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      Jack Smith’s Experience in The Hague and the Trump Investigations

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      Donald Trump openly flatters foreign autocrats such as Vladimir V. Putin and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and in many ways Mr. Trump governed as authoritarians do around the globe: enriching himself, stoking ethnic hatreds, seeking personal control over the courts and the military, clinging to power at all costs. So it is especially fitting that he has been notified that he may soon be indicted on charges tied to alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election by an American prosecutor who is deeply versed in investigating the world’s worst tyrants and war criminals.Jack Smith, the Justice Department special counsel — who has already indicted Mr. Trump on charges of illegally retaining secret documents and obstructing justice — has a formidable record as a career federal prosecutor in Tennessee, New York and Washington. Yet he also has distinctive expertise from two high-stakes tours of duty as an international war crimes prosecutor: first at the International Criminal Court and then at a special legal institution investigating war crimes in Kosovo. For several momentous years in The Hague, he oversaw investigations of foreign government officials and militia members who stood accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.There are two competing visions of national and international justice at play in Mr. Smith’s investigation of Mr. Trump. One is the lofty principle that even presidents and prime ministers must answer to the law. The other is the reality that such powerful leaders can try to secure their own impunity by decrying justice as a sham and rallying their followers, threatening instability and violent backlash. These tensions have defined the history of international war crimes prosecutions; they marked Mr. Smith’s achievements in court; they are already at play in Mr. Trump’s attempts to thwart the rule of law.Start with the ideals. The United States championed two international military tribunals held at Nuremberg and Tokyo after World War II, which put senior German and Japanese leaders on trial for aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Henry L. Stimson, the U.S. secretary of war, privately exhorted Franklin Delano Roosevelt that even Nazi war criminals should be given a “well-defined procedure” including “at least the rudimentary aspects of the Bill of Rights.”Both the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials convicted senior leaders for atrocities committed while in government, treating their deeds not as acts of state but as personal crimes punishable by law. After the Cold War, these principles of legal punishment for the world’s worst criminals were revived with United Nations tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, as well as special courts for East Timor, Sierra Leone and elsewhere.Mr. Smith hewed to the ideal of individual criminal responsibility as the prosecutor for the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, which was created under U.S. and European pressure to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity from 1998 to 2000 related to Kosovo’s struggle for independence from Serbia. Although part of Kosovo’s legal system, the institution is headquartered in The Hague and staffed by international judges and personnel — which is how Mr. Smith, a U.S. citizen, wound up serving as its specialist prosecutor.In June 2020, his office revealed that it was seeking to indict Hashim Thaci, then Kosovo’s popular president, who was on his way to the White House for a summit with Serbia convened by the Trump administration. Mr. Thaci, a former Kosovo Liberation Army guerrilla leader, returned home, later resigning as president and being detained in The Hague in order to face several counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in an ongoing trial that could last for years.It is always difficult and risky to prosecute national leaders with some popularity among their people. Savvy dictators will often secure a promise of amnesty as the price for a transition of power, which is why a furtive impunity — such as that promulgated in Chile by Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s military government in 1978 — is more common than spectacular trials such as Nuremberg or Tokyo. In order to impose justice on Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, the Allies had to commit to a devastating policy of unconditional surrender, which meant that German and Japanese war criminals could not negotiate for their own necks. Even so, the Truman administration quietly undercut that pledge of unconditional surrender for Emperor Hirohito, fearing that the Japanese might fight on if he was prosecuted as a war criminal. The Truman administration left the emperor securely in the Imperial Palace while his prime ministers and generals were tried and convicted by an Allied international military tribunal in Tokyo.At an earlier point in his career, from 2008 to 2010, Mr. Smith worked as the investigation coordinator in the prosecutor’s office at the International Criminal Court, the permanent international war crimes tribunal based in The Hague. Although 123 countries from Afghanistan to Zambia have joined the I.C.C., the tribunal was a bugbear for the Trump administration; Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, vowed to let it “die on its own,” while his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, reviled it as a “renegade, unlawful, so-called court.”Anyone working at the I.C.C. must understand how constrained and weak the court actually is. In 2009 and 2010, the I.C.C. issued arrest warrants for Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, charging him with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in the Darfur region; he is still at large, even after being overthrown. When a prominent Kenyan politician, Uhuru Kenyatta, was charged with crimes against humanity after ethnic violence in the wake of his country’s 2007 presidential election, he decried the I.C.C. as a neocolonial violation of Kenya’s sovereignty. In 2013 he was narrowly elected president of Kenya. In 2014, the I.C.C. prosecutor dropped the charges against Mr. Kenyatta, fuming that Kenya’s government had obstructed evidence and intimidated witnesses.From Kenya to Kosovo, Mr. Smith presumably knows all too well how an indicted politician can mobilize his loyalists to defy and obstruct a prosecution. When Mr. Thaci’s trial started in The Hague in April, some Kosovars rallied in support of a leader seen by them as a heroic guerrilla fighter against Serbian oppression. Mr. Smith’s office has complained that Mr. Thaci and other suspects were trying to obstruct and undercut the work of prosecutors, as well as convicting two backers of the Kosovo Liberation Army for disseminating files stolen from the office.Mr. Trump is already instinctively following a similar playbook of bluster and intimidation — even though he is not facing an international tribunal, but the laws of the United States. He has compared the F.B.I. agents investigating him to the Gestapo and smeared Mr. Smith as “deranged,” while crudely warning an Iowa radio show that it would be “very dangerous” to jail him since he has “a tremendously passionate group of voters.”Yet Mr. Trump will find that Mr. Smith has dealt with the likes of him — and worse — before. The American prosecutor is well equipped to pursue the vision of a predecessor Robert H. Jackson, the eloquent Supreme Court justice who served as the U.S. chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, who declared in his opening address there: “Civilization asks whether law is so laggard as to be utterly helpless to deal with crimes of this magnitude by criminals of this order of importance.”Gary J. Bass is the author of “The Blood Telegram” and the forthcoming “Judgment at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Paul Gicheru, Kenya Lawyer on Trial at I.C.C., Is Found Dead

