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

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 · 4 Comments

Making the U.N. Sovereign

In the last two articles, I have shared my enthusiasm for President John F. Kennedy’s goal of strengthening  “the United Nations,” as an “instrument for peace, to develop it into a genuine world security system—a system capable of resolving disputes on the basis of law, of insuring the security of the large and the small, and of creating conditions under which arms can finally be abolished.”

President Kennedy wanted the U.N. to create “a system capable of resolving disputes on the basis of Law.” That should be the objective of Freedom Democrats: “insuring the security of the large and small.”  The destruction of Ukraine after Russia’s attack and the gut-wrenching bloody clash between Israel and Palestine clearly demonstrate why the U.N. must protect “the large and small.”

Kennedy put his faith in the two world powers of 1963. He assumed cooperation between the Soviet Union and the United States could bring peace and world disarmament.

His fear was that nuclear war would bring the end of humanity. Sixty-one years later, we believe it unlikely that atomic weapons will be used. My vision of world government goes far beyond disarmament.

In my opinion, it is likely that each nation will have armed forces, but the dominant power must be the United Nations. It should have a monopoly on atomic weapons and armed forces for enforcing its decisions. Bloody conflicts become unlikely; U.N. armed forces aren’t destroying a nation. They have a more practical objective: arrest the leaders who are fighting international decrees. Clearly, these leaders may have followers, and the U.N. armed forces, acting more like police than soldiers, must dissuade these supporters from turning to violence. Should a serious military challenge arise, the U.N. armed forces should be bolstered by calling on other nations for assistance. Just as the U.S. Constitution gives the central government the power to enhance its strength by calling on state militias.

Should a country file a complaint about another country, both nations must appear before a U.N. tribunal and make their case. It would be illegal and lead to possible intervention by the U.N. for a nation to ignore the complaint.

Minority groups, be they tribes or political parties, confronting genocide could also file complaints. Pol Pot’s mass murder of his political opponents in Cambodia should be within the U.N. jurisdiction.

In other words, the U.N. would be the Earth’s sovereign nation. Its mandate would be far larger than world peace. It would supervise the cooperation of nations confronting climate change; it would issue money and prevent countries from being unable to pay debts because the value of another country currency, like the dollar, soared, it would soften free trade’s impact on worker’s wages, and it would raise money for vital infrastructure projects. In an emergency, it would protect populations from famine. In short, the U.N. mission will be peace, “Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living,” in President Kennedy’s glowing words.

This change has historic examples: Italy in the 19th century turned its city states into one nation. At the end of the 18th century after the United States established the Constitution, the former colonies became a new nation under the authority of a central government capable of collecting taxes and organizing armed forces to protect every colony and prevent the colonies from going to war against each other.  In each case small bodies gave up their sovereignty so that a larger sovereign could improve life. A U.N. world government would yoke the separate nations into a common body that will, in President Kennedy’s glowing vision, “build a better life for their children—not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women—not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.”

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.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Create a World Government in the 21st Century

Turning the United Nations into a world government is a daunting task.

It’s as big a job as the one held by representatives of the 13 original states shortly after the end of the American Revolution. Chaired by George Washington, they wrote the U.S. Constitution and laid the groundwork for the Bill of Rights.

Already, the United States was dividing into free and slave states, and the primary concern of the founders of the Constitution was to create united states with a central government that could tax and wage war. The confederation that governed the 13 states during the Revolution did not have these powers, leading to constant pleas by George Washington for money, guns, and food.

The United Nations currently depends on contributions by individual states. If the United Nations was the world government, it would control the flow of funds. It would no longer depend on the voluntary contributions of the members. It would have the power to create its own budget. Obviously, existing nations would harbor great doubts about giving the United Nations this kind of power. It’s up to the public to say ending wars is more important than preserving existing national states. The United States won’t disappear. Russia and China won’t disappear. The power of these governments would be hemmed in by international law enforced by the United Nations.

The United States is the biggest contributor to the United Nations, and it should come as no surprise that it expects to influence the U.N.’s decisions.

The budget of the United Nations, if it was the world government, would be huge. For example, it would need soldiers to enforce international agreements and money to pay for emergencies all over the globe.

For example, with a world government the border between Palestine and Israel would be policed by U.N., not by Israel. These forces could be volunteers from the U.S., China, India, and other nations who stop being soldiers for a nation and swear to take their orders from the United Nations. If as expected a large number of U.N. soldiers would come from the United States, this would protect United States security.

The details must be worked out by experts from all over the world. Creating a world government would be the work of thousands from all the countries in the world.

