Posted on by Nathan Riley

Who Won? Israel or Iran?

July 4th was a significant news day. Finally, there was hard news about who won the Israel-Iran War.

Seymour Hersch, who has a distinguished record writing about the U.S. military, had just made an extraordinary journalistic  prediction. On the Friday before Israel attacked Iran, that is, the day before the attack began, Hersch, in his Substack post, predicted the start of the war.

On July 4th, Hersch answered the question, “Did Israel and the U.S. destroy Iran’s nuclear preparations?” According to this veteran journalist, the Iranians moved their “more than 450 pounds of the enriched gas… [to] at another vital Iranian nuclear site at Isfahan…[that] was pulverized by Tomahawk missiles fired by a U.S. submarine.” Trying to safely store its enriched uranium, Iran mistakenly moved it to a site that was “pulverized.” In Hersch’s view, the Iranian attempt at safeguarding its enriched uranium failed completely.

Most of Hersch’s article discussed the Defense Department’s leaks reaching the opposite conclusion. It hinted that Iran’s enriched uranium remained a threat. Not so, Hersch wrote. The United States and Israel denied their military success. They were inflating the Iranian threat.

Also on July 4th, the Financial Times looked back on the war and reached this conclusion: “Saudi Arabia sticks with Iran after Israel war.” The Saudis and Iran follow different branches of Islam. This led Saudi Arabia to lean towards the United States, but this changed in 2023 after China brokered normal relations with Iran. The war did not disturb these changes.

On Sunday, the New York Times concluded that China and Russia did not rush “to aid Iran during its war with Israel or when U.S. forces bombed Iranian nuclear sites.” According to the Times interpretation, Iran did not receive the support it should expect from an ally.

 The Times was not exploring an equally obvious conclusion. China and Russia refused to escalate a hot war between the U.S., Israel, and Iran. If this interpretation wasn’t brought to the public’s attention, it certainly registered with keen international observers. The Times article embraced the idea that China and Russia should have joined the war if they were true allies of Iran. That is hardly obvious. Their choice to diffuse tensions is clearly reasonable and arguably in Iran’s best interest. Had the war gotten hotter, the damage to Iran would have been greater.

The current issue of Bulletin of Atomic Scientists sketches the extensive damage done to Iran. Water supplies, the petroleum industry, and shopping centers were attacked. It seems likely that the Gulf states, China, and Russia will help Iran rebuild.

China, Russia, and North Korea, in all probability, will help Iran replace missiles and drones destroyed in the war. Tehran did not beat Israel, but its government was uplifted by demonstrations of support from Iranian citizens. Israel remains the most powerful nation in the region, but Iran demonstrated its ability to damage Israel.

Israel couldn’t deliver a death blow. Iran was fighting until the end and caused extensive damage, demonstrating that Israel’s vaunted missile shield could be penetrated.

Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA analyst, prepared a map showing 17 sites in Israel that suffered extensive damage. Israel was as happy as Iran that the fighting stopped after 12 days. Israel has an edge over Iran, but it is no longer the undisputed military power in West Asia.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Trump the Statesman?

Does Make America Great Again mean Make Trump Great?

Trump ended the Iranian Israeli war quickly and one expects the warring nations sighed with relief. “During the conflict, Israeli cities sustained several hits from Iranian ballistic missiles, and Iranian military targets were subjected to widespread bombing. Neither side wanted the war to go on much longer, at least at that intensity, and both were eager for a way out that they could portray as a victory,” reported the Wall Street Journal.

Iran and Israel will return to their hostile coexistence. Such tension is frequent in international relations: the U.S. and U.S.S.R, South and North Korea, Cuba and the U.S. Even if you do not love each other, war isn’t necessary.

It is a stateman’s obligation to stifle war between hostile nations. A responsibility frequently lacking in the U.S. Congress, where war hawks play an important role supporting Israel’s use of force against Palestine and Iran.

Unlike President Biden, Trump recognizes that promoting peace and avoiding wars enhances U.S. influence.

After the 12-day war tested Trump’s loyalty to Israel, he said to hell with it and simply told Iran and Israel stop. In the process he stopped the spread of nuclear weapons by bombing Iranian facilities.

