Our So-Called Foreign Policy: How Trump Can Pass His Afghanistan Test

Tags

Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, America First, border security, globalism, Immigration, Iraq, ISIS, jihadism, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, September 11, Syria, Taliban, terrorism, Trump, Tucker Carlson

So it seems we’re soon going to see another major test of how much of an America First-er on foreign policy President Trump really is: Will he or won’t he withdraw the U.S. troops remaining in Afghanistan if he can strike an acceptable deal with that country’s Taliban insurgents?

Globalists across the political spectrum – that is, supporters of America’s pre-Trump decades of seeking to address foreign policy challenges through various forms of active engagement in foreign affairs around the world – and especially conservative globalists, are awfully skeptical, to say the least, and they have numerous understandable and specific reasons. One that stands out: Why should anyone trust the Taliban to keep the promise that the President is seeking – a pledge to ensure that no part of Afghanistan left under its effective control by any agreement to end or even suspend the conflict between it and the Afghan government becomes a terrorist base once again.

After all, the Taliban was the group that permitted Al Qaeda to use such territories as safe havens from which to plan and train for the September 11 terrorist attacks. A U.S. invasion and nearly twenty years of ongoing military operations have clearly played a major role in ensuring that no September 11 repeats have taken place, or at least strikes emanating from Afghanistan. And there’s no sign of any ebbing in the Taliban’s violent, anti-American nature. In addition, similar American-led and assisted operations against ISIS have prevented that group from creating safe havens in Iraq and Syria large enough to possess September 11-like potential.

All in all, therefore, such interventions look like a resounding success for the idea that defeating terrorists “over there” is the best guarantee that they won’t do any harm “over here.” And there’s compelling evidence that the President has bought into this argument.

As he told Fox News talk show host Tucker Carlson in an early July interview:

“…I would like to just get out [of Afghanistan].  The problem is, it just seems to be a lab for terrorists.  It seems — I call it the Harvard of terrorists. 

“When you look at the World Trade Center, they were trained.  They didn’t — by the way, they attacked the wrong country.  They didn’t come from Iraq, all right.  They came from various other countries.

“But they all formed in Afghanistan, and it’s probably because it’s at the base of so many countries, but they all formed and it’s rough mountains and you get a lot of — you know, you get a lot of good hiding places.

“But I would leave very strong intelligence there.  You have to watch because they do — you know, okay, I’ll give you a tough one.  If you were in my position and a great looking central casting and we have great generals, a great central casting general walks up to your office, I say, ‘We’re getting out.’  ‘Yes, sir.  We’ll get out.  Yes, sir.’

“I’ll say, ‘What do you think of that?’  ‘Sir, I’d rather attack them over there, then attack them in our land.’  In other words, them coming here.  That’s always a very tough decision, you know, with what happened with the World Trade Center, et cetera et cetera.

“When they say that, you know, no matter how you feel, and you and I feel pretty much very similar.  But when you’re standing there, and you have some really talented military people saying, ‘I’d rather attack them over there than have them hit us over here and fight them on our land.’  It’s something you always have to think about.”

But what the President surprisingly seems to forget is that the September 11 terrorists were able to come “over here” not only because they were able to organize in Afghanistan, but because American border security was so unforgivably lax. This description of that situation comes from a group strongly on the restrictionist side of the immigration debate (as am I). But the evidence presented of visa overstays and examples of other hijackers being in the country illegally when they launched the attacks is highly specific and comparably convincing.

Further, then-U.S. Representative Candice S. Miller, a Republican from Michigan and former chair of the House Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, stated at hearings in 2012 that “more than 36 visa overstayers have been convicted of terrorism- related charges since 2001.”

As I’ve written previously, tightening border security enough to quell the terrorist threat completely is no small task. At the same time, it should also be clear that stepped up border security measures, along with intensified domestic counter-terrorism activities, have played some role in not only preventing more September 11 attacks but in greatly reducing the number of attacks from jihadist-inspired homegrown lone wolves.

Just as important, whenever making policy seriously, and therefore determining priorities and thus allocation of resources, the question always needs to be asked which of any competing approaches is more promising. In the case of anti-terrorism approaches, this challenge boils down to whether the nation is best advised to focus on further improving border security (a situation over which it has relatively great control) or on continuing to police the terminally dysfunctional Middle East (a situation over which is has relatively little control).

