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      Texas Republicans veer further right despite state’s demographic shifts

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      TexasTexas Republicans veer further right despite state’s demographic shiftsGovernor Greg Abbott appears to be filling out a ‘bingo card’ of rightwing policy desires, even though those proposals are not popular with Texans Alexandra Villarreal in AustinThu 15 Jul 2021 05.00 EDTLast modified on Thu 15 Jul 2021 05.01 EDTFrom restricting voter access and politicizing the US-Mexico border to targeting transgender student athletes and further rolling back abortion rights, Texas’s current legislative agenda set by its governor, Greg Abbott, reads almost like a conservative bingo card.Death toll from Texas February cold spell rises by 59 to reach 210Read moreBut in the shadow of next year’s Republican primary contest, Abbott is already facing hostile challengers in his own party who are ideologically even more extreme and are pushing the radical governor even further to the right as he seeks re-election.So it may not be a coincidence that, during recent legislative overtime in Texas, he’s heaped on enough red meat to try to foil his rivals, who claim he’s only Republican in name – to the shock of many civic society activists in the state.“We’re really seeing a race of who can throw Texans under the bus in the fastest and most cruel way, simply to score political points and to remain in power,” said Juan Benitez, the communications director for Workers Defense Action Fund.For years, Democrats have been slowly chipping away at Republicans’ ironclad grip on Texas in a belief that the state may eventually turn blue. But the state’s conservative leadership in the Republican party is now doubling down on rightwing talking points ahead of 2022, relying on hot-button, emotional issues to rile up supporters.“What they’re doing is working harder and harder and harder, in my judgment, to stimulate a shrinking base, and going so far to the right they no longer represent the consensus view of Texans,” said Mike Collier, a Democrat who plans to run for Texas lieutenant governor next year.Despite Texas’s rapidly changing demographics, so far, it has remained staunchly red in terms of who wins.That, in turn, makes the state’s primaries the real contest in most races, said Juan Carlos Huerta, a professor of political science at Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi.“I think there is a bit of a disconnect between the overall sense of what Texans want and what our elected officials do,” Huerta said. “They take care of those who vote for them.”Texas’s Republican primary voters are often rightwing Donald Trump loyalists, and statewide incumbents who want another term have little choice but to court those votes. If they succeed, they’re more than likely to prevail in the general election, regardless of how radical their platform is.So the Texas government is dominated by Republicans who have been hand-picked by their most extreme constituents, then rubber stamped by a wider electorate that is guided by party identification. Oftentimes, that means a minority’s beliefs – and not the broad will of the people – are reflected in state policy.“We are veering more and more right, without really taking a close look at the fact that democracy is just slowly and slowly getting more and more eroded,” said Benitez.The impact of this disconnect is clear in the politics of the state.A majority of Texans agree with the landmark US supreme court decision on Roe v. Wade, recognizing the constitutional right to choose an abortion. Yet earlier this year, lawmakers passed a strict new “heartbeat” bill, which restricts abortion access around six weeks into a pregnancy, and which more Texas voters oppose than support.Permitless carry will also become the law of the land come September, even though 57% of Texans are against gun owners being able to carry handguns without a license or training.And, despite most voters wanting background checks for gun purchases, the state legislature has failed to act.“Elections have consequences, all right? And the fact that Republicans win – conservative Republicans win in Texas – yes, that’s what they’re gonna advocate: conservative policies,” Huerta said.During a pandemic that has killed more than 51,000 Texans so far, far-right Republican party members chastised Abbott for instituting a statewide mask mandate and other precautions against their wishes.After critics were so peeved that they gathered in protest at the governor’s mansion, the state’s ultra-conservative politicians evidently smelled blood. Some, including the former Texas GOP chairman Allen West and one-term state senator Don Huffines, have already announced they’ll try to oust Abbott next year.“Why isn’t he here?” Huffines asked an audience at ​​the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas earlier this month. “He’s not here because he doesn’t want to face you.”But in reality, Abbott has a $55mn re-election war chest and a higher approval rating in Texas than Senator Ted Cruz, Senator John Cornyn, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and a slew of other prominent state politicians, according to the Texas Tribune.In case that’s not enough, he has started brandishing his conservative credentials ahead of the election. Some believe he’s branding himself as the standard bearer for the new GOP, not only to win in 2022 but also for a potential presidential bid.“I don’t think of him in terms of moderate or conservative. I just see him as someone who you can expect to adopt, you know, the consensus worldview, or the predominant –the dominant – worldview of the Republican party at any given time,” said Jason Lee, a strategist for Texas Right to Vote.In March, before the Covid-19 vaccine was widely available, Abbott opened Texas 100% and abandoned his mask mandate – a decision Joe Biden called “Neanderthal thinking”. Abbott has also banned government-mandated vaccine passports to avoid “treading on Texans’ personal freedoms”.He has recently made migrants and asylum seekers into political punching bags, announcing his intention to build a wall dividing Texas from Mexico. And following Trump’s endorsement, he echoed the former president’s anti-immigrant rhetoric when they met for a photo op last month, according to the Dallas Morning News.“It is time to make sure we seal this border and close it down,” Abbott said. “The people coming across the border are cartels and gangs and smugglers and human traffickers.”After Democrats walked off the state House floor to block a restrictive voting bill during the regular legislative session in May, Abbott vetoed the legislature’s funding and convened a special session to force them to address his priorities. When lawmakers thwarted him again by flying to Washington DC on Monday, he vowed to arrest them.“This special session to me is to get the bingo card filled out, to hit all the hot button issues that they identified, and basically take away any arguments from his conservative challengers that he didn’t, you know, fulfill his conservative mission,” Lee said.The session amounts to “political theater to build up to 2022”, Benitez said, and state leaders are using the opportunity to “see who can run farthest to the right”. Agenda items don’t include fixing Texas’s failing electric grid that left hundreds dead during a devastating winter storm last February.Instead, Abbott instructed the legislature to pass bills that would go after abortion medication, put up more obstacles for people trying to get out of jail and make it harder for Texans to vote.“It’s a two-step process,” Collier said. “First, frighten the base with nonsense. Second, propose so-called solutions and then try to win your primary. And what they aren’t doing is addressing the real issues.”TopicsTexasUS politicsRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Personality and Ambition Fuel Saudi-UAE Divide