It is unknown if this no-war objective will remain a fixture of U.S. policy, but it should be. Joe Biden picked sides backing Ukraine against Russia and Israel against Palestine. He associated the U.S. with bloody crimes against humanity and did not stop fighting. Trump faces political headwinds if he tries the “stop fighting” mantra on Russia and the Ukraine. While Iran and Israel could both claim victory, such an ending has not surfaced in the Ukrainian and Russian war. There is no evidence that Trump is willing to accept a reality where Russia wins and Ukraine must cooperate with Russia.

But one thing is clear, Biden didn’t try to stop fighting, he picked sides, and the wars continued.

In West Asia, Trump stayed close to Israel but intervened only on the international principle of nuclear nonproliferation and then flatly told Iran and Israel stop fighting. An action that could lead to Israel backing off its hopes for a greater Israel and pave the way for coexistence between Muslin and Jew.

To take this position, the President acted alone without consulting Congress. According to the Wall Street Journal, a pro-Trump publication, he created “a new American foreign-policy doctrine focused on clearly defining national interests, aggressively negotiating to achieve them and the use of overwhelming force if necessary.”

A problem remains: Trump acted alone like a king. As the WSJ reported, “U.S. officials who would normally play a role during such a crisis were also left out of the loop, administration officials said, a sign of how narrow is the circle of advisers Trump trusts.”

It is possible, even common, to blast this President as a dictator, but one alternative receiving little consideration is for the Democrats to change their policy and support Trump’s posture. The Democrats could become the party of peace by avoiding dividing the world into liberal Democracies and authoritarian nations. The United States should be a party of world order and reject the misguided belief that it will only back countries who have governments approved by Americans.

Many nations reject U.S. political institutions but avoiding wars with them and between them is the path of wisdom and statesmanship. With one party backing the primacy of peace it becomes possible to reduce the threat that Trump becomes dictator.

Trump is hardly consistent, and his accomplishment in the West Asian war could easily be a one-off. But it is important that those of us who believe war is the evil and peace must be the object of policy to recognize that what Trump did reflects this principle.

This is not to say Trump is a good President or to ignore his attacks on immigrants, his requirement that people wanting medical care to seek employment, or his battle against an anti-racist program like Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). Trump is not the President trying to create harmony and fairness in the United States.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Normal Relations With Russia?

I am not pro Trump, but early indications offer convincing evidence that he is not a clown. His upheaval suggests he wants to change history and put the United States on a new path.

His policies may have their roots in isolationism. I am not a student of U.S. foreign policy, so I have no opinion on this subject, but from the start of this administration Trump challenged U.S. power centers.

The shutdown of the U.S. Agency for International Development dealt a hammer blow to a CIA operation. To be sure, the agency feeds starving children and stops the spread of disease. Its humanitarian work is praiseworthy, but it is also linked to soft power, a U.S. tactic.

USAID is tied to political demonstrations to oust foreign governments. Leaders were deposed in Tunisia, Yemen and Libya. In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak left office in 2011. In 2014 U.S. Foreign policy mavens dreamed that if China crushed the Hong Kong Umbrella Revolution, it would revive the “unfortunate” memories of the massacre in Tiananmen Square. The most extravagant dreamers hoped sympathy demonstrations would leapfrog across China creating general instability.

At the other end of the globe, Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution started in 2013, and by 2014 a new pro-European Union government would become a NATO proxy.  The pro-Russian government was ejected.

The sharp economic contraction following breakup of the Soviet Union, brought USAID into Ukraine in 1992 and by 2022 in addition to programs supporting health and education, 80% of Ukrainian media outlets relied on grants, mostly indirectly, from American sources like USAID. Ukrainian political commentary is funded by U.S. dollars.

Trump’s hostility to USAID is an attack on the deep state, and one of his first actions. A promise made a promise kept. His new Defense Secretary slammed the Military Industrial Complex by insisting on an 8% budget cut.

Musk’s DOGE search for corruption and waste made it difficult for members of Congress to object. DOGE’s demands for personal details is not directed at you or me, but it is certain to make members of Congress cautious. At a U.N. security council vote the United States split with its European allies by refusing to blame Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. This was too much for a few Republican Congressmembers. Senator John Curtis, Republican of Utah, went on social media and said he was “deeply troubled by the vote,” which had “put us on the same side as Russia and North Korea.”

No Democratic leader would have taken on deep state institutions in this public fashion.