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      Paul Gicheru was accused of tampering with witnesses in favor of President William Ruto, whose trial at The Hague collapsed in 2016. The cause of death is not yet known.NAIROBI, Kenya — A Kenyan lawyer on trial at the International Criminal Court on charges of witness tampering in a case linked to President William Ruto was found dead at his home in a suburb of the capital, Nairobi, his family and the police said on Tuesday.The lawyer, Paul Gicheru, had been awaiting a verdict in the trial, which took place in The Hague from February to June. Prosecutors accused him of bribing and intimidating witnesses to prevent them from testifying against Mr. Ruto over his role in post-election violence in Kenya in 2007 and 2008.Mr. Ruto, who announced his new cabinet on Tuesday, was sworn in as president on Sept. 13 after winning last month’s hard-fought election by a narrow margin.Michael G. Karnavas, Mr. Gicheru’s lawyer, confirmed his death, which was received with shock by many in Kenya — the latest twist in a decade-long legal journey at the International Criminal Court, punctuated by collapsed trials, disappearing witnesses and accusations of meddling, that has drawn in Kenya’s leaders and framed its politics.Kenyan news reports, citing the police, said that Mr. Gicheru went to sleep on Monday after a meal at his home in Karen, a wealthy Nairobi suburb, and was found dead later that night. His son was taken to a hospital and complained of stomach pains after eating the same meal.Mr. Karnavas said that he suspected foul play and called on the Kenyan authorities and the International Criminal Court to open a full investigation into the death. “It’s somewhat odd that after the election in Kenya, and before the court issues its judgment, there is this incident,” he said, speaking by phone. “This warrants the I.C.C. stepping up to the plate.”But in comments to reporters in Kenya, John Khaminwa, a lawyer for the Gicheru family in Kenya, downplayed suggestions of poisoning, and said the family was waiting for an autopsy to be completed and for the police to issue its preliminary report.Mr. Gicheru caused a sensation in Kenya in late 2020 when he flew to Amsterdam to present himself to the International Criminal Court, after years of refusing to stand trial and resisting the court’s efforts to have him extradited to The Hague.When the trial started this year, Mr. Gicheru pleaded not guilty and declined to testify. He returned to Kenya when the trial ended in June to await the verdict. A spokesman for the International Criminal Court said in an email that under the court’s guidelines, a verdict should be delivered within 10 months.President William Ruto of Kenya at the U.N. General Assembly last week. He was sworn in this month after winning a hard-fought election in August by a narrow margin.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesThe Kenya Human Rights Commission called the news of his death “shocking,” and urged the authorities to mount a swift investigation. In a statement, the Law Society of Kenya reiterated that call, noting that “several witnesses in the I.C.C. cases have either disappeared or died,” and wished a speedy recovery to Mr. Gicheru’s hospitalized son.Mr. Gicheru’s trial stemmed from a series of high-profile prosecutions that implicated some of Kenya’s most prominent politicians in a wave of violence after the disputed 2007 elections that killed at least 1,200 people and forced another 600,000 to flee their homes.In 2011, the International Criminal Court indicted Mr. Ruto for crimes against humanity over accusations that he orchestrated violence in his home area, the Rift Valley, distributing weapons and issuing kill lists of opposition supporters from rival ethnic groups.Uhuru Kenyatta, then a political rival of Mr. Ruto, was also indicted on similar charges.By 2016, the cases against both men collapsed after key witnesses recanted their testimony and the Kenyan government stopped cooperating with the court. By then, Mr. Ruto and Mr. Kenyatta had resolved their political differences to unite as a formidable force. Together they won the 2013 election, with Mr. Kenyatta as president and Mr. Ruto as his deputy, and were re-elected in 2017.Not only did the I.C.C. charges unite the two leaders, but it also provided them with a powerful electoral argument. After becoming president in 2013, Mr. Kenyatta denounced the court as a “toy of declining imperial powers.”But in dismissing the charge against Mr. Ruto, the court did not declare him innocent, leaving open the possibility that he could face a new trial. And it had already, in 2015, indicted Mr. Gicheru, a provincial lawyer from the same area as Mr. Ruto, on accusations that he ran a witness tampering scheme responsible for scuppering the trial.During the trial that started in February, prosecutors said that Mr. Gicheru had intimidated or offered bribes of up to $41,600 to witnesses who withdrew their testimony against Mr. Ruto and Joshua Sang, a radio journalist accused of stoking political violence in the Rift Valley after the 2007 vote.Prosecutors told the court that Mr. Gicheru’s actions, from 2013 to 2015, had caused four “vital” witnesses to recant their testimony. Eight people testified against him, including witnesses who said that they been threatened and that they feared for their lives.The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, recused himself from the Gicheru case because he had represented Mr. Ruto as a defense lawyer during the trial that collapsed in 2016.Protesters and the police in Eldoret, Kenya, in 2008. Mr. Gicheru had been accused of intimidating witnesses to prevent them from testifying against Mr. Ruto over his role in post-election violence in Kenya in 2007 and 2008.Ben Curtis/Associated PressAfter Mr. Ruto’s case collapsed, the International Criminal Court prosecutions receded from prominence in Kenya. Mr. Gicheru, by then a senior Kenya government official, successfully opposed efforts by the court to have him extradited to The Hague.But the affair returned to prominence in November 2020 when Mr. Gicheru voluntarily flew to The Hague with his wife and presented himself for trial at The Hague.The unexpected move by Mr. Gicheru stoked widespread speculation inside Kenya that it was linked to the crumbling relationship between Mr. Kenyatta and Mr. Ruto. Two years earlier, Mr. Kenyatta had signed a political pact with Raila Odinga, a veteran opposition leader expected to contest the 2022 election, that his deputy, Mr. Ruto, saw as a betrayal.When Mr. Gicheru presented himself for trial in 2020, reports in Kenyan news media speculated that he had been pressured or inducted to present himself for trial as part of an effort to resurrect the I.C.C. case against Mr. Ruto.His lawyer, Mr. Karnavas, said Mr. Gicheru’s motivation was simply to clear his name. “It was a sword of Damocles,” Mr. Karnavas said.During the hearings early this year, no evidence emerged that directly linked the witness tampering scheme to Mr. Ruto, and the issue hardly figured in the bitterly fought election campaign that ended in August, with Mr. Ruto’s narrow victory over Mr. Odinga.Mr. Karnavas said the prosecution’s case was weak and, had Mr. Gicheru lived to hear the verdict, he was confident he would have been acquitted.“Here’s someone who came voluntarily to clear his name, knowing the consequences,” he said. “Even if there’s no foul play, there needs to be an investigation.” More