Given that the Taliban is still a force to be reckoned with in Afghanistan after eighteen years of fighting the U.S. military and forces from allied countries plus those of Afghan governments in Kabul; and given new Pentagon claims that ISIS is already “solidifying” its “insurgent capabilities in Iraq” and “resurging in Syria,” the case for a domestic, i.e., America First-type focus instead of continuing to play whackamole in the Middle East looks stronger than ever. And that’s the case whether America’s generals look like they come from central casting or not.

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Im-Politic: Hyper-Partisans Across the Spectrum are Wrong; the Terrorist Threat is “All of the Above”

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gun violence, Im-Politic, Islamic terrorism, jihadism, left-wing terrorism, mass shootings, September 11, terrorism, Trump, white supremacist terrorism, white supremacists

As if we needed another one, the latest upsurge in the intertwined national debates about gun violence, mass shootings, and terrorism provides another example of how hyper-partisan, encrusted thinking is obscuring the road to dramatically improved policies – and greater public safety. Specifically, way too many Americans are still mired in a dangerously distracting debate over where the biggest terrorist threats come from, rather than admitting that the nation faces numerous types of violent groups that fit any sensible definition of terrorism.

And as a result, way too many (including most prominent political leaders) are ignoring a crucial lesson of America’s post-September 11 experience – that concerted, innovative, well-funded national campaigns against terrorist movements actually work.

After the attacks of 2001, the focus understandably was Islamic terrorism. And if you doubt the impact, ask yourself why else no hijacked jetliners have crashed into U.S. skyscrapers and similarly big targets for nearly 20 years. And why in 2018, the last full data year, exactly one homicide in America was connected with Islamism.

Dumb luck? But as golf immortal Ben Hogan once said to an exasperated less successful rival who accused him of getting the lion’s share of the breaks, “[T]he more I practice, the luckier I get.” In that vein, surely massive American anti-terrorism efforts abroad and at home have played an important role. If you’ve forgotten what they’ve been, here’s a quick summary (from the Los Angeles Times article linked above):

“Despite horrifying abuses and mistakes, from torture to secret prisons, [the George W. Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations] have largely destroyed Al Qaeda and its most dangerous offspring. The U.S.-led war against Islamic State has killed thousands of militants and broken the group’s hold on territory in Iraq and Syria.

“Domestic law enforcement has monitored extremists at home and interrupted dozens of plots (including some that turned out to be insubstantial). And common-sense security measures have made us less vulnerable; no U.S. plane has been hijacked since 9/11.”

I’d add that, despite numerous calls for sharp increases from Democrats and others on the Left, U.S. admissions of asylum-seekers from Middle Eastern countries and elsewhere around the world remained exceedingly modest under former President Barack Obama, and have dropped sharply under President Trump.

The clear meaning? Yes, as President Trump’s critics have claimed, Islamic-inspired terrorism has been on the wane. But it looks glaringly obvious that deserving much of the credit have been measures many of them strongly opposed – and still oppose, mainly because they’ve been so determined to smear Mr. Trump and others backing such hard-line policies as simple Islamo-phobes who have long been chasing a mirage.

But don’t think this lets the President and many of his supporters off the hook. For until recently, they’ve acted as if they’ve been so bent on defending the anti-jihadist campaign and on justifying its continuation that they’ve soft-pedaled its clear success, and have been slow to acknowledge the more recent emergence of an unmistakably serious violent white supremacist threat.

Chiefly, there’s compelling evidence that since his inauguration, the President has reduced funding for government efforts to fight domestic terrorism springing from racist and other extreme right-wing roots, and increased the resources devoted to fight violent jihadists. That shift might have been justified early during the Trump presidency – shortly after two major Islamist-inspired shootings in San Bernardino, California in December, 2015, and in Orlando, Florida in June, 2016. But since then, the domestic racists etc have been much more dangerously active, and it’s not enough for the President to condemn them explicitly and emphatically. His money needs to move where his mouth is.