In West Asia, Trump’s personal envoy, Steve Witkoff, pushed Netanyahu into accepting a cease fire. Trump, his Vice-President, and new Defense Secretary challenged the Biden narrative that the Ukrainian invasion was unprovoked aggression by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

Trump will not make Russia an ally, but he will recognize that when Putin came to power Russia was broke and unable to guard its nuclear weapons. 35 years later Russia fought a war with a U.S. proxy, did not run out of weapons, and seized 20% of the disputed territory. Russia has reemerged as a great power, and President Trump is insisting that normal relations be established with Moscow. Putin is no longer an unspeakable dictator. He is President Putin.

It was revealed that under Biden the U.S. had virtually shut down the Russian Embassy in Washingon and ended diplomatic discussions, a mistake Trump quickly corrected. Putin insisted that Zelensky, the Ukrainian President, be excluded from negotiation and Trump refused to turn the Russian condition into a roadblock.

Biden had insisted Ukraine had stopped the Russian military; Trump said Ukraine had all but lost and could not act like a winner.  

Peace discussions over Eastern Europe were only one dramatic change in U.S. policy, the destruction of Gaza ended with Palestinians free to move in their own country and Hamas celebrated as heroes. Hostages were released. The ceasefire is holding, but its future is up in the air.

Trump’s preposterous suggestion that all Palestinians be removed prompted an Arab alliance and the drafting of a $20B plan to start the reconstruction of Gaza. The resumption of war is possible, even likely, but so far the ceasefire has cooled the fighting.

European nations are hesitantly considering negotiations with Russia as the U.S. President relaxes tensions with Moscow.

In a matter of weeks Trump has placed U.S. foreign policy on a new footing and opened the possibility of normal relations with Russia. Trump is not a clown, and he is challenging the deep state institutions that prospered during the Ukraine war while Russia was treated as an enemy.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Is The World Heading Towards Catastrophe?

The nightmare of Trump joining Putin in damning Ukrainian President Zelensky signals the end of NATO and the unraveling of a world order, bringing a proliferation of atomic weapons as nations seek protection. Wars will break out all over the world. Concerns like these animate international affairs.

Israel with U.S. support will attack Iran while invading Palestine to remove its population. Russia will come to the aid of Iran, its ally. Taiwan watching the epidemic of violence will seek China’s protection. U.S. troops will converge on this trouble spot deserting South Korea. Japan will be on its own and rearm. Violence will break out with China at its Philippine border, bringing Australia into this international maelstrom.

In West Asia, forcing Palestinians out of their homeland will inflame tensions between Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Turkey will protect its interest in Syria. Europe will unite and form an armed service to protect itself from Russian expansion.

In an optimistic view, there is no necessity for these trouble spots to bring armed conflict.

On Friday Feb 21, in Saudi Arabia a $20 billion Egyptian plan to redevelop Gaza under the supervision of the U.S. will be discussed by a working group preparing for an Arab summit in March. “The Arab proposal, mostly based on an Egyptian plan, involves forming a national Palestinian committee to govern Gaza without Hamas involvement and international participation in reconstruction without displacing Palestinians abroad.” The Arabs believe their 20-billion-dollar contribution will entice Trump while Israel will get a sweetener. Its firms will receive contracts. The Arabs want to prevent the expulsion of Palestinians, a human rights nightmare trumpeted by Netanyahu and Trump. Last week’s genocidal removal of the Palestinians could end with a reasonable solution and the rebirth of Gaza. Israel lowered tensions by publicly considering allowing Palestinians to emigrate voluntarily.

South Korea is getting a new President who may want the U.S. armed forces to leave. Japan may be thrilled and seek the end of U.S. supervision. What looked like a catastrophe might seem like a new beginning for Japan and South Korea. Japan and China share a mutual security interest; they depend on freedom of the seas. Food, fuel and other necessities must be delivered by ship. A pullback of U.S. forces would encourage the two nations to enter into cooperation agreements.

A calamity is not inevitable.

Everybody recognizes that forcing Zelensky out will have international repercussions. It’s possible to oust Zelensky without accepting the controversial view that Ukraine provoked the crisis. During Trump’s first term, Zelensky cooperated with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in making the argument that Trump was pro-Russian. The first impeachment of Trump revolved around the Ukraine and Zelensky sided with the Democrats. This political history demands a Trump reprisal against Zelensky.

But the bottom line remains, Putin is winning the war and is under no obligation to make concessions.