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      Personality and the conflation of national interests with personal ambition are contributing to the widening gap between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It was only a matter of time before Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) would want to go out on his own and no longer be seen as the protégé of his erstwhile mentor and Emirati counterpart, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ). By the same token, there was little doubt that the Saudi prince and future king would want to put to rest any suggestion that the UAE, rather than Saudi Arabia, called the shots in the Gulf and the Middle East.

      No doubt, MBS will not have forgotten revelations about Emirati attitudes toward Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s strategic vision of the relationship between the two countries. This was spelled out in emails by Yusuf al-Otaiba, the UAE ambassador in Washington and a close associate of MBZ, which were leaked in 2017. The emails made clear that UAE leaders believed they could use Saudi Arabia — the Gulf’s behemoth — and Mohammed bin Salman as a vehicle to promote Emirati interests.

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      “Our relationship with them is based on strategic depth, shared interests, and most importantly the hope that we could influence them. Not the other way around,” Otaiba wrote. In a separate email, the ambassador told a former US official that “I think in the long term we might be a good influence on KSA [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia], at least with certain people there.”

      A participant in a more recent meeting with Otaiba quoted the ambassador as referring to the Middle East as “the UAE region,” suggesting an enhanced Emirati regional influence. In a similar vein, former Dubai police chief Dhahi Khalfan, blowing his ultra-nationalist horn, tweeted in Arabic, “It’s not humanity’s survival of the strongest, it’s the survival of the smartest.”

      To be sure, Mohammed bin Zayed has been plotting the UAE’s positioning as a regional economic and geopolitical powerhouse for far longer than his Saudi counterpart. It is not for nothing that it earned the UAE the epitaph of “Little Sparta,” in the words of former US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis.

      Windows of Opportunity

      No doubt, smarts count for a lot. But, in the ultimate analysis, the two crown princes appear to be exploiting windows of opportunity that exist as long as their most powerful rivals, Turkey and Iran, fail to get their act together. The Saudis and Emiratis see the Turks and Iranians as threats to their regional power. Both Turkey and Iran have far larger, highly educated populations, huge domestic markets, battle-hardened militaries, significant natural resources and industrial bases.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In the meantime, separating the wheat from the chaff in the Gulf spat may be easier said than done. Bader al-Saif, a Gulf analyst, notes that differences among Arab states have emerged as a result of regime survival strategies that are driven by the need to gear up for a post-oil era. The emergence of a more competitive landscape need not be all negative. Saif warns, however, that “left unchecked … differences could snowball and negatively impact the neighborhood.

      Several factors complicate the management of these differences. For one, the Vision 2030 plan for weening Saudi Arabia off its dependence on the export of fossil fuel differs little from the perspective put forward by the UAE and Qatar, two countries that have a substantial head start.

      Saudi Arabia sought to declare an initial success in the expanded rivalry by revealing last week that the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the airline industry body, had opened its regional headquarters in Riyadh. IATA denied that the Saudi office would have regional responsibility. The announcement came on the heels of the disclosure of Saudi plans to create a new airline to compete with Emirates and Qatar Airways.

      Further complicating the management of differences is the fact that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are likely to compete for market share as they seek to maximize their oil export revenues in the short and medium term. This is particularly before oil demand potentially plateaus and then declines in the 2030s.

      Finally, and perhaps most importantly, economic diversification and social liberalization are tied up with the competing geopolitical ambitions of the two princes in positioning their countries as the regional leader. Otaiba signaled MBZ’s ambition in 2017 in an email exchange with Elliot Abram, a neoconservative former US official. “Jeez, the new hegemon! Emirati imperialism! Well, if the US won’t do it, someone has to hold things together for a while,” Abrams wrote to the ambassador, referring to the UAE’s growing regional role. “Yes, how dare we! In all honesty, there was not much of a choice. We stepped up only after your country chose to step down,” Otaiba replied.

