can charge literally thousands of dollars to replace things that service members could replace for pennies.” Take the RQ-11 Raven drone, for example. After hard landings, it often has trouble starting back up again. But due to contractual restrictions, the military is barred from making repairs and must ship the drone to the contractor at a cost of $26,000, regardless of the issue. When an extensive repair backlog meant service members were temporarily allowed to fix the drone themselves, however, they found they could solve the problem — a broken connector — for free with hot glue. Sikorsky’s Black Hawk helicopter screen control knobs are also prone to breakage. Due to vendor repair restrictions, however, the military cannot fix the knobs. It instead must buy the knob from Sikorsky, which only sells it as part of an entire screen display assembly for the helicopter, for $47,000. The knob itself could be manufactured for about $15.Even repair and maintenance instructions are a chance for profit. Lockheed Martin has charged $900 per page for biannually updated maintenance manuals for the AC-130J Ghostrider program. And in 2020, the U.S. paid Boeing $84 million for Air Force One flight and maintenance manuals.Trade secrets at risk?Weapons contractors say that giving the DoD the information it needs for its own repairs may compromise their private intellectual property (IP) and trade secrets. But Freeman says that argument is “usually a load of crap.”“A lot of what we're talking about with right-to-repair, is stuff that service members already know how to do – there's no secret,” Freeman told RS in a written statement. “The only mystery is why they're not allowed to fix their own equipment.”What’s not a mystery is that contractors have pushed back fiercely against legislative reform.In a bipartisan effort, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.) introduced the Warrior Right to Repair Act last year — which would have made contractors hand over the technical data and other materials necessary for troops to fix their own gear. But weapons contractors successfully lobbied to remove it from the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY2026.“The truth is, the manufacturer has very little incentive to solve problems like this,” Nathan Proctor, a senior director at the Public Interest Research Group’s Right to Repair campaign, said at a recent virtual briefing on military right-to-repair. Contractors have “got quite a racket going on.”Saving moneyRenewing their push for the Warrior Right to Repair Act this year, Sens. Warren and Sheehy contend that a military right to repair will save the Pentagon, and taxpayers, billions of dollars.Recent examples of the military making its own parts and repairs support their argument. Now that the Marines can 3D print a communications antenna it needs, for example, its cost has dropped from $5600 to just $10 each. And the Marines can make the antenna immediately, rather than wait the 220 days the vendor typically takes to provide one.At the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Annual Meeting & Exposition last year, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll likewise explained that his team was able to 3D print a Black Hawk fuel tank prototype, which the vendor charges $14,000 to replace, for only $3,000.As Driscoll told War on the Rocks last year: “We’ve given away our right to repair our own equipment some of the time, which [means] we will have exquisite pieces of equipment sitting on the sidelines for 8 to 12 months, when we know how to 3D print [them much more cheaply]. That is a sin, and we’ve done it to ourselves.” Risks to military readinessBeyond weapons contractor profiteering, the DoD’s lack of right-to-repair threatens military readiness.Relying on vendors for repairs can often lead to equipment delays. For example, T-38 Talon engine repair delays in 2023 postponed Air Force pilot trainings, often by six months or more. Meanwhile, the F-35 fighter jet program repair backlog has grown so large — sometimes exceeding 10,000 parts — that the DoD has sometimes resorted to buying new parts from the contractor, rather than waiting for the planes to get fixed. The problem has also left armed service members without critical equipment while deployed. In 2019, former Marine logistics officer Elle Ekman wrote in The New York Times that Marines in Japan waited months for engine repairs because the engines had to be shipped back to the U.S. for repairs.Retired U.S. Army Master Sergeant Wesley Reid told RS that a vendor stopping him from repairing a military CT scanner while deployed in Afghanistan, had “significant impacts [on service members’] patient care, and…on the commander's ability on the battlefield.”During his deployment, Reid lost access to key diagnostic capabilities when the scanner’s microcontroller deactivated. The microcontroller’s one-year operational period, as per an agreement between the military and the vendor, Philips, had expired. But when Reid, who was trained to service the scanner, asked about getting a new microcontroller, Philips refused to send one. Philips insisted the scanner was too old and had to be replaced, despite how arduous doing that would be in a combat zone.Reid was still able to perform some diagnostic scans on wounded soldiers with the scanner, though it was much harder without the microcontroller. But “being told that [you’re] not able to work on something…that's very disappointing, especially when you're upholding your nation's promise to the other soldiers and sailors and airmen,” he stressed.