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      With Tears and Steel, Kenya’s ‘Hustler’ President Vanquishes His Foes

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      William Ruto built a career on beating the odds. In his greatest triumph, he is expected to be inaugurated as Kenya’s fifth president on Tuesday.NAIROBI, Kenya — William Ruto wept when he won, falling to his knees in prayer after Kenya’s Supreme Court confirmed his presidential win last week, the climax of a bruising courtroom battle over the results of a hard-fought election.Aides patted the sobbing Mr. Ruto, as his wife, a Christian preacher, and his running mate knelt by his side, thankful that a bid to overturn his win from the Aug. 9 vote had been thwarted.On Tuesday Mr. Ruto, who has been Kenya’s vice president since 2013, will be inaugurated as the country’s fifth president.The outburst contrasted with the image of a leader better known for his steel than for his tears. Since he began his political ascent three decades ago, enlisting as an enforcer for an autocratic president, Mr. Ruto has developed a reputation as a wily operator with a talent for reinvention and an instinct for ruthless pragmatism.He survived arduous shadow battles with his boss, President Uhuru Kenyatta. He won elections that he was widely predicted to lose. And he emerged as a free man from the International Criminal Court at The Hague, where Mr. Ruto had been charged with crimes against humanity, after witnesses changed their stories and the trial collapsed in 2016.“Ruto seems to thrive in going against the odds,” Macharia Munene, a political scientist at the United States International University in Nairobi, said. “Once he has garnered attention, he finds a way of separating himself, then comes out on top as a leader.”Supporters of Mr. Ruto celebrating in Nairobi on Monday.Ben Curtis/Associated PressThose qualities served Mr. Ruto especially well this past month. Not only did he vanquish his electoral rival, Raila Odinga, who had been favored to win by pollsters, but he also triumphed over Mr. Kenyatta, a former ally once so close to Mr. Ruto that they dressed in matching suits and ties.Mr. Kenyatta is now his embittered foe. After last week’s court decision, the departing president, who backed Mr. Odinga’s losing ticket, delivered a grievance-laced speech in which he refused to utter Mr. Ruto’s name, much less congratulate him on his win. It was the latest twist in a saga of loyalty and betrayal that has dominated Kenyan politics for over a decade.“I haven’t talked to him in months,” a chuckling Mr. Ruto told laughing supporters at his residence after the Supreme Court confirmed he would be replacing his former boss. “But shortly I will be putting a call to him so that we can have a conversation on the process of transition.”Already, Mr. Ruto has made soaring promises in eloquent speeches that his presidency will unlock the potential of Kenya, an East African economic powerhouse and regional anchor. But to Kenyans who look to his mixed record in office, blemished by violence and financial scandals, a Ruto presidency is a worrisome prospect.“He has so many unresolved controversies, which affects how much people are willing to trust and believe in him,” said George Kegoro, head of the Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa, a democracy-promotion organization. “That’s a problem.”Few doubt his political skills. On the campaign trail, Mr. Ruto loved to tell of his humble origins: his barefoot childhood in the Rift Valley; his first pair of shoes at age 15; the early adult years when he sold chickens by the roadside to scrape by. That underdog narrative lay at the heart of his populist pitch to the “hustler nation” — young Kenyans striving to succeed on modest means, as he once did.It was also code for a kind of class warfare. Unlike other Kenyan leaders, educated at elite Western schools or ushered into politics by gilded bloodlines, Mr. Ruto grew up in a remote village where he raised cows and sang in the choir. In a freewheeling, alcohol-soaked political culture, he is a teetotaler who rises early, prizes punctuality and is unabashed about his Christian faith, attributing his successes to “the hand of God.”Employees in an electronics store watching the live broadcast of the Supreme Court of Kenya’s judgment on the general elections in Nairobi on Monday.Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTo many ordinary Kenyans, that image resonated powerfully at a time of pandemic-induced hardship, said Mr. Munene, the analyst. “Everyone was suffering, yet the elite seemed to be doing fine,” he said.Many wealthy Kenyans, however, saw something different: “A thief and a murderer who is patently unsuitable to be president of this republic,” said Jerotich Seii, a one-time aid worker and Odinga voter, now a prominent Ruto supporter. “It’s a class thing.”Despite the slogan, Mr. Ruto was not the average “hustler.” He cut his teeth in politics in the early 1990s as a campaigner for Kenya’s longtime autocratic president, Daniel Arap Moi, a fellow ethnic Kalenjin. As minister for agriculture, then higher education, between 2008 and 2010, Mr. Ruto was seen an effective, hands-on leader, but no reformer: He sided with conservatives to oppose a new constitution that was approved in 2010.Along the way, he became very wealthy, growing a business empire that includes luxury hotels, a 15,000-acre ranch, a commercial farm and a huge poultry processing plant. He was implicated in corruption scandals, including accusations that he tried to grab land from a Nairobi school for a hotel parking lot — a case that is still before the courts.Mr. Ruto has always denied any wrongdoing — “I have been audited left, right, upside-down and inside-out” he said at a presidential debate in July — and many voters are willing to look past his wealth.“They are all crooks, we know that,” said Ms. Seii. “I’m going for the crook with a plan.”Mr. Ruto’s career has been shaped, to a large degree, by the International Criminal Court.In 2010 prosecutors accused Mr. Ruto and Mr. Kenyatta of leading the political violence that followed the disputed election of 2007 — the great trauma of recent Kenyan history, with over 1,200 people killed, and 600,000 others displaced, as the country threatened to tip into civil war.An opposition supporter being arrested in Kibera, a slum that is an opposition stronghold in Nairobi, in late 2007. Stephen Morrison/European Pressphoto AgencyThe I.C.C. indictment depicted Mr. Ruto as the godfather of mayhem in the Rift Valley, accusing him of distributing weapons, issuing kill-lists and telling supporters which houses to burn. But that case floundered badly at trial, ultimately managing only to unite Mr. Ruto and Mr. Kenyatta, and transforming Kenyan politics.The two leaders ran on a joint ticket in the 2013 election, with Mr. Kenyatta as president, portraying the court as a tool of Western oppression and rallying other African leaders to their cause.On the ground in Kenya, witnesses disappeared or changed their stories amid accusations of bribery and intimidation, and by 2016 the trials of both men had entirely collapsed.Mr. Ruto and Mr. Kenyatta became an apparently unstoppable force. Before they were re-elected in 2017, they finished each other’s sentences in interviews and joshed in a jokey campaign video, drawing comparisons with the Obama-Biden partnership in the United States.But a year later, it all fell apart. In 2018, Mr. Kenyatta signed a pact that switched his loyalties to Mr. Odinga, triggering a shadow war inside Kenya’s government.Uhuru Kenyatta, in a red shirt, as a presidential candidate, next to his running mate, Mr. Ruto, in a yellow shirt, at a rally in Nairobi in 2013. Now, they are bitter foes.Pete Muller for The New York TimesMr. Ruto started to build a political base in Mount Kenya, Mr. Kenyatta’s political backyard.Mr. Kenyatta used the state apparatus to thwart his deputy’s ambitions.Last year, a senior Kenyan government official made public a list of Mr. Ruto’s assets. Security agencies began to obstruct his movements. His supporters came under unusual scrutiny by the tax authorities, said a senior Western official who spoke anonymously to discuss sensitive issues.As the election drew near, the main news media outlets tilted their coverage in favor of Mr. Kenyatta’s ally, Mr. Odinga.And on Aug. 15, just before Mr. Ruto was declared the winner, a delegation of senior police, military and presidency officials tried to subvert his victory quietly, the head of the electoral commission, Wafula Chebukati, told the Supreme Court last week. The real test for Mr. Ruto may come when things aren’t going his way. He insists there’s nothing to worry about.“We are competitors, not enemies,” he assured his rivals after his victory was confirmed last week. “I pledge to make Kenya a country for everyone.”A poster of Mr. Ruto in Eldoret, Kenya, last month.Ed Ram/Getty ImagesAbdi Latif Dahir More