As is normal, the future is laced with possibilities, and we may hope that human wit will avoid disaster.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Trump’s negotiating style Part 2

Trump has broken with the Democrats and their devotion to Ukraine. In a perceptive piece, Peter Baker writes “President Trump made clear that the days of isolating Russia are over and suggested that Ukraine was to blame for being invaded.”

Blame is an odd word for the harsh realities of internation relations. In Baker’s reporting the U.S. has in recent years adopted the view that Ukraine is the victim of Russian aggression. It’s a world of good guys and bad guys. Zelinsky is standing up for freedom and self-determination. Putin, “the dictator,” is the invader. Trump’s radical change: accepting Putin’s right to impose Russia’s will on the smaller good guys. A right often exercised by the United States.

Baker is surely right. Millions of Europeans and Americans accept the view that Russia is the invader and also accept the view that the callous Trump doesn’t care.

Trump has started peace negotiations on Ukraine and accepted the Russian agenda that excludes Zelinsky. Baker describes it as a scandal. My view is international relations are not for the faint of heart. A small country like Ukraine shouldn’t pick a fight with a great power like Russia. In fairness to Ukraine, Russia’s great power status was only recently confirmed. But a huge number of Ukrainians understood that provoking Russia was a disaster and fled the country after demonstrations (with CIA help?) ousted the pro-Russian government in 2014.

The war that turned hot in 2022 after the Russian invasion has basically shattered Ukraine while Russia’s industrial base has grown to supply their soldiers and improve their fighting force. It’s an unfair world, but Baker is wrong. The United States are not good guys; they are practitioners of great power politics.

While the Times and many Americans view Russia as the bully and Ukraine as the victim, American weapons and money supported Israel’s campaign against the Palestinians. A campaign so violent that it has provoked an investigation by the International Criminal Court into allegations that Israel is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The rosy view of the U.S. as good guys is propaganda. Even if Ukraine did not cooperate with the CIA and rearm, it still should have seen the necessity of ignoring provocations and preserving a working relationship with their bigger neighbor: Russia. Perhaps a cooperative Ukraine might have avoided the February 2022 invasion.

Trump recognizes Russia’s great power status. Something that Congress and the Democrats resisted. This has had a dramatic effect on Europe, the United States, and Ukraine. The new administration in Washington believes Putin’s agenda is a workable basis for negotiations. The Russian president believes Zelensky’s leadership is illegal under Ukrainian law. Putin wants elections. Normally a U.S. demand.

As a result, Zelensky is excluded from the negotiations and will face demands that he resign. This is a concrete result of Trump’s five-week-old administration. 

At a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels Pete Hegseth, the self-proclaimed warrior, and new Secretary of Defense announced policies that met Russia’s President Vladimir Putin agenda for opening negotiations.

Ukraine would not join NATO, it would cede to Russia provinces conquered during Ukraine’s misguided war against Russia.

Should an international force watch over Ukraine, Hegseth said it would be a “non-NATO Mission.” No countries were named but clearly China, a Russian ally would qualify, ditto for U.S. allies Japan and South Korea. Journalists reported Europe gave the proposal a chilly reception.

Negotiations have started; Hegseth spoke publicly on Wednesday Feb. 12 . Privately Steve Witkoff, Trumps special mediator, was in Moscow. The next day Trump and Putin had a long phone call that Trump called productive.

By Thursday, Hegseth was soothing Congressional critics and U. S. allies. His ideas would be subject to change during negotiations. He wasn’t announcing hard and fast positions. It would be up Trump to decide what “to allow or not allow.”

A possible major event has Putin and Trump holding direct talks in Moscow on May 9 for the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the German surrender to Russia in 1945, when Russia and the United States were allies against Hitler.

The President promised to engage in nuclear talks once “we straighten it all out” in the Middle East and Ukraine. The President is breaking with a costly Biden administration plan to modernize the armed forces. He told reporters, “There’s no reason for us to be building brand-new nuclear weapons…We already have so many you can destroy the world 50 times over.”

Talks about peace in Ukraine started on Feb 18 in Saudi Arabia. Ukraine was not invited. The location was odd for Ukrainian peace talks but a sensible one for involving Egypt in a Palestinian peace process.

At this initial meeting Moscow and Washington agreed to expand their embassy staffs. It would have the practical effect of making it easier for each country to obtain accurate information and permit non-binding discussion of tentative plans.