[Category: Weapons-industry, Defense, Defense-contractors, Profiteering, National-security, Right-to-repair]
— Should Trump just end the Iran War without a deal?: at 5/31/26 10:05pm
Last week, there were genuine signs that the United States and Iran might be edging toward an agreement to formalize the ceasefire that has tenuously held since April 7. Then, the U.S. launched a new round of attacks on Iran and the week ended with the White House saying there would be no final determination on an agreement.Talks last June and then in February collapsed when Israel and the U.S. launched attacks against Iran, a move that critics argue was aimed at disrupting ongoing diplomatic efforts. In April, within hours of a U.S. delegation leaving talks in Islamabad, Trump announced a counter-blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. Then, when a diplomatic solution seemed near last week, pro-war voices in the media and think tanks began to openly criticize it, and Trump responded by launching new attacks. This familiar cycle — progress on talks met with outrage from hawkish voices, followed by further escalation — has led some anti-war voices to wonder whether the pursuit of a comprehensive agreement risks making things worse. If every moment of diplomatic progress triggers a hawkish freakout, and those who oppose diplomacy will never find any agreement satisfactory, then forcing the war to end in a broad negotiation may be handing the war's architects the leverage they want. With an agreement once again seemingly close, the upshot for some restrainers is that Trump should either strike a narrow deal or simply walk away.“I don't want to hear [Trump] say, ‘It's either a deal or we go back to war.’ Because that framing redounds to the benefit of the Iran hawks,” Andrew Day, senior editor at the American Conservative magazine, told Responsible Statecraft. “The pro-Israeli Iran hawks get very agitated during diplomacy. So whenever Trump seems to be making progress, they freak out. They criticize him, they ramp up the pressure. They push for unreasonable demands,” Day added, saying that this cycle has recently led to the U.S. inserting poison pills into the negotiations. As a result, Day tells RS, “continuing with diplomacy makes a war more likely,” so the U.S. should simply end the military conflict without a larger agreement that includes addressing the nuclear issue or, as Trump has suggested more recently, expanding the Abraham Accords.Day and other skeptics of continued diplomacy do not rule out a more narrow deal that could formalize the ceasefire, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and provide some sanctions relief to the Iranians. But they say that pushing for another round of talks aimed at solving bigger questions beyond the current war could distract from the more immediate issue.“Trying to get a settlement now that includes anything on nuclear weapons is a huge impediment to just getting the war over with,” Ben Friedman, policy director at Defense Priorities, told RS. “We don't need any deal at all. I think that's the underrated option.”Others see the current moment, with both sides economically damaged and perhaps cognizant of both the limits and consequences of war, as the kind of opening that makes a larger deal possible. They argue that walking away from that opportunity without a comprehensive agreement simply delays future military confrontations. This group emphasizes that a smaller, cleaner exit isn’t necessarily stable, either. It’s true that, in the years before and after the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Washington and Tehran managed to reduce tensions without resolving their underlying antagonism, and without going to war. But that era is over, according to Trita Parsi, the executive vice president at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. As he told RS, a “small deal” would simply punt on major issues while doing little to prevent a new round of escalation.Parsi agrees that any effort to make a resumption of war less likely will face intense pushback from Iran hawks in Trump’s orbit and in Israel, who will not see any kind of agreement with Tehran as satisfactory. But he contends that “[Trump] is going to be more inclined to break with them if there is a big deal on the table that really fits his persona and his desire to do big historic things.”Reaching any kind of comprehensive agreement will certainly not be easy. For one, both supporters and skeptics of pursuing further talks with Iran note that any momentum toward ending the war could be complicated by Israel playing spoiler and would require Trump to be willing to meaningfully break with Israeli war aims. In addition, the gaps on the nuclear file remain wide, and the domestic politics on both sides complicate compromise. Vali Nasr, a professor of international affairs at Johns Hopkins, says a deal between the U.S. and Iran is “eminently possible” in theory, but he hasn’t seen Trump display any real appetite for dealmaking in this situation.