Not that anti-jihadism budgets need to be cannibalized to achieve this aim. Vigilance on that front remains essential as well, lest America be caught by surprise again a la September 11. Washington also needs to move much more decisively against violent leftists – like the Dayton, Ohio shooter seems to have been, along with antifa. 

In other words, U.S. anti-terrorism policy needs to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time – and be as agile and continually evolving as the sources of terrorism themselves.

Im-Politic: September 11 Forgotten at Ground Zero

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Chanel Foundation, Coca Cola, G20, Ground Zero, Group of 20, Im-Politic, International Olympic Committee, Jamal Khashoggi, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Saudi Arabia, September 11, terrorism, World Trade Center

On the back of the older of our two family cars is a faded bumper sticker declaring “9-11. We Will Never Forget.” I wish I had a spare that I could send to the folks running the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, along with the Chanel Foundation, the International Olympic Committee, the Coca Cola Co., and other businesses and organizations like them. Because the Port Authority – a partnership involving the two states mentioned plus the federal government that operates major transportation assets in the New York metropolitan area – and the others just mentioned clearly have forgotten.

My evidence for this charge? Not two decades after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Port Authority, which developed the World Trade Center (WTC) site that stands in the shadow of the September 11 memorial, installed an exhibit at the Center an art exhibit that showcases the flag of Saudi Arabia – the home country of 15 of the 19 September 11 aircraft hijackers, which is ruled by a monarchy widely accused of (and in fact sued by the families of many September 11 victims for) harboring the terrorist forces responsible for the attacks. In other words, the a Saudi flag image is all but flying above Ground Zero. 

The exhibit, which opened last month, was funded by the Chanel Foundation, the Olympic Committee, and Coke. Although there’s no evidence that these sponsors had any role in the decision to locate the art at the WTC, since money talks, surely they could have prevented this outrage.

To be sure, Saudi Arabia’s is not the only flag displayed. The work consists of candy-shaped sculptures of the flags of all the countries comprising the Group of 20 (G20) – a loose network of the world’s twenty largest economies, which meets periodically to discuss various global issues. The French artist who created the sculptures didn’t mean to single out the Saudis as paragons of virtue, either. And that certainly wasn’t the (stated, at least) intent of the Port Authority, which called installing the work a part of its “continuing efforts to transform the World Trade Center site into a dynamic space in Lower Manhattan….”

Yet even leaving aside the appropriateness of prominently displaying a portrayal of the Saudi flag virtually on the very spot where the Twin Towers stood, the sculptures’ ostensibly intended message is pretty ditzy, or pretty cynical, depending on your standpoint. The flags come in the shape of wrappers around pieces of candy. The sculptor’s objective for this format (though not for placing it at the WTC site, which wasn’t his decision) was “to celebrate mankind on an international level and pay tribute to People of the entire world.” That’s pretty kumbaya-y, especially considering that G20 meetings are combinations of cold-blooded exercises in advancing national interests and multinational business interests (mainly in the case of the pre-Trump United States), with periodic rhetorical lip service to and occasional instances of international cooperation.

But hey, he’s an artist. Coca Cola and the like surely understand the self-interested aims that are served by portraying such arrangements and their workings as high minded (indeed sugar-sweet) efforts to promote international friendship and harmony.

Even so, this kind of globalist propaganda is still much less offensive per se than planting a facsimile of the Saudi flag so close to the scene of an atrocity committed by adherents of the kinds of jihadist movements strongly supported by Saudi leaders. Moreover, it’s especially troubling given the evidence that this same regime killed dissident Saudi journalist (and legal U.S. resident) Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey – an action that ignited much higher profile and sustained domestic and worldwide condemnation. So it’s not as if a lot of post-September 11 reform has taken place.

Like I said, the “Never Forget” bumper sticker on my car is pretty faded by now – and the Port Authority’s decision has prompted me to get a replacement. In fact, I think I’ll make it three (to go onto our second car). Moreover, I am going to send the other to the Port Authority. I hope all RealityChek readers will consider doing the same.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Why the Khashoggi Incident Really Matters

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Al Qaeda, America First, arms sales, Cold War, energy, globalism, globalists, Iran, ISIS, Islam, Israel, Jamal Khashoggi, jihadism, Middle East, oil, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, September 11, terrorism, Trump

Important though it is, the most important question surrounding the possibility that Saudi Arabia’s monarchy has killed Jamal Khashoggi is not whether the United States responds or how it responds if the kingdom did murder the dissident journalist – who happens to be a legal resident of the United States.