Perhaps another Putin hope was being realized. According to a Moscow statement, “The two sides expressed their mutual willingness to interact on pressing international issues, including the settlement around Ukraine.” Putin is eager to establish a framework for discussing major issues with the United States.

A neutral Ukraine might model itself after Austria. That country’s founding documents provide that “In all future times Austria will not join any military alliances and will not permit the establishment of any foreign military bases on her territory.”

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Trump’s negotiating style

On Friday, Trump’s high tariffs on Canada and Mexico were in effect. On Monday they were gone.

On Tuesday Trump said the Palestinians must leave Gaza, the most extreme demand of Netanyahu’s ultra nationalist coalition. The United States should take over Gaza, he added. Within hours, European and Arab States including Saudi Arabia and Egypt said no way.

Trump had to have been pleased. The most extreme Israeli proposal had been trounced and died without Trump leaving any fingerprints. Indeed, he roped in the most extreme supporters of Israel. The ones most likely to contribute to the Republican Party and most willing to call Democratic doves antisemites were happy. They were convinced that their President Donald Trump was a true friend of Israel, uncontaminated by wishy washy moderates.

The Arab’s rejection presumably was music to Trump’s ear: no American troops would go to West Asia. But Trump was the crazy man who wanted to use American power in Palestine. Democrats’ reaction is still taking shape. They and their friendly media accused Trump of being a mad man, exactly the image he wanted to project.

The other step Trump took offered Iran unspecified goodies if Tehran gave up atomic weapons. A proposal that presumably sits well with the Saudi Arabians. Trump reached this step without looking like a moderate. Netanyahu was neutralized. He was a major endorser of Trump and has damaged, if not destroyed, his relationship with Democrats. Trump’s headline grabbing proposal to turn Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East” is actually the opening gambit for the intricate negotiations that could lead to stability.

Bloomberg reported, “US President Donald Trump said Wednesday he’s willing to immediately start working on a new nuclear deal with Iran that allows the country to ‘peacefully grow and prosper,’ seemingly softening his stance on the Islamic Republic.”

In a matter of hours, Netanyahu’s visit had generated a proposal to reduce tension with Iran. An outcome from the first face-to-face meeting between the President and the Israeli leader that nobody predicted. Trump had gotten the better of Netanyahu. Democrats were left sputtering. They don’t support the removal of the Palestinians and consider Trump’s Riviera proposal outlandish. Accusations that usually have the effect of increasing Republican confidence in Trump and making it unlikely in the near future that Democrats will play a constructive role.

There is no mystery to Trump’s method: open with an idea that will be rejected and then move on. Putting Israel in a box might create a stunning success—a cease fire that lasts.

The Democrats project competence as opposed to Trump’s chaos, but they lack Trump’s showmanship. The voters are evenly divided but Democrats should not be fooled with the comforting belief that Trump is crazy and incompetent. It’s safe to say that eventually Democrats will make more specific, even damning, criticisms of Trump’s Middle East policies.  

Posted on by Nathan Riley

The News is about Peace

Since this piece was first published, immediately after the ceasefire, several criticisms became obvious. John Measheimer stressed there can be no peace with Israel where the Jews dominate the Palestinians just as the whites dominated blacks in apartheid South Africa. Unless Trump’s special ambassador Steve Witkoff can breathe new life into the Abraham Accords, allowing Arab gulf states to finance Arab peacekeepers, Israel will be the sole country judging if Hamas is complying with the terms of the peace treaty. In this circumstance, it is widely expected that Israel will renew its attack on Hamas. With the release of the hostages, Hamas will have lost its trump card pressuring Israel to act peacefully. Whatever else is true, this ceasefire is at best only a beginning.   

Friday, January 17, 2025

Days before Trump officially becomes President peace has become the news story. If all the provisions of the agreement become effective war between Israel and Palestine might be over.

Antiwar analyst John Mearsheimer concluded that the proposed treaty preserves the close relationship between Hamas and the Palestinians.

Palestinians will be able to return to their homes and Israelis will leave Gaza. Hostages will be released, and some Palestinian prisoners will get out of jail.

Israel might be compelled to live with a Palestinian nation says Mearsheimer, a professor of International Relations at the University of Chicago, who believes the goal of a Greater Israel might be over if this treaty begins a real peace process.