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      Kenya Elects New President, but Disputes Erupt

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      Kenya is often held up as a beacon of democracy in Africa, but as the latest election showed, it is not always pretty. Disputes started even before a winner was named.NAIROBI, Kenya — On a continent where military coups and rubber stamp elections have proliferated in recent years, Kenya stands out.Despite its flaws and endemic corruption, the East African nation and economic powerhouse has steadily grown into a symbol of what is possible, its democracy underpinned by a strong Constitution and its hard-fought elections an example to other African nations seeking to carve a path away from autocracy. But Kenya has just hit a speed bump.On Monday, a winner was declared in its latest presidential election, ending an unpredictable battle that had millions of Kenyans glued to their televisions and smartphones as the results rolled in. William Ruto, the president-elect, beamed as he addressed a hall filled with roaring supporters, lauding the “very historic, democratic occasion.”Vice President William Ruto of Kenya was named the winner of the country’s presidential election. Before the announcement, four out of the country’s seven election commissioners refused to verify the results.Tony Karumba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut the losing candidate, Raila Odinga, rejected the result even before it was announced. A fracas erupted in the hall where Mr. Ruto had been speaking, and where the votes had been counted, sending chairs and fists flying. And four electoral commissioners stormed out, casting doubt on a result that is almost certain to end up in court.And so the election hangs in the balance, scrutinized not just at home but across a continent where Kenya’s rambunctious democracy is among those that are viewed as indicators of progress.“We do not have the luxury to look back, we do not have the luxury to point fingers,” Mr. Ruto said. “We must close ranks to work together.”It started out as a day of hope.Early in the morning, several thousand people began packing into the giant hall in a Nairobi suburb to hear the election results, following an arduous six-day count that had the country on tenterhooks.Mr. Ruto before the announcement of the results of Kenya’s presidential election on Monday.Monicah Mwangi/ReutersMr. Ruto and Mr. Odinga had been neck-and-neck throughout the count, sometimes separated by as few as 7,000 votes, according to unofficial news media tallies. Those razor-thin margins left many nervous: Although its democracy is robust, Kenya’s elections can be vicious, and its last three contests were marred by disputed results that led to protracted crises, court cases and street violence that in 2007 killed over 1,200 people.Chastened by those failures, the electoral commission had gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure a clean vote. Within 24 hours of polls closing last Tuesday evening, it had posted to its website images showing the results from nearly every polling station — over 46,000 of them.But as Wafula Chebukati, the chief electoral commissioner, prepared to announce the winner on Monday, one of Mr. Odinga’s top aides called an impromptu news conference outside.“This was the most mismanaged election in Kenya’s history,” Saitabao Ole Kanchory told reporters in a flurry of invective that described the counting center as “a crime scene” and called on those in charge “to be arrested.”Moments later, pandemonium erupted inside the hall.Supporters of Mr. Odinga, including Mr. Ole Kanchory, stormed the dais, throwing chairs on the floor and clashing with security officials brandishing truncheons. Foreign diplomats and election observers fled to a backstage area — but a choir that had been belting out gospel songs for much of the day continued to sing.A Kenyan police officer firing tear gas at protesters who set tires on fire in Kisumu on Monday.Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOnce the situation calmed, Mr. Chebukati emerged to deliver a short speech in which he noted that two of his commissioners had been injured in the melee — and others harassed, “arbitrarily arrested” or disappeared — before proceeding to announce the results.Mr. Ruto received 50.49 percent of votes, he said, against 48.85 percent for Mr. Odinga, a difference of just 233,211 votes but enough to avoid a runoff.In a speech that appeared intended to project authority and offer reassurance, Mr. Ruto thanked his supporters and vowed to work for the good of Kenya. He promised to set aside the bitterness of the campaign — and the chaotic scenes minutes earlier — to concentrate on the country’s flailing economy.“There is no room for vengeance,” Mr. Ruto said, flanked by his wife and by his running mate, Rigathi Gachagua. “Our country is at a stage where we need all hands on deck to move it forward. We do not have the luxury to look back.”Celebrations erupted in the streets of Eldoret, a stronghold for Mr. Ruto in the Rift Valley, where there was a deafening cacophony of horns, whistles and chants filling the downtown area.But in much of the country, his victory was overshadowed by a major development: Four of the seven electoral commissioners refused to verify the vote, defying Mr. Chebukati and decamping to a luxury hotel where they denounced “the opaque nature” of the final phase of the count.Those commissioners, it turned out, had been appointed by Mr. Odinga’s most prominent ally in the race, President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is barred by term limits from running again.Speaking to journalists a few hours later, Mr. Ruto dismissed their declaration as a “side show.” Under Kenyan law, he said, Mr. Chebukati alone is responsible for declaring the winner.“Legally, constitutionally, the four commissioners pose no threat at all to the legality of the declaration,” Mr. Ruto said.Supporters of Raila Odinga protesting in Kibera after Mr. Ruto was declared president-elect.Marco Longari/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesStill, the drama suggested that a day that should have signaled the end of the presidential contest might end up being just another chapter in the nail-biter race that has had Kenyans on the edge of their seats since the vote on Tuesday.The candidates were a study in contrasts.Mr. Odinga, 77, a leftist from one of Kenya’s most storied political dynasties, made his first bid for the presidency in 1997. He ran three more times, always losing, before trying again this year.Although he did once serve as prime minister, Mr. Odinga’s electoral defeats embodied the broader frustrations of his ethnic group, the Luo, which has never controlled the Kenyan presidency in all the years since the nation gained independence from Britain in 1963.Mr. Ruto, 55, the country’s vice president and a wealthy businessman, cast himself as champion of Kenya’s “hustler nation” — the disillusioned, mostly young strivers struggling to gain a foothold. He frequently told voters about his humble origins, including a barefoot childhood and an early career selling chickens on the side of a busy highway.That image contrasted with Mr. Ruto’s considerable wealth, which has grown during his political career to include a luxury hotel, thousands of acres of land and a large poultry processing plant.While the “hustler” pitch resonated powerfully with some Kenyans, others just shrugged. Just 40 percent of Kenyans under 35 registered to vote in this election, and the 65 percent turnout was sharply down from the 80 percent reported in the 2017 election.Mr. Ruto, center left, and his running mate, Rigathi Gachagua, center right, after the election results were announced.Tony Karumba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe low turnout appeared to be a rejection of what many saw as a bad choice between candidates from their country’s discredited political elite.In voting for Mr. Ruto, millions of Kenyans overlooked the charges he once faced at the International Criminal Court, which a decade ago accused him of whipping up the storm of violence after the 2007 election that nearly pushed Kenya into a civil war.The charges included murder, persecution and forcing people to leave their homes, but the case collapsed in 2016. The Kenyan government — Mr. Ruto was vice president — engaged in what the court said was “witness interference and political meddling.”Mr. Ruto was running not just against Mr. Odinga but, in effect, against his own boss, Mr. Kenyatta, whom he accused of betrayal for backing Mr. Odinga.Instead of delivering votes for his chosen successor, Mr. Kenyatta suffered a humiliating rebuke from voters in his heartland, the Mount Kenya region, where ethnic Kikuyus rejected his allies across the board. Even at the polling station where Mr. Kenyatta cast his vote on Tuesday, Mr. Ruto scored a sweeping majority, the results showed.Debilitating economic troubles provided a bleak backdrop to Tuesday’s vote. The tourism-reliant economy has been battered in recent years, first by the coronavirus pandemic, then by Russia’s assault on Ukraine, which caused food and fuel prices to rise even more amid a global downturn.“Maize flour, cooking oil, cooking gas — everything is going up,” Abzed Osman, an actor who also works in tourism, said as he stood in line to vote on Tuesday in the Nairobi district of Kibera, Africa’s largest shantytown.By Monday evening in Kisumu County, one of Mr. Odinga’s strongholds in western Kenya, hundreds of protesters who had been eagerly awaiting the results began demonstrating and burning tires, witnesses said.Hours later a spokesman for Mr. Odinga, Dennis Onsarigo, said the candidate planned to address the nation on Tuesday.The police fired tear gas as people protested the election results in Kisumu.Ed Ram/Getty ImagesDeclan Walsh More