Instead, the most important question is really two-fold. First, do the many U.S. foreign policy traditionalists calling for severe punishment understand how such a move could undercut the decades-long approach toward the Saudis that they themselves have strongly supported? Second, and even more intriguing, do these globalists understand that the Khashoggi affair is simply the latest in a long string of signs that it’s well past time for the United States to adopt a genuine America First approach and leave the hot, dysfunctional mess that is the entire Muslim Middle East?

Given the prominence of maintaining good relations with the Saudis in the strategies of American globalists across the the board, it’s nothing less than jaw-dropping to see how many of them – liberal and conservative alike – are calling for strong counter-measures if Khashoggi is in fact dead at Saudi hands. Here’s a representative example from no less than former CIA chief John Brennan – who’s gone on Never Trump rampage in part because he views Trump’s foreign policy views as anathema. My astonishment, however, is justified even if much of the outrage is no more than outrage-signaling – posturing assumed to be safe because the Trump administration will eventually not upset the felafel cart.

After all, since World War II, Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Persian Gulf region has been valued as a prime source of the oil desperately needed for the world economy to function acceptably in peacetime, and crucial to prevailing over ruthless global enemies in hot and cold wars alike. Once the Soviet threat disappeared, the region’s oil retained all of its perceived importance, and the critical mass of the foreign policy establishment gravitated toward seeing first Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and then Iran’s theocracy as the prime threat to the world’s unimpeded access. Crucially, not even evidence of (unofficial?) Saudi support for the Islamic extremists of Al Qaeda who launched the September 11 attacks ever truly threatened the U.S.-Saudi connection. 

Indeed, in recent years, even far left-of-center American politicians joined widespread calls for Washington to create a Middle Eastern-dominated coalition to handle most of the fight against ISIS (a successor group to Al Qaeda). And one of the anchors of this arrangement was expected to be none other than Saudi Arabia.

As I’ve argued for years now, none of the arguments for a close, if informal, U.S.-Saudi alliance holds any more water. North America possesses all the fossil fuels needed by the United States, and thanks to the shale/fracking-led energy technology revolution, the Persian Gulf’s role as key global oil supplier is greatly diminished as well. The terrorist threats likely to keep emanating from the region are best dealt with through much stronger U.S. border controls, not repeated American military interventions or fantasies about the Muslim Middle East’s decrepit (and highly compromised) regimes becoming a strong, reliable bulwark against jihadism.

And those claiming that Israel’s security warrants continuing America’s Middle East policy status quo need to remember that Israel and Saudi Arabia (and most other Sunni monarchies) have now created a tacit alliance to counter Shi’ite Iran. Moreover, Washington can always keep selling or simply giving the Israelis all the weapons they need.

The situation has changed so much that the most compelling argument against steps like cutting off or suspending U.S. arms sales to the Saudis has been advanced by President Trump: a boatload of revenue and jobs would be lost by the American economy, and the Saudis could always turn to alternate suppliers (like the Chinese and, more credibly – because their military equipment is still better – the Russians). In addition, don’t forget this irony: Consistent with its anti-Iran goals, Israel and its own impressive defense-related technologies could also partly fill the vacuum left by a U.S. withdrawal from the Saudi market.

At the same time, there’s no shortage of countries living in dangerous neighborhoods that would remain or could become massive buyers of American weapons. And as pointed out here, the Saudi military has relied on so much U.S. equipment for so long that changing its complexion would be as complicated as it would be expensive. Not to mention the years it would take for a regime that faces imminent threats to complete this task.