Although negotiated by President Biden’s appointees many Democrats are conceding that Trump’s forceful backing was critical. Trump promised to end the Ukrainian war on day one, but actually he may started peace in the Middle East on day one. A task everyone thought would be much harder. It is a stunning challenge to the Democratic Party.

Presumably a lasting peace will require peacekeepers. Trump is not going to send U.S. troops. One possibility is using Egyptian soldiers financed by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States. In return Israel will establish normal relations with other Muslim nations.

Iran would be on the sidelines. As a Shia nation it doesn’t fit easily with the Sunni Muslims who border Israel. In other words, optimists believe this is a big deal that might give Trump a place in history.

Nothing is certain but in a matter of days peace has become possible and this has worked a revolution in the political dialogue.

Consider the impact on the religious fundamentalist Trump appointed Ambassador to Israel. Mike Huckabee will have the happy task of soothing relations between Israel, the U.S. and Palestine. He won’t be a cheerleader for Israeli aggression that was the widespread anxiety in December. Rather he will speak a common language with Israelis who justify their actions by citing the Bible’s Old Testament.

This is a shocking possibility. The Republican hope that Jews will switch parties. It might happen because the new President is more diplomatic than the Democrats.

Democrats have spent years condemning Trump as lawless and stupid. What happens if it was the Democrats who refused to listen and evaluate?

Posted on by Nathan Riley

A Ceasefire Would Benefit Israel and Iran

Throw a party, that is what Freedom Democrats should be doing. They should be getting stronger and finding new supporters.

Get everybody together, the election is over, the Democracy is safe. Donald Trump’s days of overthrowing the government and falsifying election results seem finished now that he has won. He wants to be boss and leave his mark on history.

Wars in Palestine and Ukraine agitate Freedom Democrats. War is the opposite of freedom. In war the powerful tell the weak what to do, and the soldiers kill to prove they mean it. President Kennedy said that peace does not require some fantasy of harmony. “It requires only” that nations and groups “live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement.”

Freedom Democrats favor peace. Got a complaint take It to a lawyer or a diplomat. Don’t shoot and be a brute.

In Ukraine and Palestine, bullets and bombs are flying;  families are crying. Young men with lives to live are robbed of their future; tens of thousands are dead or their bodies mangled.

Israel is bringing out a blood lust among its own people and leaders in the United States. Trump’s love of Israel is part of a larger movement in the U.S. accepting all-out war. To be a supporter of Israel requires tolerance of brutal warfare.

Trump’s choice for Defense Department Chief, Pete Hegseth, argues there is only one way to fight, that is fight to win. In this view, wars are not a popularity contest where local groups can be persuaded to support our side. The objective is forcing an invaded nation to submit to our policies or face fatal consequences.

When we left Afghanistan, the people we thought were on our side fled and in a matter of days the Talian took control. We thought that supporting women’s rights, schooling, and other services would win popular support. But the Afghanis realized that without U.S. soldiers the Taliban were going to rule and Muslim Sharia law would prevail.

Hegseth’s view is that soldiers must be warriors and should have the full backing of the U.S. government and fight until they win. Afghanistan is 2.5 times larger than France. Pacifying, or perhaps the word is “subjugating,” such a large country would cost billions. The number of soldiers required probably would prevent the U.S. from fighting anywhere else in the world.

Thus, Hegseth’s ideas lead to two potential conclusions: Afghanistan is not that important and shouldn’t be the United States’s number one priority. In this case the argument leads to nonintervention. Or, alternatively, the size of the U.S. military must be drastically increased, and the U.S. budget must pay for all-out war.

People in the United States are not joining the military in large numbers. The U.S. avoids confronting this issue. It adjusts its targets down to coincide with new enlistments; only with this sleight of hand can the D.O.D. claim its targets were reached. Why all-out war in a far-away nation like Afghanistan would increase enlistments is beyond my comprehension.

Hegseth’s nomination is controversial. He is not crazy and Republicans may well unite to back him, and it might be possible to split the Democratic minority in the United States senate, giving Hegseth additional support.

The downside to his view is that American public opinion should accept an extraordinary level of violence. The movement towards an American security state and away from democracy would proceed by making the country accustomed to all-out war. This is a dangerous prospect.