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      Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines Won't Run for Senate

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      The populist president also promised a peaceful transition of power when his term ends next year.MANILA — President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines on Tuesday ended his bid for a Senate seat in next May’s elections, one day after promising a peaceful transition of power.It was a surprising move by the populist, ruthless Mr. Duterte, who is constitutionally barred from seeking another six-year presidential term. He had previously announced plans to run as vice president, in what critics charged was part of a scheme to hang on to power unofficially and ward off possible prosecution by the International Criminal Court. A report from that court has said there was sufficient evidence to show that crimes against humanity had been committed in Mr. Duterte’s bloody drug war, which has left thousands dead.However, he dropped the vice-presidential plan in October and announced that his chief aide, Senator Christopher Lawrence Go, would run instead.Another widely reported possibility had been that Sara Duterte-Carpio, his popular daughter, would seek the presidency, but she has chosen instead to run for vice president. She is effectively the running mate of presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son and namesake of the late dictator who was ousted in 1986 after two decades in power.Mr. Duterte, 76, then said he would seek a post in the Senate. If he won, he would have at least a semblance of protection from outside forces seeking to prosecute him.But on Tuesday, both Mr. Duterte and Mr. Go separately ended their candidacies.It is not clear what Mr. Duterte plans next. He has vehemently denied the criminal accusations against him, and his aides have said that no International Criminal Court prosecutor would be allowed into the Philippines.Last week, Mr. Duterte attended President Biden’s Summit for Democracy, where he reiterated his nation’s commitment to democratic principles.A spokesman for Mr. Duterte said in a statement that the Philippines’ leader believed that withdrawing from the Senate race would allow him to better focus on the Covid-19 pandemic response and on efforts to ensure “transparent, impartial, orderly and peaceful elections” in May.On Monday night, in his weekly televised address to the nation, Mr. Duterte said: “As I step down in June 2022, it will be my highest honor to turn over the reins of power to my successor knowing that in the exercise of my mandate, I did my best to serve the Filipino people.”According to early polls, the Marcos Jr. and Duterte-Carpio ticket leads a crowded presidential field. Also running are the boxer-turned-politician Manny Pacquiao, a former national police chief and Francisco Domagoso, the mayor of Manila.In the Philippines, the president and vice president are elected separately. While the vice presidency is a largely ceremonial job, analysts say that if an opposition figure holds the post, it can provide a semblance of checks and balances on the chief executive. More

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      The US Needs to Uncancel the ICC

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      When the loony right gathered at the Conservative Political Action Conference back in February, the theme of the Trump-heavy gathering was “America Uncanceled.” Speaker after speaker railed against “political correctness” in American culture, from “woke mobs” to “censorship” in the mainstream news media. Incredibly, they tried to transform so-called cancel culture into the single greatest problem facing a United States still reeling from COVID-19 and its economic sucker punch. And yet, time and again, it has been the loony right that has been so eager to hit the delete button.