“Since the war has started, he has still asserted maximal goals while offering minimal returns,” Nasr told RS. “He's essentially demanding that Iran surrender at the nuclear front. And Iran is balking at that. A serious attempt at a negotiated diplomatic negotiation means a serious attempt at diplomatic negotiation, not essentially insisting on surrender.”Iran's performance in the conflict, including the regime’s ability to close the strait and inflict global economic pain, means that Iran may now believe that it has more reason to hold out for better terms in any future negotiations. A history of unpleasant diplomatic experiences with Trump, dating from his unilateral withdrawal from the original nuclear deal through the surprise attacks in February, could also make Iran wary of any agreement.“It seems like there's almost insurmountable trust problems that will hang over any kind of deal,” says Friedman. That trust deficit is compounded by different factions in the U.S. government pushing for different outcomes, and the lack of a clearly articulated strategy since the start of the war, adds Sumantra Maitra, a senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America.“There is no coherence in their thought process. If I was an Iranian, and I was negotiating with the U.S. administration, I'd listen to American negotiators, and I don't really know what they want and what they even know about the nuclear [issue],” he told RS. “For the Iranians to trust any American guarantee is difficult.” Nasr agrees that trust may be the largest variable blocking any successful negotiation. He says that a step-by-step process of trust-building measures, such as both sides removing their respective blockades of the Strait of Hormuz or the United States beginning to remove some of its troops from the region, could open the door for a larger agreement.Events from the past few weeks have shown that building the necessary trust even for a smaller deal is not straightforward. But Parsi argues that getting to a bigger deal may not be as difficult as it seems. Any agreement that ends the war and reopens the strait already requires a significant degree of trust between two parties that just fought each other. If that trust can be secured, it becomes the foundation for something more durable rather than just a pause. "We're already talking about a deal that is, at its minimum level, rather large," he says. "The additional trust that is needed to get to a more significant deal is not really that significant."
[Category: Diplomacy, Iran-nuclear-deal, Jcpoa, Donald-trump, Iran-war, Enewsletter]
— No clear winner: Colombia's hard right and left will battle out in runoff: at 5/31/26 10:05pm
Right-wing outsider Abelardo de la Espriella and left-wing senator Ivan Cepeda have emerged victorious in Colombia’s high-stakes, first-round presidential election Sunday, setting the stage for a tight runoff on June 21 that could reshape the country’s relationship with the Trump administration and political dynamics across Latin America.De la Espriella, 47, a criminal lawyer and businessman with the Defenders of the Homeland movement, won 10.3 million votes, or 43.7% of the total—shy of the 50% required to clinch victory in the first round—while Cepeda, 63, a human rights activist and former peace negotiator with President Gustavo Petro’s Historic Pact party, won 9.65 million votes, or 41% of the total. Trailing far behind were center-right senator Paloma Valencia of former president Álvaro Uribe’s Democratic Center party, with 1.6 million votes, or 7% of the total, and Sergio Fajardo, of the centrist Dignity and Commitment party, with 1 million votes, or 4% of the total. The preliminary vote tallies came in within less than two hours of polls closing at 4 p.m. local time.De la Espriella easily took the country’s central highlands and eastern plains, where Colombia’s largely conservative, majority-white urban centers are located, while Cepeda won the regions on the country’s Pacific and Atlantic coasts and Amazon rainforest, where Colombia’s Indigenous and Afro-descendant populations are the majority. According to Colombia’s National Electoral Council (CNE), nearly 24 million Colombians voted at 118,346 polling tables across 13,489 voting stations nationwide, as well as 2,181 polling tables across 253 voting stations in 67 other countries, for a participation rate of around 57.5%. This was somewhat higher than in the 2022 first-round elections, which Petro, who is limited to a single term, won with 40% of the vote.Sunday’s elections unfolded across the South American country of 54 million people (41 million of whom are eligible to vote) without major incidents or violent episodes, although the country’s non-governmental Electoral Observation Mission (MOE) registered hundreds of presumed anomalies and electoral violations, including armed actors restricting voter mobility, political campaigning at polling stations, attempts at vote-buying and imitation of electoral authorities, and widespread online disinformation campaigns, among others.Petro and Cepeda have urged electoral authorities to scrutinize potential irregularities and ratify the count before accepting the final tally. Election