      The Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas

      Differences in the ideological and geopolitical thinking of the princes when it comes to political Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood reemerged recently. Differing Saudi and Emirati approaches were initially evident in 2015 when King Salman and his son began their reign in Saudi Arabia. This was a period when Mohammed bin Zayed, who views political Islam and the Brotherhood as an existential threat, had yet to forge close ties to the new Saudi leadership. At the time, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, barely a month after King Salman’s ascendancy, told an interviewer that “there is no problem between the kingdom” and the Brotherhood.

      Just a month later, the Muslim World League, a body established by Saudi Arabia in the 1960s to propagate religious ultra-conservatism and long dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, organized a conference in a building in Mecca that had not been used since the banning of the brothers. The Qataris, who have a history of close ties to the Brotherhood, were invited.

      After King Salman and his son came to power, Saudi Arabia adopted a harder approach toward Brotherhood-related groups as Mohammed bin Zayed gained influence in Saudi affairs. The Muslim League has since become Mohammed bin Salman’s main vehicle for promoting his call for religious tolerance and inter-faith dialogue. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are portraying themselves as icons of a socially moderate form of Islam that, nonetheless, endorses autocratic rule.

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      Last week, the kingdom signaled a potential change in its attitude toward Brotherhood-related groups with the broadcast of an interview with Khaled Meshaal, the Qatar-based head of the political arm of Hamas. The interview was aired on Al Arabiya, the Saudi state-controlled news channel. Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that controls Gaza, maintains relations with Iran and is viewed as being part of a Brotherhood network. Meshaal called for a resumption of relations between Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian movement.

      In 2014, Saudi Arabia designated Hamas as a terrorist organization. This was part of a dispute between Qatar, a supporter of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, and Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain, which had all withdrawn their ambassadors from Doha. The Saudis were particularly upset by the close relations that Hamas had forged with Iran and Turkey, Riyadh’s main rivals for regional hegemony.

      A litmus test of the degree of change in Saudi Arabia’s attitude will be whether it releases scores of Hamas members. These members were arrested in 2019 as part of Saudi efforts to garner Palestinian support for then-US President Donald Trump’s controversial peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Quoting the Arabic service of Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency, Al-Monitor reported that Al Arabiya had refrained from broadcasting a segment of the interview in which Meshaal called for the release of the detainees.

      Despite Differences

      The Saudi–UAE rivalry and the ambitions of their leaders make it unlikely that Mohammed bin Salman and Mohammed bin Zayed will look at structural ways of managing differences. This includes areas like greater regional economic integration through arrangements for trade and investment and an expanded customs union. The latter would make the region more attractive to foreign investors and improve the Gulf states’ bargaining power.

      In the absence of strengthening institutions, the bets are on the crown princes recognizing that, despite their differences, “it doesn’t make sense for either one of them to let go of the other.”

      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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      in World Politics

      The Role Turkey Can Play in Afghanistan

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      Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan caused waves at the NATO summit in June, announcing that Turkey would continue to protect Kabul airport following the complete NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan. Kabul airport is Afghanistan’s principal air connection to the outside world, and it is vital for the security of diplomats and aid workers in the country.

      The proposal needs to be seen in the context of the broad militarization of Turkish foreign policy. In recent years, Ankara has deployed armed forces for geopolitical leverage in Syria, Somalia, Libya, the Eastern Mediterranean and Azerbaijan. The associated costs have remained very low, further emboldening Turkish policymakers. In Somalia and Syria, the Turkish military also gained experience operating in theaters where armed militants pose significant security challenges.

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      The main factor behind the airport proposal, however, is Turkish-American relations. Ankara hopes to regain favor with Washington after a string of diplomatic crises. The Turkish side knows its hand is weakened by issues such as its acquisition of the Russian S400 air defense system and Washington’s responses, including CAATSA sanctions and removing Turkish manufacturers from the supply chain for the new F35 warplane. The Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, known as CAATSA, is a law passed by the US Congress in 2017 that intended to penalize Russia. In December 2020, Turkey was added to the sanctions list for its purchase of the S400. The proposal to help out in Afghanistan emerged as an obvious way to improve bilateral relations with the US.

      A Good Reputation

      As the only Muslim-majority member of NATO, Turkey played important roles in Afghanistan. Former Turkish Foreign Minister Hikmet Cetin served as NATO’s first senior civilian representative in Afghanistan and Turkish officers twice commanded the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). There are currently 500 Turkish soldiers serving with the NATO mission. Turkey never deployed a combat force, however. The Taliban, in turn, avoided targeting Turkish forces; there has only been one attack on a Turkish unit.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Additionally, Turkish state institutions and NGOs conduct a broad range of cultural and educational activities and supply extensive humanitarian aid. Reports confirm the ability of Turkish officials and volunteers to engage with Afghan society on equal terms. Shared religious and cultural elements certainly help. Although the Taliban accuses of Ankara being too pro-Uzbek, Turkey is viewed very positively across Afghan society. This, together with its ability to talk with all sides and its non-combat role in ISAF, places Turkey in a unique position.