As a result, even if Khashoggi miraculously reappears one day, or even if he doesn’t but the Saudis are innocent, here’s hoping that the uproar over his disappearance triggers some major rethinking of America’s Middle East policy. After all, to paraphrase a famous recent remark about governing, a policy firestorm is a terrible thing to waste.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Afghanistan Opportunity Trump Has Missed

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Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Barry Posen, border security, George W. Bush, Iran, Iraq, ISIS, Middle East, nation-building, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, refugees, Russia, September 11, Syria, Taliban, terrorism, The Atlantic, travel ban, Trump

Although I usually oppose U.S. overseas military interventions, I can understand President Trump’s decision this week to keep significant numbers of American troops in Afghanistan and even expand the presence (to some unannounced extent). What I do find disappointing is Mr. Trump’s apparent neglect of more promising alternatives that couldn’t possibly be called “defeat” or “retreat,” and his failure to describe realistically what may be the biggest fundamental choice the nation still faces in Afghanistan.

I shouldn’t have to remind anyone that Afghanistan under Taliban rule provided the base for the Al Qaeda terrorists responsible for the September 11 attack and so many other atrocities (on top of those that they have inspired by supportive groups and individuals). So clearly conditions inside that country (a problematic term, to be sure, as will be explained below) matter for U.S. national security. And it’s hard to imagine that even most Americans who are terribly – and understandably – frustrated with the sixteen-year U.S.-dominated military operation that has followed would disagree. The main question has always been how best to defend American interests.

After the Taliban were overthrown by a (highly successful) U.S.-led military campaign in the fall of 2001, Presidents Bush and Obama tragically opted for a standard American counter-insurgency effort to keep the Taliban out of power that combined continued military pressure on their remaining forces and strongholds with programs to promote Afghan economic, social, and political reform.

As critics (including me) predicted, this strategy of “nation-building” failed mainly because Afghanistan lacked the crucial prerequisites for nation-hood to begin with. So several years ago, as the Taliban began mounting a comeback largely as a result, I began supporting a fundamentally different approach: abandoning reform efforts and focusing on securing the United States’ essential aim in Afghanistan – preventing the Taliban or similar groups from consolidating control in enough territory to reestablish a safe haven capable of generating more terrorism.

This strategy would still involve U.S. military forces. But their top priority by far would not be supporting whatever Afghan government military exists, or training such forces (unless some especially promising units can be identified). Instead, the main American mission would be harassing the Taliban and its allies sufficiently to prevent that territorial consolidation, and the main instruments would be special forces and air strikes. And I argued that such operations could prevent ISIS in Iraq and Syria from posing a similar threat. Finally, I recommended that this approach be supplemented – and eventually superseded – by strengthening the security of America’s borders, to reduce greatly the likelihood that terrorists that still might originate from Afghanistan or anywhere else could actually reach the U.S. homeland.

The main advantages of this approach were, initially, concentrating American efforts on overseas goals that seemed both vital and attainable, as opposed to desirable for non-essential; and recognizing that the U.S. government ultimately is much likelier to succeed in controlling access to the United States than in comprehensively manipulating events in far-off lands.

In his speech this week, President Trump did a good job in describing the urgency of continuing to deny terrorists a safe haven in Afghanistan. But although he (once again) disparaged nation-building, he also paid it enough lip service to make clear that the basic goal remains in place. For example, he argued that “Military power alone will not bring peace to Afghanistan or stop the terrorist threat arising in that country” and asked India (and possibly America’s European allies) to “help us more with Afghanistan, especially in the area of economic assistance and development.” Surprisingly, moreover, he never connected his Afghanistan strategy with his so-far successful efforts to control American borders more effectively. Indeed, Mr. Trump didn’t even mention his proposed suspension of travel from terrorist-wracked countries (a list that, oddly, never included Afghanistan itself).

And the picture drawn by the President of his ultimate objective(s) was confusing, at best. Notably, on the one hand, he insisted that “From now on, victory will have a clear definition:  attacking our enemies, obliterating ISIS, crushing al Qaeda, preventing the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan, and stopping mass terror attacks against America before they emerge.” On the other, he stated that the “strategically applied force” his administration will apply in Afghanistan “aims to create the conditions for a political process to achieve a lasting peace.” Still more puzzlingly, he allowed that a political settlement could include “elements of the Taliban.” To be sure, in a technical sense, these objectives aren’t mutually exclusive. But they sure don’t coexist easily, at least not at this point.