monitors said that nearly a quarter of Colombia’s 1,110 municipalities faced risk of violence from Colombia’s myriad irregular armed groups on election day, while Colombia’s defense ministry deployed over 400,000 soldiers and police to safeguard the vote. The pro-Trump De la Espriella, who calls himself “The Tiger” and promises to convert the violence-afflicted nation into a “Miracle Country,” jumped ahead in most major polls — which for months had him trailing behind both Cepeda and Valencia — in recent weeks, bolstered by his aggressive use of social media, support from charismatic Evangelical pastors, and backing from key conservative figures across Latin America.His efforts to win in the first round, however, fell short despite last minute attempts to shift voter intention even after campaigning had formally closed the weekend before.On Friday night before the election, President Daniel Noboa of neighboring Ecuador joined a live stream with De la Espriella where he announced that 75% tariffs he had enacted on Colombian imports would be lifted the day after Sunday’s vote, a move denounced by Colombia’s foreign ministry as a form of electoral interference. In a similar vein, U.S. senator Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) — who joined an 86-member State Department electoral observation mission on Sunday after visiting President Noboa in Ecuador last week — along with Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) and Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), have made several statements in the days leading up to the vote implicitly encouraging voters to vote for De la Espriella and reject Cepeda.The June 21 runoff pits diametrically opposed visions for Latin America’s third largest country and economy against one another. De la Espriella has promised to end Petro’s “Total Peace” negotiations with the country’s guerilla, paramilitary, and criminal groups; unleash lethal military force to fight drug trafficking, and construct ten maximum-security prisons for low-level criminals just has President Nayib Bukele has in El Salvador. He also wants to cut taxes for the private sector, resume aerial fumigation of coca crops, join the Trump administration’s “Shield of the Americas” consortium, and issue new concessions for fracking and oil exploration.Cepeda, on the other hand, intends to double-down on the demobilization of armed actors through peace negotiations and intensify the country’s clean energy transition. He promises to center human rights and combat illicit finance as the cornerstone of his counternarcotics strategy, and seeks to deepen Colombia’s leadership role in Latin America, invest in public education, and prioritize anti-militarism and international law in the country’s foreign affairs.The second round runoff will likely come down to whether the roughly 12% who voted for Valencia and Fajardo will opt for De la Espriella or Cepeda. It’s likely that Fajardo’s 4% will mostly swing in favor of Cepeda and Valencia’s 7% will go for De La Espriella — putting him above the 50% needed — though many of Valencia’s more centrist voters attracted to her openly-gay, liberal running mate, Juan Daniel Oviedo, may be put off by De La Espriella’s conservative family values and outwardly misogynistic behavior, and instead vote for Cepeda.It’s also expected that voter turnout will be considerably higher in the second round — as it typically has been in past votes — with many Cepeda supporters opting to stay at home in the first round given most polling had put him squarely in the lead, yet not hitting the 50% mark required to win outright. This dynamic could work to Cepeda’s favor, as it did in Colombia’s 2022 presidential elections, when the two right-wing and center-right candidates won a combined 52% to Petro’s 40% in the first round, but a surge in last-minute support and voter turnout for Petro’s movement catapulted him to over 50% for a victory in the runoff. Even if De la Espriella wins the June 21 vote, he will likely face an uphill battle getting some of his more radical proposals passed into law. Petro’s Historic Pact party won a plurality of Colombia’s Senate and House of Representatives seats in the country’s March 8 legislative elections, while De la Espriella’s party has just one congressman and four senators in the legislature, making it likely he would have to form coalitions with centrist parties and moderate some of his proposals for them to have a chance at becoming law.If Cepeda wins the June runoff, he is likely to face similar governance challenges as well as an uphill battle with the Trump administration — as Petro has — though his cooler demeanor and more pragmatic work-style may facilitate the country’s long-standing institutional and operational relationships with its U.S. counterparts despite possible tensions between the executives.Meanwhile, with a De la Espriella victory, the Trump administration would gain a major new ally in Latin America’s epicenter — and a partner more than willing to accelerate the spread of the “Donroe Doctrine” at a key inflection point in the regional balance of power.