This article is being written before the Israeli cabinet has agreed to a ceasefire in Lebanon. Stopping the killing is a victory for Israel; it means that the Palestinians are abandoned. Iraq accepts Israel’s domination of this people and the increase in Israel’s size to include Gaza and the West Bank.

Presumably, Israel should curb its hostility towards Iran. Iran in turn will likely accept Israel’s right to drill for oil and gas in the Mediterranean off the Lebanon coast. In other words, Iran and Israel will benefit from the ceasefire and the Palestinians get nothing.

Hamas will have left the Palestinians crushed. No other Middle East nation is willing to risk Israel’s wrath by going to war in support of the Palestinian cause. Undoubtedly, this is a lesson that the United States and Israel hope will be accepted by the Palestinians. Rather than think of Hamas as heroes they will be convinced that Hamas’s adventurism has harmed their lives. Surely, this is a lesson that Israel and the United States support.

If there was world government, then Palestine could take its complaints to the United Nations and try to end the apartheid separation between Muslim and Israeli. Unhappily, the ceasefire will demonstrate to Israel and the Middle East that policies deemed genocide by the International Criminal Court prevail.

The Palestinians will be left to suffer without any meaningful international support. World government could produce an opposite result without death and destruction.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Immigration Crisis

In case you missed it, the growing number of immigrants in this country is a major political issue. Whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump becomes the new President, they and their political party must deal with the political fallout.

The arrival of hundreds of thousand of Venezuelans will move the nation to the right. They and most U.S. journalists have an easy explanation for their plight: socialism. Venezula used to be a wealthy Latin American nation until it took control away from the U.S. oil companies pumping black gold from the nation’s large reserves. This political act forced Venezuela into poverty. According to the U.S. version of events, President Nicolas Maduro led a reign of political oppression, stifling Venezuelans who supported the privileged position of the big oil companies.

It wasn’t U.S. wealth and prosperity that brought the Venezuelans to the U.S. border. It was the turmoil and economic downturn in their country that persuaded Venezuelans to make the long journey.  

A U.S. embargo against the “authoritarian” regime of President Maduro prevents the country from using U.S. dollars in its trade. Like most countries, Venezuela depends on imports for vital supplies; no dollars meant no supplies. Venezuelan doctors have complained about severe shortages of medicine. In any case, the political turmoil from the U.S. blockade has led to the emigration of seven million Venezuelans.

In Haiti, the breakdown of the government led to severe lawlessness. Gangs took over the country. Thousands fled, many reaching the United States border. These are the people Trump claimed ate the pets of Ohio residents. In Texas, the flood of Haitians has created grave tensions among Mexican Americans, many of whom have families and friends in Mexico. Border crossings that used to take a matter of minutes can now take hours.

Immigration will be a central issue in the United States, no matter who wins the election. The arrival of Venezuelans who believe their nation was ruined by socialism means they will be a conservative force. If either Democrats or Republicans make a plausible case that a new policy is socialist, we can expect the Venezuelans in the United States to oppose it. Most likely these new immigrants, like the Cubans who fled Fidel Castro, will become stalwart Republicans. Democrats will no longer assume that immigrant voters are supporters.

The point of this article is that a world government, in all likelihood, would prevent these mass migrations. The collapse of the Haitian government would automatically lead the United Nations, assuming it had become the global sovereign, to send armed forces to restore order in Haiti and provide assistance to this beleaguered nation.

The complaints of the United States about Venezuela could then be adjudicated by a world court, which could use soldiers to enforce its decisions. In this way, world government prevents crises that force thousands, if not millions, of people to leave their homes searching for safety. For example, migrations, from North Africa especially, shattered German political coalitions and forced Angela Merkel, surely one of the great leaders of this century, to resign.

It is easy to understand that Americans would be skittish about giving up sovereignty and placing it in the hands of the United Nations, whose authority would increase drastically if it became the sovereign responsible for making the Earth’s people cooperate and stop crises from developing.

Crises in far away countries are causing political turmoil in the wealthy nations. A world government can moderate, perhaps even prevent, the turmoil that convinces families to leave their native land in the hopes of finding a better future.

This is hardly the only benefit of world government. Indeed, a chief objective is preventing wars that plague the world. But by forcing nations to justify their actions and consider the impacts on other countries there would be a substantial increase in world cooperation. One obvious benefit is international cooperation to deal with climate change and reclaim desert lands. As these arid regions acquire water, transported across national boundaries, they will help feed the world’s growing population.