      However, protecting Kabul airport would change the nature of Turkey’s involvement. While the Afghan government welcomed the idea, the Taliban have repeatedly declared that they will not tolerate even a residual foreign force. That implies that the Taliban would target Turkish troops, risking drastic consequences for Turkey. To avoid this, Turkey’s extended stay requires prior agreement with all Afghan parties, and Ankara will use its diplomatic capacity to seek such an agreement. Moreover, rather than focusing solely on leaving a residual force, Turkey could use its diplomatic and humanitarian leverage to pursue a more comprehensive approach to the Afghan problem.

      Intra-Afghan Agreement Needed

      The current peace agreement involves only the United States and the Taliban. There is as yet no peace agreement between the Afghan government and the Taliban. As the withdrawal of NATO forces accelerates, the conflict is now between the Taliban and Afghan government forces. Despite NATO’s decades of investment, the Afghan army is no match for the Taliban. In fact, a major Taliban offensive is already underway. Kabul may not fall immediately, but time is on the side of the insurgents. But if the Taliban overplays its hand and tries to dominate the entire country, there will be a backlash, particularly from the non-Pashtun ethnic communities.

      In that case, Afghanistan is likely to descend back into civil war. Under such circumstances, a Turkish military presence would be too risky and unsustainable, even with agreements with the government and the Taliban. Rather than focusing only on protecting Kabul airport, Turkey should place its diplomatic weight behind a peaceful settlement between the Taliban and the government before violence spirals out of control. The first step toward a broader agreement between the Afghan parties themselves would be for Ankara to reach an agreement with each of them. This road is arguably a stony one, but it offers much greater rewards. Turkey would certainly need the support of other countries to overcome the obstacles involved.

      The first challenge is to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table with the Afghan government, which Turkey and the international community have so far failed to achieve. Here, Turkey can benefit from its exceptionally good relations with Pakistan and Qatar. Qatar is home to the Taliban’s only external office and relations are cordial. Pakistan, where many senior Taliban leaders reside, has the greatest leverage. Even though large segments of Afghan society frown on Pakistan’s involvement in their country, its influence over the Taliban would be crucial for reaching a negotiated settlement.

      Europe should be more active and support Turkey’s efforts diplomatically and economically. As well as that being the morally right thing to do, Europe has a tangible interest too. A resurgence of fighting in Afghanistan would trigger a wave of migration. Afghans are already the second-largest migrant community in Turkey after the 3.6 million Syrian refugees. They also formed the second-largest group of new asylum applications in Germany in 2020. Given Iran’s open-door policy, it would be realistic to expect waves of Afghan migration to Turkey and on to Europe. The specter of a new refugee crisis looms.

      *[This article was originally published by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), which advises the German government and Bundestag on all questions relating to foreign and security policy.]

      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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      in World Politics

      America’s Afghan War Is Over. But What About Iraq and Iran?

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      At Bagram air base, Afghan scrap merchants are already picking through the graveyard of US military equipment that was until recently the headquarters of America’s 20-year occupation of their country. Afghan officials say the last US forces slipped away from Bagram in the dead of night, without notice or coordination. 

      The Taliban are rapidly expanding their control over hundreds of districts in Afghanistan, usually through negotiations between local elders, but also by force when troops loyal to the Kabul government refuse to give up their outposts and weapons. A few weeks ago, the Taliban controlled a quarter of the country. Now it’s a third. They are taking control of border posts and large swathes of territory in the north of the country. These include areas that were once strongholds of the Northern Alliance, a militia that prevented the Taliban from unifying the country under their rule in the late 1990s. 

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      People of goodwill all over the world hope for a peaceful future for the people of Afghanistan, but the only legitimate role the United States can play there now is to pay reparations, in whatever form, for the damage it has done and the pain and deaths it has caused. Speculation in the US political class and corporate media about how the US can keep bombing and killing Afghans from “over the horizon” should cease. The US and its corrupt puppet government lost this war. Now it’s up to the Afghans to forge their future. 

      Iraq

      So, what about America’s other endless crime scene: Iraq? The US corporate media only mention Iraq when our leaders suddenly decide that the over 150,000 bombs and missiles they have dropped on Iraq and Syria since 2001 were not enough, and dropping a few more on Iranian allies there will appease some hawks in Washington without starting a full-scale war with Iran.

      But for 40 million Iraqis, as for 40 million Afghans, America’s most stupidly chosen battlefield is their country, not just an occasional news story. They are living their entire lives under the enduring impacts of the neocons’ war of mass destruction.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Young Iraqis took to the streets in 2019 to protest 16 years of corrupt government by the former exiles to whom the United States handed over their country and its oil revenues. The protests were directed at the Iraqi government’s corruption and failure to provide jobs and basic services to its people, but also at the underlying, self-serving foreign influences of the US and Iran over every Iraqi government since the 2003 invasion.