One especially worrisome consequence of this Presidential rhetoric is its suggestion, however cautious, that there’s an ultimate, satisfactory solution in Afghanistan that results from continuing U.S. involvement, at least in the foreseeable future. Much skepticism is warranted, mainly because the chances of Afghanistan becoming something politically cohesive enough to “take ownership of their future, to govern their society,” in Mr. Trump’s words, flies in the face of so much of this area’s history.

But that doesn’t mean that the United States should simply pull up stakes, either now, or somewhere down the road – because of that safe haven threat. My own preferred strategy would have resulted in America’s leaders acknowledging that Afghanistan is not a problem to be solved but, as if often true in world affairs, a condition that requires continual management – and then explaining that some forms of management are vastly more realistic, and cheaper, than others.

Nonetheless, an even more appealing alternative has emerged over the last week. In an August 18 article in The Atlantic, MIT political scientist Barry Posen made the case for a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan based on the intriguing observation that the countries neighbors, Russia and Iran, both have compelling interests in ensuring that the Taliban and similar groups don’t return to power. In the words of the piece’s title, the aim would be “to make Afghanistan someone else’s problem.”

Of course, I couldn’t help but notice that this proposal strongly resembles my recommendation for handling the challenge of increasingly powerful North Korean nuclear weapons. I’m also impressed, though, by Posen’s observation that both Russia (which is vulnerable to Islamic extremism infecting its own sizable Muslim population) and Iran (a Shia Muslim-dominated country theologically opposed to Sunni groups like the Taliban and Al Qaeda) have compelling reasons to frustrate America’s enemies in Afghanistan.

Posen also intriguingly responds to fears that a combined Russian-Iranian success would strengthen those anti-American countries’ efforts to dominate the entire Middle East. As he points out, Pakistan and China both would find this prospect alarming, too, and would seek to check Russian and Iranian influence.

Is Posen’s scheme fool-proof? Of course not. But it looks at least as promising as Mr. Trump’s plan, and it’s discouraging that this supremely, if Machiavellian, America-First strategy apparently wasn’t even considered by the Trump administration in its efforts to fix a badly broken U.S. Afghanistan policy.

Im-Politic: The Travel Industry’s Phony Trump Travel Ban Scare Stories

Tags

Im-Politic, Muslims, September 11, terrorism, tourism, travel, travel ban, travel exports, Trump

The American travel industry clearly employs some great flacks (i.e., public relations specialists). We know this because they’ve sold two major global news organizations on the inane proposition that the Trump administration’s hostility to Muslims and foreigners in general is about to cripple their industry, and that – at least by implication – the U.S. economy will suffer grievously.

The first and perhaps most important failing in this Washington Post article and this Financial Times (FT) piece carrying this message was the glossing over of national security considerations. Both reports noted that the supposedly xenophobic impression was created by the president’s proposed temporary travel ban from six countries identified even by the Obama administration as major potential sources of terrorist threats, and by strengthened vetting procedures at the border. But neither mentioned the counter-argument (either from an administration official or from a non-government specialist supportive of Mr. Trump’s initiatives) that stronger protections for Americans quite naturally carry a price tag, or that any kinds of trade-offs between economic and national security goals are legitimate.

The closest that either piece came to communicating this kind of nuance was a statement in the FT article from Marriot’s CEO acknowledging the role that needs to be played by “some of these other issue [such as security risk]” in formulating policy. In fact, you need to read between the lines (specifically in the Post article) to get any sense that the nation has faced this kind of situation in the recent past – after the September 11 attacks – and that the losses incurred by the travel industry by no means came anywhere near derailing the economy.

One big reason is that the economic role of foreign travel and tourism in the United States simply isn’t very big. The industry itself says that it represented 8.10 percent of total American economic activity last year (a key context-setting fact that the Post completely ignored), when both its direct and indirect effects are included. Fair enough. The figure came out to about $1.5 trillion last year, but that total includes both foreign and domestic travel.

One way to back out the foreign portion of domestic travel and tourism is to use the trade statistics. They don’t provide perfectly apples to apples data, but they’re not way off, either, and show, according to the travel industry, that foreign tourists spent about $194 billion in the United States in 2014. These “travel exports” would have directly accounted for about 8.28 percent of the nation’s total goods and services exports that year, according to official U.S. trade data – and about 1.10 percent of the total economy. There are no statistics on the indirect effects and they of course deserve to be counted. But it’s inconceivable that they would justify even minor concern.