      These supposed defenders of everyone’s right to voice opinions attempted to cancel an entire presidential election because it failed to produce their preferred result. They’ve spent decades trying to cancel voting rights (not to mention a wide variety of other rights). They’ve directed huge amounts of time and money to canceling social benefits for the least fortunate Americans. Throughout history, they’ve mounted campaigns to cancel specific individuals from Colin Kaepernick and Representative Ilhan Omar to the black lists of the McCarthy era. They’re also not above canceling entire groups of people, from the transgender community all the way back to the original sin of this country, namely the mass cancelation of Native Americans.

      Then there’s foreign policy. The Trump administration never met an international agreement or institution — the Paris climate accord, the Iran nuclear deal, the World Health Organization — that it didn’t want to cover with “cancel” stamps.

      One institution that has elicited particular ire from the far right has been the International Criminal Court (ICC). On April 2, the Biden administration took a step toward mending the rift between the United States and the ICC. It didn’t go far enough.

      Blocking the International Criminal Court

      In 2000, the Clinton administration signed the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court, which has focused on bringing to international justice the perpetrators of war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and (beginning in 2017) crimes of aggression. In 2002, the Bush administration effectively unsigned the agreement and Congress pushed to shield all US military personnel from ICC prosecution. Although the Obama administration cooperated with the court, it was still worried about possible investigations into the US “war on terrorism.”

      Ambivalence turned to outright hostility during the Trump years. National Security Adviser John Bolton made it his special mission to attack the ICC as “ineffective, unaccountable, and indeed, outright dangerous.” Among Bolton’s many spurious arguments about the court, he claimed that the body constitutes an assault on US sovereignty and the Constitution in particular, a favorite hobbyhorse of the loony right. But the “supremacy clause” of the US Constitution (Article VI, clause 2) already establishes the primacy of federal law over treaty obligations. So, can someone please get those supposed legal scholars to actually read the pocket constitutions they carry around so reverently?

      Bolton’s off-base analysis came with a threat. “We will respond against the ICC and its personnel to the extent permitted by U.S. law,” he warned. “We will ban its judges and prosecutors from entering the United States. We will sanction their funds in the U.S. financial system, and, we will prosecute them in the U.S. criminal system. We will do the same for any company or state that assists an ICC investigation of Americans.”

      In 2020, the Trump administration began to implement Bolton’s attack plan by imposing sanctions against ICC officials. Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and senior prosecution official Phakiso Mochochoko were placed under travel restrictions and an asset freeze because they were investigating possible US war crimes in Afghanistan. This blacklisting of ICC investigators sent a chilling signal that the United States would attempt, much like a rogue authoritarian country, to obstruct justice at an international level.

      An equally vexing issue involves a war crimes investigation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Although the ICC investigators looked at atrocities committed by Israelis and Palestinians, both Israel and the US condemned the investigation, arguing that Israel isn’t an ICC member and so the international body lacks jurisdiction. The United States has made the same argument about the investigation into the conduct of American soldiers in Afghanistan, since the US is not a party to the ICC.

      But the ICC’s jurisdiction is quite clear: it extends to crimes “committed by a State Party national, or in the territory of a State Party, or in a State that has accepted the jurisdiction of the Court.” Palestine, an ICC member since 2015, requested the investigation. And Afghanistan is also an ICC member.

      Biden’s Response

      Earlier this month, US President Joe Biden lifted the Trump administration’s sanctions. European allies, in particular, were enthusiastic about this additional sign that the United States is rejoining the international community. “This important step underlines the US’s commitment to the international rules-based system,” said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

      But the Biden administration’s move comes with an important caveat. In his statement on the lifting of the sanctions, Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted that “we continue to disagree strongly with the ICC’s actions relating to the Afghan and Palestinian situations. We maintain our longstanding objection to the Court’s efforts to assert jurisdiction over personnel of non-States Parties such as the United States and Israel.”

      When it comes to the ICC, then, a disturbing bipartisan consensus has emerged on its supposed encroachment upon US sovereignty. It’s OK for the ICC to prosecute the actions of countries in the Global South, but hand’s off the big boys, a status the United States generously extends to Israel. In the Senate, Ben Cardin and Rob Portman put out a letter last month criticizing the ICC’s investigation in Palestine, which attracted the support of 55 of their colleagues (down from 67 for a similar letter last year).

      Together with Israel, the US continues to abide by an exceptionalism when it comes to international law that it shares with several dozen states, including quite a few that the United States generally doesn’t like to be associated with, such as North Korea, Myanmar, Russia, China, Egypt, Belarus and Nicaragua.

      Of course, it hasn’t just been Bolton and a few outlaw states that have criticized the ICC. African countries in particular have accused the institution of bias. The Court has indeed opened investigations in a disproportionate number of African states: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, the Central African Republic, Sudan, Kenya, Libya and Uganda. Preliminary investigations also took place in Gabon, Guinea and Nigeria and were slated to start in Burundi. All of the 46 individuals facing charges before the court are African.

      In response to this perceived bias, the African Union, in 2017, called for a mass withdrawal of its members from the ICC. Burundi left the court that year, the first country in the world to do so (other countries, like the US and Russia, “withdrew” but hadn’t actually ratified the treaty in the first place). Two other countries that seemed on the verge of withdrawal, South Africa and Gambia, ultimately changed their minds.

      Bias or Backbone?

      The ICC was supposed to put an end to the era of imperial justice by which the winners determine who is guilty of war crimes, a bias that pervaded the Nuremberg trials. It has appointed judges and investigators from the Global South: Fatou Bensouda is Gambian, for instance, while Phakiso Mochochoko is from Lesotho. Still, the preponderance of investigations in Africa should give pause. The ICC has obviously had some difficulty making a transition to this new era. But let’s point out some obvious counter-arguments.