      A new government was formed in May 2020, headed by Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, previously the head of Iraq’s intelligence service and, before that, a journalist and editor for the Al-Monitor website. Kadhimi has initiated investigations into the embezzlement of $150 billion in Iraqi oil revenues by officials of previous governments, who were mostly former Western-based exiles like himself. He is now walking a fine line to try to save his country, after all it has been through, from becoming the front line in a new US war on Iran.

      Recent US airstrikes have targeted the Hashd al-Shaabi, known in English as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). The PMF, which is made up of mostly Iraqi Shia armed groups, was formed in 2014 to fight the Islamic State (IS). At the time, IS had seized territory spanning both Iraq and Syria, breaking the border between the two countries and declaring a caliphate. The PMF comprises about 130,000 troops in 40 or more different units. Most of them were recruited by pro-Iranian Iraqi political parties and groups. Now, the PMF is an integral part of Iraq’s armed forces and is credited with playing a critical role in the war against IS.

      Western media represent the PMF as militias that Iran can turn on and off as a weapon against the United States. But the PMF has its own interests and decision-making structures. When Iran has tried to calm tensions with the US, it has not always been able to control the PMF. General Haider al-Afghani, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard officer in charge of coordinating with the PMF, recently requested a transfer out of Iraq. He complained that the PMF paid no attention to him.

      Ever since the US assassination of Iran’s General Qasem Soleimani and PMF commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in January 2020, the PMF has been determined to force the last remaining US occupation forces out of Iraq. After the killing, the Iraqi national assembly passed a resolution calling for US forces to leave Iraq. Following US airstrikes against PMF units in February 2021, Iraq and the US agreed in early April that American combat troops would soon depart. 

      But no date has been set, no detailed agreement has been signed, many Iraqis do not believe US forces will leave, nor do they trust the Kadhimi government to ensure their departure. As time has gone by without a formal agreement, some PMF forces have resisted calls for calm from their own government and Iran and stepped up attacks on US forces. 

      At the same time, the Vienna talks over the Iran nuclear agreement have raised fear among PMF commanders that Iran may sacrifice them as a bargaining chip in a renegotiated nuclear agreement with the United States. So, in the interest of survival, the commanders have become more independent of Iran and cultivated a closer relationship with Kadhimi. This was evidenced in Kadhimi’s attendance at a huge military parade in June to celebrate the seventh anniversary of the PMF’s founding. 

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      The next day, the US bombed PMF forces in Iraq and Syria, drawing public condemnation from Kadhimi and his cabinet as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty. After conducting retaliatory strikes, the PMF declared a new ceasefire on June 29, apparently to give Kadhimi more time to finalize a withdrawal agreement. But six days later, some of them resumed rocket and drone attacks on US targets.

      Whereas Donald Trump only retaliated when rocket attacks in Iraq killed Americans, a senior US official has revealed that President Joe Biden has lowered the bar, threatening to respond with airstrikes even when Iraqi militia attacks do not cause US casualties. But US air strikes have only led to rising tensions and further escalations by Iraqi militia forces. If American forces respond with more or heavier airstrikes, the PMF and Iran’s allies throughout the region can respond with more widespread attacks on US bases. The further this escalates and the longer it takes to negotiate a genuine withdrawal agreement, the more pressure Kadhimi will get from the PMF and other sectors of Iraqi society to show US forces the door.

      The official rationale for the US presence and that of NATO training forces in Iraqi Kurdistan is that the Islamic State is still active. In January, a suicide bomber killed 32 people in Baghdad. The group still has a strong appeal to oppressed young people across the Arab and Muslim world. The failures, corruption and repression of successive post-2003 governments in Iraq have provided fertile soil.

      Iran

      But the United States clearly has another reason for keeping forces in Iraq, as a forward base in its simmering war on Iran. That is exactly what Kadhimi is trying to avoid by replacing US forces with the Danish-led NATO training mission in Iraqi Kurdistan. This mission is being expanded from 500 to at least 4,000 forces, made up of Danish, British and Turkish troops. 

      If Biden had quickly rejoined the nuclear agreement with Iran after taking office in January, tensions would be lower by now and the US troops in Iraq might well be home already. Instead, Biden obliviously swallowed the poison pill of Trump’s Iran policy by using “maximum pressure” as a form of “leverage,” escalating an endless game of chicken the United States cannot win — a tactic that Barack Obama began to wind down six years ago by signing the JCPOA.

      The US withdrawal from Iraq and the Iran nuclear deal are interconnected, two essential parts of a policy to improve US–Iranian relations and end Washington’s antagonistic and destabilizing interventionist role in the Middle East. The third element for a more stable and peaceful region is the diplomatic engagement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, in which Kadhimi’s Iraq is playing a critical role as the principal mediator.    

      The fate of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the Iran deal is formally known, is still uncertain. The sixth round of shuttle diplomacy in Vienna ended on June 20 and no date has been set for a seventh round yet. Biden’s commitment to rejoining the JCPOA seems shakier than ever. Ebrahim Raisi, the president-elect of Iran, has declared he will not let the Americans keep drawing out the negotiations. 