[Category: Elections, Gustavo-petro, Abelardo-de-la-espriella, Ivan-cepeda, Donroe-doctrine, Colombia]
— Sunday's election could put Colombia back on team Trump: at 5/29/26 10:05pm
On Sunday, Colombians will go to the polls for the first round of their presidential elections, a race that could radically reshape Colombia’s relations with the United States at a moment of political turmoil and polarization in Latin America.The key contenders include the ruling party’s candidate, Iván Cepeda; conservative outsider Abelardo De la Espriella; and Paloma Valencia of former President Álvaro Uribe’s center-right party, Centro Democrático. Currently, no candidate is polling over 50%, so a runoff between the top two candidates is projected for June 21, 2026. This election comes within the context of heightened concerns over political violence, with the civil society Electoral Observation Mission (MOE) reporting 565 acts of political violence since January 2025. This has included the assassination of a presidential hopeful, kidnappings, attacks targeting candidates and campaign staff, vandalism of campaign offices, and death threats. Apart from rising violence in the country, campaign issues include great economic discontent, the deeply polarized legacy of President Gustavo Petro, and tense diplomatic relations with the U.S. over anti-narcotics efforts and security policy. The leading candidates present three distinct visions for Colombia’s future. Iván Cepeda, senator for the Historic Pact party, is the former leader of the Movement for Victims of State Crimes and a former peace negotiator involved in the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerilla peace dialogues. He plans to advance peace and negotiations with illegal armed groups and focuses on truth and reconciliation. Cepeda proposes advancing Petro’s agrarian reforms, pursuing an energy transition to curb climate change and investing in education. His security proposal goes beyond an exclusively military response, focusing on improving human rights and dismantling the financial infrastructure of criminal groups. He proposes an autonomous, peace-oriented foreign policy that emphasizes Latin American integration, migrant protection, global anti-militarism, and strict adherence to international law. Aberlardo de la Espriella, the candidate for Defensores de la Patria, is a conservative outsider and criminal lawyer with a controversial past who describes himself as not being a politician. His security proposal mirrors that of El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, and his economic model that of Argentina’s Javier Milei. He would end peace negotiations and tackle narcotrafficking and organized crime with military force. De la Espriella supports fracking, new oil contracts, and cutting taxes for the private sector. He’d advance a Plan Colombia 2.0 that is aligned with the Trump administration’s anti-narcotics strategy and would resume aerial fumigation of coca crops that was halted by the Petro administration. Paloma Valencia, a senator and prominent member of the center-right opposition party, proposes a Plan 30-30 for security, which would recruit 30,000 new members each to the military and police and increase the defense budget to 4% of Colombia’s GDP. Valencia would end the peace dialogues, militarize insecure areas, and resume aerial fumigation. She proposed opening a 22,000-capacity penitentiary and prison with 19,000 spots and restricting social protests. She further proposes that Colombia participate in the U.S. plan to reconstruct Venezuela, and she wants to request a $50 billion loan from the U.S. to refinance Colombia’s external debt. Similar to de la Espriella, Valencia wants a Plan Colombia 2.0 to combat narco-trafficking. Both Valencia and de la Espriella propose including Colombia in the Shield of the Americas, created by the Trump administration, and have engaged with administration officials and Republican members of Congress. The results of Colombia’s 2026 presidential race will have a significant impact on U.S.-Colombia relations and the Trump administration’s strategic goals in Latin America. Since Petro took office in 2022, the long-standing bipartisan strategic relationship between the two countries has faced growing strains, driven in part by tensions between Petro and a group of Republican lawmakers, particularly from Florida, who have used anti-Petro rhetoric to appeal to conservative Latino voters. Since January 2025, Trump and Petro have repeatedly clashed on X, resulting in the temporary recall of ambassadors and threats of tariffs. Petro also strongly criticized U.S. boat strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific that have killed at least 196 people to date. The Petro administration’s decision in May 2025 to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative further widened the rift with Washington. In response, the Treasury Department sanctioned Petro and others, and the U.S. decertified Colombia for failing to meet its counternarcotics commitments. (Decertification can lead to U.S. foreign assistance suspension, the U.S. blocking Colombia from obtaining international loans, and visa cancellations.) Things came to a head last December, when Trump warned that Petro “could be next” after the U.S. overthrow of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro. Tensions cooled off after the two men met at the White House on February 7. But no sanctions were lifted, Colombia remains decertified, and no new aid for Colombia has been announced. (Colombia saw a massive reduction in U.S. assistance as part of the elimination of USAID and overall foreign aid cuts in 