      First, the ICC doesn’t have an anti-African bias. It discriminates against African dictators and warlords. If anything, the court has a pro-African bias by standing up for the victims of violence in Africa. Other continents should be so lucky to have the ICC looking out for them. Second, the ICC has more recently begun to challenge major powers, including Russia for its actions in Georgia and Ukraine. It has also investigated the actions of Israel and the United States. These moves come with considerable risks, as the Trump sanctions painfully revealed. Third, the ICC has considerable jurisdictional restrictions. It can’t investigate crimes against humanity in North Korea since the latter isn’t a member. The same applies to China and its actions in Xinjiang.

      Instead of complaining about the ICC’s blind spots and shortcomings, the United States should get on board and put pressure on other countries to do likewise. Americans can’t pretend to support the rule of law, to loudly promote it around the world, and then turn around and say: Oh, well, it doesn’t apply to us. If the American justice system can prosecute perpetrators in blue like Derek Chauvin, the US can permit an international justice system to prosecute perpetrators in khaki who have killed civilians on a larger scale.

      So, Biden deserves praise for reversing the Trump administration’s brazen and embarrassing attack on the ICC. But that doesn’t constitute actual support for international law. It’s time for the United States to uncancel the International Criminal Court.

      *[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      The ICC Has Stepped on a Political Minefield in Palestine

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      The rapidly-evolving geopolitical equation in the Middle East just got another layer of complexity added to it. Earlier this month, Fatou Bensouda, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), announced the launch of an investigation into alleged war crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian Territories since 2014. The prosecutor’s decision, important no less from an international accountability perspective, may end up putting the ICC in the crosshairs of regional politics.

      The ICC, which tries individuals rather than countries, is the world’s first-ever permanent court with jurisdiction over war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression. The court’s decision has come in the wake of important developments in the Middle East. These include the US potentially rejoining the Iran nuclear deal; the much-vaunted Abraham Accords signed by Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in 2020; the Saudi-led war in Yemen that continues with no end in sight; and Iran’s engagement in proxy warfare in the region. The ICC’s intervention in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — one of the most complex international disputes — has added a new ingredient to an already simmering stew. 

      Palestine and Israel: A Bloody Saga

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      During its early years, the ICC — created through the Rome Statute in 1998 — largely focused on atrocity crimes in Africa. The court was criticized for what was perceived as a bias toward that continent. Recently, the ICC has greenlighted investigations into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan, Myanmar and Bangladesh.

      But with no military force to enforce its decisions, the ICC has, over the years, meandered through terrain beset with political uncertainty. It has faced off against belligerent administrations and received relentless pushback from world leaders caught in the crosshairs of its legal processes. With 123 countries accepting jurisdiction to date, but with major powers like the US, Russia and China not a party to the Rome Statute of the ICC, the court has been called out as lacking wider international legitimacy.

      Yet, the ICC is trying to fix a broken international criminal justice system, albeit in a manner that does not necessarily bode well for its own future. With pronouncements such as the one in respect of the situation in Palestine, the ICC could end up stirring a hornet’s nest or, at best, catapult some fleeting global attention to the neglected Palestinian crisis.

      The US Response

      The Biden administration’s response to the ICC investigation came as a surprise to internationalists, who were hoping for some pivoting of the rules-based international order vociferously eroded by the US under former President Donald Trump. These hopes were dashed when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken unequivocally opposed the ICC’s decision to investigate the Palestinian situation. He based the US decision on two overarching principles: First, Israel is a non-party to the ICC and second, Palestine (which has accepted the ICC’s jurisdiction) is not a sovereign state and is therefore “not qualified to obtain membership as a state.”

      This line of reasoning is deeply problematic. It strikes at the very heart of the ICC’s jurisdiction, which extends to the territory and nationals of state parties to the court. By virtue of Palestine accepting the ICC’s jurisdiction in 2015, all alleged crimes committed in the Palestinian Territories by the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas — the militant Islamist group that rules the Gaza Strip — theoretically fall within the ICC’s jurisdiction. Bringing Israel within its jurisdiction was the main reason behind the Palestinian Authority’s decision to make Palestine a state party to the ICC.

      Secretary Blinken’s statement calls the decision to investigate Israel unfair. It also confirms the US commitment to stand for Israel’s security. This is a veiled warning to the ICC that it will not get far with its inquiry. After all, an ICC investigation will require Israel’s cooperation and US neutrality. With Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outrageously calling the ICC move “pure anti-Semitism,” the fate of the investigation has been effectively sealed before it even started.  

      International Criminal Justice

      In other words, the ICC inquiry — notwithstanding all the braggadocio of international accountability — will be undermined by the deep-rooted security embrace between the US and Israel. The ICC prosecutor said the investigation in the occupied Palestinian Territories will be conducted “independently, impartially and objectively, without fear or favor.” Yet, by wantonly brandishing the ICC as a political instrument — something that it is not — the US and Israel will surely launch an all-out effort to delegitimize the international criminal justice enterprise. 

      Blinken also warned that unilateral judicial actions by the ICC can “exacerbate tensions and undercut efforts to advance a negotiated two-state solution.” The portrayal of the ICC as an impediment to a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be a gnawing concern for the international community. 

      Will Israel now weaponize the ICC investigation to deny Palestinian statehood while claiming that the court is impeding efforts toward that end? With the edifice of international justice having been eviscerated by the Trump administration, coupled with the US and Israel now renewing their vow against the ICC, the future of criminal justice in the occupied Palestinian Territories appears bleak. The slowly churning wheel of international criminal justice, manifested by the ICC, just got another spoke thrown in it that may well end up permanently jamming it.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Will Biden Overturn Sanctions on the ICC?

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      From the get-go, US President Joe Biden’s administration has focused on reversing the worst of Donald Trump’s policy decisions. One of the very worst was the imposition of sanctions on individual officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Trump administration was so enamored of sanctions as a weapon of mass intimidation that it extended the policy beyond the traditional response to hostile governments to target individuals who failed to show the US sufficient respect.