      Embed from Getty Images

      In an interview in June, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken upped the ante by threatening to pull out of the talks altogether. He said that if Iran continued to spin more sophisticated centrifuges at higher and higher levels, it will become very difficult for the United States to return to the original deal, which was signed in 2015 under Obama. Asked whether or when the US might walk away from negotiations, he said, “I can’t put a date on it, [but] it’s getting closer.”

      What should really be “getting closer” is the US withdrawal of troops from Iraq. While Afghanistan is portrayed as the “longest war” the United States has fought, the US military has been bombing Iraq for most of the last 30 years. The fact that the US military is still conducting “defensive airstrikes” 18 years after the 2003 invasion and nearly 10 years since the official end of the war proves just how ineffective and disastrous this US intervention has been.

      Biden certainly seems to have learned the lesson in Afghanistan that the US can neither bomb its way to peace nor install puppet governments at will. When pilloried by the press about the Taliban gaining control as US troops withdraw, Biden said: “For those who have argued that we should stay just six more months or just one more year, I ask them to consider the lessons of recent history.” He added: “Nearly 20 years of experience has shown us, and the current security situation only confirms, that ‘just one more year’ of fighting in Afghanistan is not a solution but a recipe for being there indefinitely. It’s the right and the responsibility of the Afghan people alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country.”  

      The same lessons of history apply to Iraq. The US has already inflicted so much death and misery on the Iraqi people, destroyed so many of its beautiful cities and unleashed so much sectarian violence and IS fanaticism. Just like the shuttering of the massive Bagram base in Afghanistan, Biden should dismantle the remaining imperial bases in Iraq and bring the troops home.

      The Iraqi people have the same right to decide their own future as the people of Afghanistan. All the countries of the Middle East have the right and the responsibility to live in peace, without the threat of American bombs and missiles always hanging over their heads. 

      Let’s hope Biden has learned another history lesson: that the United States should stop invading and attacking other countries.

      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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      in World Politics

      Is Football Still a Bastion of White Supremacy?

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      On the morning preceding England’s narrow defeat in the European Championship final, The New York Times published an article containing a heart-warming lesson about the power of sport to overcome and eliminate the scourge of xenophobic racism. Rory Smith, The Times’ football specialist based in Manchester, England, wrote: “Euro 2020 has become, in other words, a moment of genuine national unity.”

      What Is Behind Football’s Persistent Racism?

      READ MORE

      Smith quotes the article by anti-racism activist Shaista Aziz in The Guardian. Ms. Aziz exulted in the humanizing effect England’s football team was having on a nation that has been “a tiptoe away from racism and bigotry.” She seemed convinced everyone in England believed “this team is playing for all of us.” That special “moment of genuine national unity” proved to be short-lived.

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      National unity:

      A fragile and often superficial sentiment of fraternity in modern nations provoked alternatively by the success of a team in a popular sport (e.g. winning a championship) or by the collective hatred of a real or imagined enemy following a destructive incident (e.g. 9/11)

      Contextual Note

      On Monday, The Guardian ran a story with the title, “Boris Johnson condemns ‘appalling’ racist abuse of England players.” Immediately following the England team’s defeat, social media provided proof of the illusory quality of the sense of national unity that the Three Lions’ success in reaching the final had provoked. It also highlighted the perverse link between political authority and the raw xenophobic emotion that some politicians feel they must encourage to establish and validate that authority.

      Modern democracies in our competitive, liberal civilization desperately want to believe in the gradual but inevitable triumph of virtue over vice. Thanks to the phenomenon of “progress,” which they define as their DNA, the superstitions and injustices of the past are condemned to fade away under the pressure of common sense and the respect of honest competition.

      The Times’ Rory Smith anticipated the thrill of knowing that “tens of millions of British fans would be watching avidly, glorying not just in the team’s success on the field but off it as well.” This would be a turning point in the nation’s history and its troubled relationship with its colonial past. In his mind, the spectacle offered by the gladiators in the arena heralded a new dawn for a people still in the throes of existential doubt after centuries of playing the role of a global empire that, seven decades after its dismantlement, was still seeking to understand its legitimate place in a diverse world.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Smith saw the fans “as a microcosm of a nation seemingly more enthusiastic about its evolving identity as a more tolerant, multiracial and multi-ethnic society than is often suggested.” On or off the field, inside or outside the stadium, Smith’s fervent wish appears to be just that, a vain wish. On social media, which exists in its own abstract space but reflects some of the deeper reality, a part of the nation insisted on reminding optimists like Smith of its competitive disunity.

      Ever since Pierre de Coubertin launched the modern Olympic Games in 1896, sport and nationalism have gravitated toward each other. This has created the hope in some sectors that the spirit of cooperative teamwork at the core of sport could triumph over the very human tendency to let petty rivalries lead to conflict, enmity and crime and even world war. But today’s liberal society is driven by two forces: winning — the proof of one’s superiority — and money. Because of that need for the most competitive talent, diversity has become a feature of all sports, including those like football, rugby and even tennis that were developed by Britain’s 19th-century white elite. Football emerged in the 20th century as the most universal and popular of British sports.