2025.) The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are looking to the Colombian elections in hopes that the next president in Bogota will restore the strong strategic relationship with the U.S. that existed before Petro. This includes creating alliances of like-minded conservative leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean, as was reflected in the Shield of the Americas Summit held in Doral, Florida, in March. While framed as a way to build a multinational military partnership against drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations, the summit excluded leftist governments in the region, including Colombia — where most of the world’s cocaine is produced.The Trump administration’s 2025 National Security Strategy advances a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine aimed at restoring U.S. primacy in the Western Hemisphere through an “enlist and expand” approach focused on curbing irregular migration, weakening cartels, and nearshoring manufacturing. The strategy also reorients the region toward competition with extra-hemispheric powers such as China and Russia, using economic pressure, tariffs, and expanded military engagement to secure supply chains and strengthen regional partnerships. Similarly, the 2026 National Defense Strategy places greater emphasis on the Western Hemisphere, prioritizing efforts to combat drug trafficking and transnational criminal organizations, limit China’s influence, and deepen regional defense cooperation. Given Colombia’s regional importance to the United States, the Trump administration may try to shape Colombia’s elections, as it has in Argentina and Honduras. So far, the administration has presented its role as one of monitoring and promoting transparency. At the U.S. Embassy's request, the National Electoral Council authorized a U.S. election observation mission of 86 government officials, who will be deployed across 15 areas to assess transparency, security, and voting in high-risk locations during both presidential rounds. Regardless of the results this coming Sunday, and in the likely second round in June, the next president should support peace and inclusion policies in the country, while maintaining a respectful diplomatic relationship with the U.S. For Cepeda, that may be easier said than done. A victory for Petro’s successor will most likely mean continued U.S.-Colombia tensions, particularly as Trump threatens regime change in Cuba and strives to push Latin American politics to the right. Meanwhile, if either of Cepeda’s challengers wins, Trump could gain a major new ally in Latin America — and a willing partner for implementing his “Donroe Doctrine.”
[Category: Colombia]
— Congress quietly moves to integrate US and Israeli militaries: at 5/29/26 4:57am
At a time when the American public is expressing unprecedented levels of distrust in the Israeli government, Congress just proposed tying the U.S. to the Israeli military more than ever before. Buried in the House's version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) released on Tuesday, is section 224, entitled “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative.” The provision would arguably do more to intertwine the U.S. military with the Israeli military than the more than $200 billion (inflation adjusted) in military assistance Israel has received from the U.S. since its founding in 1948.Section 224 lays the groundwork for bilateral research and development, co-production of weapons, joint ventures, licensing agreements, and seemingly every manner of U.S.-Israeli military-industrial complex cooperation. The U.S. and Israel already work together heavily on missile defense, but this provision would greatly expand coordination to seemingly every area of defense tech, including AI, quantum, autonomous systems, directed energy, cyber, biotech, and many more. It also proposes “network integration” and “data fusion.” In other words, the U.S. military’s data could soon be the Israeli military’s data. If fully enacted, this proposal would provide a higher level of military-industrial integration than the U.S. has with any other country in the world. To be sure, the U.S. has worked closely with its NATO partners on co-production and shared supply chains, most notably via the Defence Production Action Plan. And, as the number one arms dealer in the world, the U.S. provides weapons to militaries across the globe. But that is mostly a one-way street, with the U.S. providing weapons to foreign buyers who only occasionally make parts for those weapons themselves, as in the case of the F-35’s global supply chain. Section 224 would be a different beast entirely. It would fuse the U.S. and Israeli defense sectors in multiple areas vital to the battlefields of the future, like autonomous systems and cyber. It would also bring extraordinary Israeli influence to the U.S. beyond what it already has through the Israel lobby and its robust network of social media influencers. It would give the Israeli government the opportunity to greatly expand one of the most powerful levers of influence in U.S. politics: jobs in the U.S. By expanding or starting new co-production facilities like it already has in Mississippi and Arkansas, the Israeli government could boast of providing jobs on U.S. soil, thereby securing allies among members of Congress who represent the districts where those jobs lie.The result could well be a U.S. political system even more susceptible to the whims of an Israeli government that seemingly has no qualms about drawing the U.S. into military conflicts in the Middle East.This unprecedented level of U.S.