      This was a logical consequence of Trump’s vaunted “America First” policy. This translates as national interest first, international law last. In September 2020, Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, singled out ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda for sanctions. He “announced a freeze on assets held in the US or subject to US law by Bensouda and the court’s head of jurisdiction, Phakiso Mochochoko.” Even Rodrigo Duterte, the thuggish Filipino president who unilaterally withdrew the Philippines from membership in the Rome Treaty after the ICC received a complaint of crimes against humanity resulting from his brutal and chaotic war on drugs, never imagined imposing sanctions on the chief prosecutor.

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      In other words, Trump’s initiative can only be considered extreme. Bensouda, whose job consists of carrying out investigations related to procedures of justice, complained of “unprecedented and wholly unacceptable threats, attacks and sanctions.” Appearing to sympathize, the Biden administration issued this statement: “Much as we disagree with the ICC’s actions relating to the Afghanistan and Israeli/Palestinian situations, the sanctions will be thoroughly reviewed as we determine our next steps.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Thoroughly review:

      Examine an abusive practice with the hope of finding a devious way to justify its continuation

      Contextual Note

      The word “review” literally means “to look at again.” When politicians use the term, they imply that they will take a more critical look at the issue under consideration with a view to engaging remedial action. This is especially significant at moments in history where one party or political personality has been replaced by another with a highly contrasted worldview. Biden has already taken steps to return to the essential international treaties Trump so casually abandoned, as well as undo the former president’s complicity with the murderous Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. The Biden administration needs to show that it is free not just to review but to thoroughly overturn dangerous and sometimes criminal policies.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In reality, the promise to “thoroughly review” often serves a more devious purpose. It creates an expectation that whatever policy emerges — even if it is identical with that of the past — will be legitimized. Rather than remedy a mistake, it may stand as a ploy to seek a better argument in favor of perpetuating the effects of the mistake. Former President Barack Obama campaigned on the theme of ending the war in Iraq. After thoroughly reviewing it with the help of the Pentagon, he continued it.

      The question of the ICC is no ordinary political issue. It contains within it the very idea of justice and fairness that Americans like to see as the core of their “exceptional” ideology, a system of values that never tires of proclaiming its allegiance to the idea of “liberty and justice for all.” On that basis, it should be easy for the Biden administration to cancel Trump’s sanctions and apologize for his arrogance. In terms of PR, it provides a perfect pretext for a new president to demonstrate a willingness to correct the injustices of the past.

      But as with so many issues Biden has inherited from Trump, there is a hidden risk and potentially a serious embarrassment. By provoking the ICC, Trump shouted from the rooftops what previous presidents accomplished by whispering in private amongst themselves. The US has never demonstrated the intention of respecting the principles it so assiduously promoted when the victorious Allies launched the Nuremberg trials. The message those trials sent was that every nation on earth must answer the accusation of crimes against humanity and war crimes. The refusal to be judged by the legal criteria it uses to judge others may provide the best definition of the meaning of “American exceptionalism.”

      Because the nation that invented democracy “believes” with all its soul in everything that is good and just, it can never be held to account for being bad and unjust. At best, American individuals are sometimes guilty of a lapse of judgment, but the American nation as a whole is, as the song says, “a soul whose intentions are good.” Since “no one alive can always be an angel,” the nation feels justified pleading to the heavens, “Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood.” 

      If Biden follows through and repeals Trump’s sanctions, the consequences could be serious. It would implicitly allow the ICC to pursue the complaints against both the US in Afghanistan and Israel with regard to Palestinians within its borders. Those were the two causes that prompted Pompeo to impose sanctions, citing the principle of national sovereignty. 

      That the US should defend Israel’s putative sovereignty — especially if it means shielding that nation from being prosecuted for war crimes — makes no serious legal sense. But it does reveal a basic truth about US foreign policy. If anything, the immunity the US claims for Israel can be compared with the principle in US law of someone who pleads the fifth amendment in a courtroom to avoid incriminating their spouse (“the spousal testimonial privilege”). Do both Trump and Biden consider the US and Israel a married couple?

      How far is Biden willing to go to undo Trump’s devilry? How much can he backtrack without exposing the US to the principle of universal justice? This is a serious quandary for a president who repeats in nearly every one of his speeches that the US must “not lead by the example of its power, but by the power of its example.”

      Historical Note

      Another issue has just emerged in the news cycle that also requires a thorough review. It concerns the production of semiconductors. The Verge offers this headline: “Biden signs executive order calling for semiconductor supply chain review.” American industry is facing a penury of chips, the essential component of nearly everything Americans buy these days (apart from fast food). From PCs and smartphones to cars, watches and refrigerators, chips rule the consumer economy. Will this be as “thoroughly reviewed” as the reconsideration of the ICC sanctions? It should be because it concerns a problem that affects the entire economy.

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      Not so long ago in recent history, the US was the world’s major manufacturer of semi-conductors. But because it became cheaper to outsource production to Asian nations, US manufacturers preferred to move their supply chain across the Pacific Ocean. Asia has since achieved a quasi-monopoly on semiconductor production.

      The Associated Press recently reported on the “widening global shortage of semiconductors for auto parts” that has forced “major auto companies to halt or slow vehicle production just as they were recovering from pandemic-related factory shutdowns.” The penury of semi-conductors could send an economy already battered by the pandemic into a tailspin. 

      This would be especially true if the Asian countries that produce more than 80% of the world’s and America’s supply were unable or unwilling to deliver. The entire question has evolved into something even more dire. Business Insider summarizes the dilemma in a headline: “The global chip shortage is hurting businesses and could be a national security issue.”

      It is not hard to imagine a war, even a limited war, breaking out between the US and China over navigation in the contested South China Sea or Chinese threats against Taiwan. In such an event, the US could potentially be starved of the supply of essential components required both for its military capacity and its consumer economy. The Biden administration must be aware of this and ready to review it. But once the review is completed, what can they do to remedy it? Not much, at least in the time frame that would be required to lead a military campaign.

      Rather than challenge China and risk alienating nearly all of Asia, the Biden administration can only hope to solve the problem of penury through cooperation and the recognition of interdependence, in contrast with the attitude of confrontation nurtured by Donald Trump. The Biden administration may be forced to engage a particularly “thorough review” on this issue.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More