      The mingling of athletic performance, commercial interest, politics and nationalism was inevitable. The internationalization of sport’s economy that began obeying the super-competitive rules of economic globalization, based on optimizing the extraction of resources, led to an increasing focus on economic goals and the transformation of athletic performance into a form of hyperreal or superhuman spectacle.

      Until recently, politicians understood the advantage of defining sport as something entirely separate from politics. They showed a certain condescending respect for the performance of athletes, simply congratulating them for their competitive spirit. But the simultaneous effects of sport’s economic globalization, its financialization and the colonial heritage of Western nations led to a transformation of the traditionally perceived local and tepidly nationalistic character of teams. In Britain and the United States, for most of the 20th century, professional athletes were in their grand majority white. For a long time, non-whites were entirely excluded. Modern sport literally developed as a bastion of white supremacy.

      The pressures of economic competition combined with increasingly vocal frustration of excluded groups across Western societies led to the diversity now prevalent in all professional sports. A further trend, magnified by the media and the advertising dollars that support the media, has turned athletes into superheroes and hyperreal celebrities on a par with Hollywood actors. They belong to a stratosphere political leaders can no longer hope to rival.

      Historical Note

      Soon after his election in 2016, US President Donald Trump broke the entente cordiale that previously existed between sports and politics by intervening directly in the controversy that arose around Colin Kaepernick’s silent protest against police brutality toward black Americans. Trump deemed the act of kneeling during the national anthem an insult to the valiant troops that American presidents have the habit of sending abroad to be maimed and killed in the name of demonstrating the seriousness of the nation’s enduring mission, which consists of maiming and killing people elsewhere in the world who fail to pledge allegiance to the unimpeachable moral standards of the United States.

      After the protests sparked by George Floyd’s murder last year, Kaepernick’s gesture became a universal symbol of passive resistance to persistent racism. Out of electoral expediency, Trump and his followers turned the issue into a major component of the ongoing “culture wars” that have effectively shattered the last trace of the illusion of unity in the profoundly Disunited States, a nation where insult, shaming, calumny and canceling have become an art, if not a science.

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      Once Kaepernick’s gesture had gone universal, most politicians sought to distance themselves from the issue. But not Boris Johnson and his team. As the political profiteer who achieved his life’s ambition of becoming prime minister thanks to his xenophobic campaign for Brexit in 2016, Johnson may have felt obliged to appeal to his base and encourage suspicion of the “darkies’” intent. Johnson’s team branded it “gesture politics,” denying its stated purpose focused on social justice. Home Secretary Priti Patel and Johnson himself declined to condemn the booing some members of the public addressed to the kneeling players.

      The symbolism of sport in today’s culture reflects the evolution of the modern economy. Just as the economy, despite its noble claims, is not really about innovation, efficiency, abundance and meeting the needs of the people, sport isn’t about developing and celebrating the beauty of “the beautiful game” and other popular sports. The money factor trumps all the old associations with personal and collective achievement.

      Now it’s simply about winning and losing. Just as the driving force of the economy is the profit motive — maximizing one’s earnings and crushing the competition, which also means depriving those involved of their livelihood — the only thing the public retains from a sporting event is the celebration of the winner and witnessing the humiliation of the loser. At least in sports, the losers are still well paid and their livelihood rarely compromised.

      Pierre de Coubertin famously claimed for the revived Olympic Games that the aim “is not to win, but to take part; the important thing in Life is not triumph, but the struggle. To spread these principles is to build up a strong and more valiant and, above all, more scrupulous and more generous humanity.” De Coubertin recounted that he was inspired to promote the Olympic Games by the link he saw between the emphasis on sport in Britain’s elite educational culture and the global triumph of its empire in the 19th century. Although it was for the most part officially dismantled in the 1950s, could this be a case of Boris’ empire striking back?