Further, the travel industry isn’t forecasting that all foreign travel to the United States will simply dry up, or even close. In fact, according to the industry, despite the Trump policies and intentions, travel and tourism in the United States (again, including purely domestic travel) will keep growing this year. It just won’t grow quite as fast (by 2.3 percent instead of 2.8 percent). In other words, the Trump effect would barely move the needle.

The implications couldn’t be more obvious. The Trump travel ban and related measures may be bad policy for any number of reasons, but damage to the economy – or even to the tourism industry – clearly isn’t one of them. It’s understandable that the industry itself is unhappy about the prospect of any losses – even moderately slower growth. But why is the media portraying this result as a catastrophe?

Im-Politic: The Needless New Immigration Policy Mess

Tags

American Muslims, Center for Immigration Studies, Department of Homeland Security, DHS, Egypt, Executive Orders, green card holders, Im-Politic, Immigration, Muslims, Norman Matloff, Obama, Pakistan, refugees, Saudi Arabia, September 11, Syria, terrorism, Trump

The last 48 hours’ flow of immigration policy-related news has been unprecedented – or certainly nearly so. To me, the big takeaway is clear: In the course of developing and announcing a fundamentally sound policy framework for handling immigration- and refugee-related national security issues, the Trump administration has allowed vague and/or confusing provisions to create an unnecessary political firestorm.

The needless confusion stemmed mainly from the apparent treatment of green card holders in the Executive Order on “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States.”  These individuals have been granted permanent resident legal status by the U.S. government, and have extensively vetted. Perhaps that’s why the Order makes no specific mention of them.    

Yet early yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) seemed to confirm that the Orders’s 90-day ban on entry into the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries deemed (correctly) to be hotbeds of terrorism and/or Islamic extremism includes green card holders.  

Both moves seemed so mystifying that my first reaction was skepticism. Particularly fishy to me was the source of the DHS statement. It came from a department spokesperson identified by name. But she was described as “acting,”and given that we’re still in the new administration’s earliest days, it was legitimate to wonder where she got her information and whether it’s accurate. And indeed, shortly afterwards, “senior administration officials” (who oddly remained nameless) were saying that the green card measures would be administered on a case-by-case basis. Clearly, this sequence of events doesn’t speak well at all for the togetherness of the new administration’s act.

But there’s no reasonable doubt that much of the tumult that’s surrounded the rest of the Trump immigration moves is nothing more than another outburst of stealth chattering class support for Open Borders policies. This charge is justified for at least two reasons:

First, the notion that Trump’s refugee measures represent a wholesale trashing of America’s humanitarian heritage is juvenile at best and reckless and ignorant (or both) at worst. The Trump-haters who have claiming that the Statue of Liberty is weeping and the like seem to be ignoring how even Barack Obama severely limited refugee admissions from war-torn Syria – to 10,000 in 2016. The previous year, only 1,800 were resettled. And clearly reflecting security concerns, the screening process typically took between 18 and 24 months.

Why didn’t President Obama simply open America’s doors much wider and faster to the immiserated Syrian hordes? Because even he recognized that the nation’s most fundamental self-interest – the safety of its existing citizens and legal residents – can’t be brushed aside even in the face of the most terrible tragedies.

President Trump and many others doubted, however, that even this screening was adequate. And they could point to copious compelling evidence. Principally, mass Middle East refugee admissions have in Europe have included terrorists involved in deadly attacks. In the United States, children of recent Middle East refugees or other immigrants have been responsible for the shootings and bombings in Orlando, Florida; San Bernardino, California, Boston, and Fort Hood. And Muslim residents have been involved (including arrested) in terrorism attempts in numbers vastly higher than their share of the overall American population.

Combine this with the virtual impossibility of getting accurate, reliable records from virtually destroyed countries or thoroughly failed states, and the real question before Americans is not why President Trump has banned entry of any kind from these lands, but why broad restrictions have taken so long to impose.