There are elements in the current world structure that resemble world government. The International Criminal Court accepts complaints from one country about the behavior of another. Its activities are in the news. South Africa has complained that Israel and Hamas have violated international law in Gaza. Judges for the court in May of 2024 were weighing the evidence.

This is a good thing, but it is not world government. Were the United Nations to be the world government, Israel couldn’t attack Palestine, and Hamas would be hunted down as criminals.

World government means outlawing war. Nations would be required to take their complaints to the world government for adjudication. Before bullets are fired, the problems between nations would be resolved by decisions of the world government. In this light, the International Criminal Court is a disappointment. It asserts its jurisdiction after the fighting started.

To be successful, world government must assert its authority before blood is shed. In other words, don’t call out the troops, call the lawyers. It’s a system that is remarkably successful in the United States. World government must have the authority to stop groups from going to war.

This will be a massive undertaking. In this age of computers and the internet, the technology clearly exists for keeping track of the thousands of international disputes that exist all over the world. What doesn’t exist is an institution whose primary task is to resolve these disputes.

Such a government must also provide food and medical care after disasters.

Experts undoubtedly have many ideas about ways to create such an institution. It is certainly beyond my skill, but what I can do is ask my fellow citizens to get involved in asking the experts to speak up. Let’s make the 21st century, the century of world government.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Obstacles to World Government

The rising death toll in Gaza should be linked to the tens of thousands of deaths in Ukraine. By the time the United States left Afghanistan, starvation had become a problem for the supposed victors of the invasion following the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center.

Syria and Iraq and various states in Africa confront persistent violence.

In my last blog, I argued that world government was the best way to end the constant eruption of wars.

A major reward of turning the United Nations into a world government is historical greatness. The change is as drastic as going from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution of 1787. From a system of voluntary cooperation to the establishment of a central government that had overall responsibility for preserving the peace of the new nation.

This has proved a daunting task: ending slavery with a bloody civil war demonstrates that the founders’ solution was far from perfect. Nonetheless, students of history still recognize the great achievements of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, to name just a few of the historically great leaders who turned victory over Great Britain into a system of united states.

Creating a world government would be just as great a historical achievement as turning the revolutionary victory into a permanent government. If you want the world to remember you for generations then you want to become a patriot establishing a functioning world government.

Overcoming the obstacles to world government will mark you as a great person, a maker of history. In this blog, we will look at what happens to U.S. power if the United Nations becomes the seat of world government.

Stated baldly, this means the United States and presumably its allies cannot go to war without the permission of the United Nations.

World government requires that before a nation can turn to mass violence it must first make its case to the lawyers and diplomats at the U.N. This system of resolving conflict is well established in the United States. Our courts are respected and there are dozens of ways that grievances can be heard without resort to violence.

Transferring this system to the United States and the world would be a stupendous achievement. To take the example of Palestine, Israeli soldiers would no longer occupy this country. Creating a safe border between Israel and Palestine would be the responsibility of the United Nations. U.N. soldiers would have the task of preserving peace along the borders between these two nations.

Recruiting troops and their supplies is expensive. If the U.N. had the taxing power to pay for an international police force, then presumably the United States would provide the cash and presumably have influence over final decisions.

Or an even more dramatic change, the U.N. has the power to directly impose taxes. The United States was broke under the voluntary system of the Articles of Confederation. Washington, Hamilton, and numerous generals constantly begged for money to buy supplies.

In the end, the United States depended on loans from European nations. Under the Constitution of 1787, the new central government was guaranteed the opportunity to raise funds, especially through the tariff and selling U.S. bonds. Revenue came from taxes and borrowing.

Making the U.N. the world government would require that it could raise billions of dollars every year.

The political problem is sovereignty or who runs the show. Right now the United States funds the U.N., but with world government it’s entirely plausible that the United States, China, Russia etc. would depend on U.N. funding.

The justification for this dramatic change in power is peace. In return for making every country, big and small, dependent on the U.N. these nations obtain the right to bring their complaints to U.N. agencies. The arguments would be settled by quasi-judicial rulings, without bullets or bombs.

What appears to be a loss of power by the United States becomes a boon to the people of the world. The risks of invasion, war, and tribal conflicts become minimized if the U.N. has the soldiers to stop another country from going to war.

Undoubtedly a major source of U.N. troops would be American soldiers who volunteered to serve as U.N. enforcers. Even with their sworn allegiance to the U.N., U.S. soldiers are unlikely to attack the United States. Thus the safety of the population of the United States can be assured. Similar considerations can be made for other large nations.

Taxes and soldiers, international cooperation to confront climate change, and using world wealth to build hospitals and schools in impoverished nations would clearly benefit from world government.

It is likely that world government would create tens of thousands of projects that would improve living conditions and put the world on the path to growth and prosperity.