      *[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

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      in US Politics

      Legal threats to Donald Trump ‘more serious than ever before’, experts say

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      Donald TrumpLegal threats to Donald Trump ‘more serious than ever before’, experts say Prosecutors in New York, Georgia and Washington have inquiries that could yield further, serious charges against the ex-presidentPeter Stone in WashingtonTue 13 Jul 2021 03.00 EDTLast modified on Tue 13 Jul 2021 03.01 EDTAs a New York criminal investigation continues after bringing tax fraud charges against Donald Trump’s business and a top executive, other prosecutors in Georgia, Washington DC and New York have inquiries under way that could also yield serious charges against Trump and his company, according to former prosecutors and public records.Rupert Murdoch approved Fox News calling Arizona for Biden, book claimsRead moreFor example, a Georgia district attorney is leading a wide ranging criminal probe into Trump’s infamous call on 2 January to Georgia’s secretary of state beseeching him to “find 11,780 votes” to block Joe Biden’s presidential election win there.Meanwhile, separate prosecutors in New York and Washington DC are scrutinizing whether Trump’s businesses benefited illegally during his 2017 inauguration. The Washington attorney general has sued the inaugural committee, the Trump International Hotel in DC and the Trump Organization alleging they schemed to make “exorbitant and unlawful” payments of over $1 million to Trump’s DC hotel which hosted some inaugural events.Further, Trump could be ensnared in a federal criminal investigation of his former personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who Trump tapped to dig up dirt on Biden in Ukraine during the campaign. Giuliani is being investigated reportedly for possible violations of foreign lobbying laws that require registration, and for his role in Trump’s firing of the US ambassador there in 2019.On yet another legal front, Trump is facing several civil lawsuits, including one from writer E Jean Carroll, whose 2019 memoir alleged Trump once raped her. After Trump accused her of lying to sell books, Carroll filed a defamation lawsuit.Former justice department prosecutors say these inquiries and lawsuits increase legal pressures on Trump, even as Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance and New York attorney general Letitia James investigates more allegations of illegal acts by Trump’s business besides the June tax fraud charges against the Trump organization and its chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, a scheme that allegedly gave him free cars, rent and other perks for years.Trump denounced the New York charges as a political ploy by Democrats, and has attacked the others as witch-hunts. Weisselberg and the Trump Organization on July 1 both plead not guilty to the tax fraud charges.But this cast of wide-ranging inquiries and lawsuits pose huge legal headaches for Trump and look far more serious than many others Trump has dodged over decades, say former prosecutors.“The current threats are more numerous and more serious than ever before and it’s hard to imagine that his good luck will continue,” Michael Bromwich, an ex- prosecutor and former inspector general at the Justice Department, said in an interview.“Trump hates playing defense, which explains his baseless suit earlier this week against the major tech companies. We are very likely to see many more shoes dropping over the foreseeable future – and Trump knows it. He has never more desperately needed top legal talent, and that’s not who he has representing him.”Other justice department veterans foresee multiple legal travails for Trump.“Donald Trump is now facing more than a dozen separate civil lawsuits and criminal investigations, with more matters likely to follow,” said Phillip Halpern, a former California prosecutor who spent three decades focused on corruption cases.Halpern added that the criminal inquiries in Georgia, New York and Washington have the potential to “drastically impact Trump’s historical legacy, and result in his – or various family members, associates, and attorneys – spending considerable time in jail.”Halpern stressed that the civil lawsuits and the New York investigation by Vance and James “carry the potential for sizable personal monetary penalties, and could subject Trump’s companies to massive penalties”.These legal threats vary in risk to Trump, but the inquiry into Trump’s call pressuring Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to reverse Biden’s win, bears watching.The district attorney leading that inquiry, Fani Willis, has written that prosecutors are examining “potential violations of Georgia law prohibiting the solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office and any involvement in violence or threats related to the election’s administration.”Cathy Cox, a former Georgia secretary of state and Dean of Mercer University School of Law, said that the Fulton county inquiry is “nothing to take lightly”.Cox stressed that Willis is “experienced with Georgia’s expansive Rico [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act] law, she has a record of using it successfully in high-profile cases, and she’s engaged the state’s undisputed Rico expert, attorney John Floyd, to assist her. Those factors ramp this case up even further in terms of its potential for serious criminal charges.”Moreover, Trump’s business faces legal jeopardy from inquiries into spending by his inaugural committee that were separately launched by federal prosecutors in New York and by Washington attorney general Karl Racine. Racine has deposed Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump, which could create other problems for the Trump family if they didn’t answer truthfully.In a court filing, Racine’s office stated that Trump Jr’s testimony “raised further questions about the nature” of an invoice related to the inauguration “and revealed evidence that defendants had not yet produced to the district”.More legal headaches for Trump may arise from the expanding inquiry into Giuliani, whose New York home and office were raided in April by federal agents who seized 10 electronic devices including cell phones and computers.The inquiry is reportedly focused on Giuliani’s role in Trump’s firing of US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch in May 2019, a move pushed by Giuliani and two Soviet-born associates – indicted earlier on charges of campaign finance violations – and a central issue in Trump’s first impeachment.Giuliani is under investigation to determine if he broke the Foreign Agents Registration Act requiring those who lobby the US government on behalf of foreign officials to register with the DoJ.Giuliani has denied doing anything unlawful.Looking ahead, ex-DoJ officials say that the detailed charges now brought against the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer could presage more legal problems for Trump’s business.“The thoroughness and highly factual nature of the indictments give a lot of information about the deeply inappropriate practices of Trump’s business,” said Donald Ayer, a former deputy attorney general at the justice department in the George HW Bush administration. “There is no particular reason to think that such inappropriate practices were confined to dealings with Allen Weisselberg.”Yet some former prosecutors predict that as his legal problems mount, Trump and his supporters will milk the inquiries for political gain.“Trump uses his legal problems to reinforce his image as an outsider (and) to fire up his base,” said Barbara McQuade, a professor from practice at the University of Michigan Law School and a US attorney for the eastern district of Michigan.She added: “But for those who care about the rule of law, it is important to hold accountable individuals who engage in illegal activity, even former presidents.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More