-Israeli military integration stands in stark contrast to the traditional aid model of defense cooperation, in which Israel already stood out as the top recipient of U.S. military assistance. As laid out in a recent Quincy Institute brief, authored by Steven Simon, this shift from an aid model to a military integration model has troubling implications, namely:The shift will strip away the political and diplomatic oversight mechanisms that make the relationship publicly accountable, moving it from a visible annual aid vote into the opaque machinery of defense acquisition, where oversight is limited and political accountability is minimal. The result would be a defense relationship that is simultaneously deeper and less transparent.This all comes at a time when the Israeli military has repeatedly used U.S. weapons in strikes that have violated international humanitarian laws in Gaza, and as Israel has repeatedly violated ceasefires (as has the U.S. itself) in the Trump administration’s unnecessary war with Iran. The enormous gulf between what most Americans want and what the president is doing when it comes to Israel and what Congress is proposing here should not be ignored. Just 30% of respondents to a New York Times/Sienna poll from mid-May believe Trump made “the right decision” to go to war with Iran, with 64% saying it was wrong. An Institute for Global Affairs poll released earlier this week dove even deeper into the American psyche when it comes to arming Israel, finding that “Just 16 percent say the United States should keep supplying Israel with weapons without new restrictions. Thirty-eight percent want to stop supplying weapons entirely, and another 24 percent want weapons conditioned on how they’re used.”Yet, mainstream leadership in both parties remains largely pro-Israel and continues to shape the base legislative text before amendments and broader congressional debate open it to the full body, as is the case with this NDAA provision. Though slowly, tides within both parties are shifting as more and more members speak out against the growing divide between Israel’s actions and America’s interests. For example, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) wrote in The New York Times on Tuesday that, “The Democratic Party has provided reflexive and unconditional support to Israeli governments, even as their actions have increasingly undermined American interests and values.” On the Republican side of the aisle, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.) have openly decried the Israel lobby’s corrosive influence — a stance that may have, at least partially, cost both of them their seats in Congress.What can other members of Congress who are concerned about Israel’s destabilizing actions do right now? Stop the Israeli-U.S. military-industrial merger in its tracks. Lawmakers should reject Section 224 from the NDAA to avoid deep integration with Israel's military at a time when a growing number of Americans oppose Israel's actions in the region.
[Category: Israel, Trump-administration, Military-assistance, Donald-trump, Us-israel, Enewsletter]
— Why Trump dumped Europe from Iran talks: at 5/28/26 10:05pm
When President Donald Trump announced a possible U.S.-Iran understanding, he did so after placing calls to a number of regional countries: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, and – separately – Israel. Not a single European capital was on the call list. As the Quincy Institute’s Executive Vice President, Trita Parsi, noted, “Europe’s near-total absence from the process is striking — though hardly problematic. By this point, Europe’s diplomatic irrelevance in major Middle Eastern diplomacy has become so normalized that its exclusion barely registers.”Yet this absence and its implications deserve a closer look. How did Europe transition from leading on Iran diplomacy – culminating in the nuclear deal known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015 – to this level of irrelevance ten years later? Objectively, there are factors that are beyond Europeans’ control. For one, Trump’s dislike of European leaders is well-established. And the feeling is mutual. Yet, there is another, deeper reason: in his own erratic way, Trump wants to pacify the Middle East and claim sole credit for that. This is probably why he's been pushing his improbable proposal that all countries in the greater region — from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan — join the Abraham Accords. Sharing a diplomatic trophy with Brussels, Berlin or London would presumably detract from his achievement. Then there are the regional actors themselves. For the Persian Gulf nations as well as Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan, the stakes of a continued war on Iran are truly existential. As the war has already shown, they are easily within the range of Iranian missiles. A resumption and exacerbation of active hostilities would risk economic collapse, especially of the Gulf states. An implosion of the Iranian state would destabilize borders, provoke uncontrolled migration, and ignite ethnic and sectarian strife on a regional scale. The consequences for Europe would also be significant: higher energy prices and inflation mean the European Union already is losing €500 million a day, according to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. But this is not a life-and-death matter in the same way it would be for Iran’s neighbors. This asymmetry of the stakes explains why the Gulf nations, Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt have engaged proactively in favor of diplomacy and de-escalation. And the fact that Trump talks to them would help to embed a potential new Iran deal regionally. That would permanently remove a key complaint of some of Iran’s