We live in a global economy and the advent of new information technologies like computers means that one institution, the U.N., can keep track of the world’s problems and offer assistance.

Such assistance will not always be welcome. Israel recently banned U.N. relief workers from their nation. The United States’s 62-year blockade of Cuba was recently rejected by 187 nations in the General Assembly. Only the United States and Israel supported the continued isolation of Cuba, which has found itself so short of petroleum that there have been electrical blackouts.

A major reason for the U.S. blockade are the Cuban-American votes in Florida, which are hardly a majority but are sufficiently large to make candidates lose if they support reform of U.S. Cuban policy. World government removes this obstacle.

World government is no panacea. Undoubtedly, nations will have conflicts and political groups will demand governmental reforms. But what world government promises when these conflicts occur is that the nations or their dissident citizens resolve their arguments with lawyers, not bullets. This is surely such a great benefit that the United States and other nations in the world should consider giving up their sovereignty in favor of making the United Nations the chief government in the world.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

How Can We End the Atrocities in Gaza?

Wars aren’t civilized. Limbs are lost. People bury their loved ones. Hate becomes a virtue that will save a country. Torture and violence become normalized. An unethical transformation turns the bad into good. In the Israeli war with Palestine rape is defended and torture practiced.

The horrors of the Holocaust and the ties that exist between Jews and other groups in this country guarantee that the United States will be a passionate friend of Israel. So it is no surprise that the bombing of children, the destruction of hospitals, and the deaths of 40,000 Palestinians make Americans uncomfortable but unwilling to damn the Israelis.

Yet the sad truth is that the horrors of the October 7th massacre of Jews has become an excuse for allowing Israel to commit crimes that are larger than the misdeeds of Hamas. This is not surprising; Israel has a free hand to revenge these deaths. If we allowed women to punish rapists, families to revenge the murder of loved ones, or property owners to punish thieves our criminal justice system would be equally harsh.

Those Americans protesting the horrors imposed on the Palestinians are labeled rioters and Antisemites for objecting to the atrocities in Gaza. As the most powerful nation in the world, the United States should be diffusing the war. Instead it has chosen sides. This nation should be building bridges to peace. We are allowing Israel, the victim of the October 7th massacre, to become the judge and jury in its own cause.

The Palestinians, we are told, want to destroy Israel. Whether this is true or an exaggeration, history clearly shows that Israel is more likely to destroy Palestine and push it into the sea. Palestinians are not the destroyers of Israel but the victims of Israel’s superior strength.

For this reason, the United States should have avoided choosing sides and sought a humanitarian resolution that would provide ways to peacably resolve differences.

It is likely that before peacable solutions become routine the nations of the world must impose fixed boundaries that will stop the constant expansion of Israel into territory that once was occupied by Palestinians.

The present system allowing Israel to control the punishment for Palestinian resistance almost guarantees that any resolution will expand Israel and diminish Palestine. In other words, giving Israel the authority to punish its opposition will assure that any settlement is temporary until the next outbreak of violence.

It is unwise for the United States to declare Israel the good guys and Palestine the aggressor. The two parties must have an independent judge with the authority to impose a settlement that leaves both parties unsatisfied but holds out the promise of stopping the recurring violence.

At a minimum, Israel must stop policing the border between Palestine and Israel. A neutral third party must have this responsibility. Israeli troops must stay on their side of the border and stop face-to-face patrolling of the Palestinians.

The current scenario for imposing governance by neutral parties calls for funding from Saudi Arabia. In return they would expect to increase their military power, perhaps acquiring atomic bombs.  A controversial proposal guaranteed to create international unease and which may be rejected by the region and the world.

It would be unsurprising but horrifying if the world powers do not reach an agreement that separates Israel and Palestine. The current system permits Israel and its superior military force to be deeply involved in Palestinian affairs. It’s a system where Palestinian objections will flare up; conceding that Israel is the dominant power allows it to constantly expand and turns Palestine into a colony without a stable government.

Under the present system of independent nations, it is hard to envision nations that will assume the responsibility for imposing restrictions that curb Israeli expansion and police violent Palestinian protests. Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher, famously called for the “universal rule of law” enforced by all the nations of the world. Through world government, we can create world peace. This system is desperately needed in Gaza.