neighbors, particularly Saudi Arabia and UAE, about former President Barack Obama’s original 2015 deal, which dealt only with the nuclear file. Yet attributing everything to Trump’s vainglory and regional diplomacy would miss a more difficult truth. After all, geography was no different in 2015 when the E3 (Britain, France and Germany), working with the EU’s high representative for foreign policy, led the way to the JCPOA. In 2026, Europe’s exclusion was not just imposed from outside. It was earned from within – by squandering any leverage Europe enjoyed with Iran.First, after Trump withdrew from the JCPOA during his first term in 2018, Europe launched INSTEX, a trade vehicle designed to bypass U.S. secondary sanctions on Iran. But it never worked, and thus Iran concluded Europe would posture but ultimately bow to Washington’s wishes. Iranian confidence in Europe was undermined.Second, in 2025, the E3 triggered the United Nations Security Council’s snapback of nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, even as Russia and China insisted the room for diplomacy had not been exhausted, and Tehran itself had offered new concessions that would preclude weaponization. Tehran took note: Europe had clearly ceased to be an honest broker and had become instead a U.S. auxiliary.Third, and most decisively, the war in Ukraine changed Europe's entire worldview. After 2022, Brussels embarked on a geopolitical path that divides the world into friends and foes based solely on their stance toward Russia. Iran – which has supplied Moscow with drones – was swiftly placed in the enemy camp. In the immediate wake of U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran on February 28, European leaders like von der Leyen and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz offered their full-throated support for the initial aim of regime change. In Brussels, the only strategy was transatlantic unity against the purported Russia-Iran axis.None of this is to excuse the role of Tehran's own choices in recent years that have undermined its relations with Europe. Iran's drone transfers to Russia have been real, destructive, and justifiably condemned. But cause and effect run both ways. Having watched Europe fail to deliver on the JCPOA and increasingly echo the U.S.-Israeli line on its nuclear program, ballistic missiles and regional policies, Tehran concluded it had nothing to gain from Europe. Moscow, on the other hand, has provided assistance with sanctions busting, military technology, and geopolitical cover. Iran did indeed move closer to Russia, and that is primarily Tehran’s responsibility, but Europe helped push it in that direction.Now, the EU is doubling down. Reacting to Trump’s announcement of a possible deal, von der Leyen issued demands for Iran: “Iran must not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon” (ignoring Tehran’s repeated attempts to negotiate a deal that would ensure that very outcome). It must also, she said, end its “destabilizing actions” in the region, as well as “repeated and unjustified attacks on its neighbors” (ignoring the fact that it was the U.S. and Israel that actually initiated the war and that Iran’s first response was to target U.S. military facilities in the neighboring states). As Belgian Member of the European Parliament Marc Botenga said, “we need a Europe that says: the U.S. must end its illegal acts of aggression.”The perception of the EU’s weakness was further underlined by EU High Representative Kaja Kallas. During a session of the European Parliament, she said the EU has no strategy on the Middle East because “too much is going on,” and “much will depend on how the war ends” — as if Europe were merely a passive observer with no ability to shape in any form the conduct, let alone the outcome, of the war. Her words marked a dramatic contrast to her predecessors, Federica Mogherini, Catherine Ashton and Javier Solana, all of whom played critical roles in Iran diplomacy since the early 2000s.Indeed, contrast Europe’s policies today with those of 2003. Back then, France and Germany spoke openly and eloquently against the U.S. invasion of Iraq. They failed to prevent it, thanks in important part to then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair, but at least they demonstrated strategic independence. Today, only Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has shown consistent and principled opposition to the Iran war, while most other European leaders have offered an embarrassing spectacle of silence, hesitation and flip-flopping. But Sanchez leads only one EU member and can’t speak on behalf of the bloc.Having lost any influence in bringing the war to an end, the EU can still play a constructive role in the post-war phase, if and when Trump indeed strikes a deal with Iran. As one experienced Track II regional diplomacy practitioner who asked for anonymity told me, the Gulf countries would welcome such a role, particularly because of the EU’s expertise in environmental protection and the reconstruction of critical infrastructure for energy, water and desalination. Tehran may also be interested in European investment in reconstruction. That kind of outreach is not do-gooder naivete. It’s a hard-nosed, practical way of regaining influence and respect by playing to the EU’s traditional strengths, rather than espousing a militarized, geopolitically Manichaean approach for which it is ill-suited. In other words, the EU needs more Sanchez, and less von der Leyen and Kallas.
[Category: Trump, Diplomacy, Iran, Europe, Von-der-leyen, Kaja-kallas, Iran-diplomacy, European-union]

As of 6/5/26 7:47pm. Last new 6/5/26 6:40am.

Next feed in category: South Front