Second, it’s been frequently argued (including by President Obama) that even if refugees can be tied to terrorist attacks, the numbers of Americans killed have been infinistesimal. In particular, they’re fond of noting that the odds are lower than getting killed in bathroom accidents or everyday activities like driving.

What they keep missing, of course, is the completely different role of government negligence – and therefore preventability or avoidability – involved. Fatal accidents at home, for example, can often be avoided by moving with greater care, or more properly maintaining fixtures or appliances, or keeping clutter off the floor, or in numerous other ways. It’s also entirely possible to increase your chances of surviving your daily auto commute to work – by driving more defensively, by caring for your vehicle, by staying off the road in bad weather, etc.

Will these precautions guarantee your protection 100 percent? Of course not. In particular, they can’t completely remove the related elements of randomness and chance from life – tripping over a hard-to-see uneven stretch of pavement, sharing a road with a drunk driver, or flying in an airplane disabled by a flock of birds, experiencing a natural disaster, etc. Speaking of that last item, I would include in this category a decision like moving to or staying an earthquake-prone location, especially if relocating is a relatively easy option – though the element of randomness there is more debatable.

But reasonable people seem to accept these kinds of inevitable bad breaks. They understand the irrationality of shutting themselves in at home, for example, to stay safe. As for injuries or fatalities resulting from violence perpetrated by individuals admitted to the United States by a policy decision that ignores or downplays well known risks – they’re dramatically and unacceptably different. For there is nothing random about them; indeed, every last one of them was completely preventable. They’re the products of elected leaders who believe that the loss of American lives – in situations well short of war – are acceptable risks to run in exchange for benefits that, to put it kindly, are intangible (e.g., winning good will abroad), speculative (e.g., impeding recruitment by terrorist groups), or subjective (conforming with American values), or some combination of the two.

It’s certainly arguable that the previous administration was well within its rights in making those judgments and decisions. President Obama, after all, was legitimately elected – twice. But it’s just as arguable that Donald Trump’s White House victory owed in part to the public’s rejection of these calculations.

Having said this, at least two more aspects of the new Trump refugee policies are disturbing. First, why were countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan excluded – especially given the role of Saudis and Egyptians in the September 11 attacks cited explicitly by the Executive Order, and the role of Pakistan’s state security forces in supporting a wide range of terrorist activities, including strikes on U.S. Forces and facilities in Afghanistan?

Second, the Executive Order, in my view, admirably seeks to “prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual’s country of nationality.” But for precisely the same vetting-related reasons that it’s excruciatingly difficult to make sure that Syrians (and other Middle Easterners) aren’t terrorists or other dangerous types, it’s going to be equally difficult to figure out who’s a member of a persecuted religious minority and who isn’t.

I agree with President Trump that the previous U.S. refugee policy created too many unnecessary security risks, and also that temporary freezes and bans and the like in general are needed to enable his administration to develop a detailed alternative – including better vetting procedures . I also admire the vigor with which Mr. Trump has plunged into the presidency. But in the case of this Executive Order, it looks like too much haste might have needlessly created serious problems today, and the potential for more down the road.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Why Opposition to the September 11 Law is Completely Stupid

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Bob Corker, energy, foreign policy establishment, international law, lobbying, Middle East, Mitch McConnell, Obama, oil, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Paul Ryan, Saudi Arabia, September 11, September 11 bill, sovereign immunity, terrorism

Thanks to foreign policy establishmentarians on the Left and Right, ranging from President Obama to Congress’ Republican leaders, we’ve just gotten a moment when the folks we’ve entrusted to chart our country’s course in world affairs have not only gotten something massively wrong, but literally stopped thinking.

I’m talking about reactions to Congress’ override of the president’s veto of the September 11 bill, which will now enable the families of American victims of terrorism on U.S. soil to seek legal damages from foreign governments found to be responsible. Sure, all or most of the misgivings being expressed by figures like House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Corker could be resulting from lavish campaign contributions they’ve received from Washington’s big Saudi Arabia lobby. (I have no concrete evidence of this, but the Saudis have always been major Beltway players, and they’re one of the governments sure to be sued under the new law.)

But what’s most revealing about the concerns and outright fears being expressed is their content. For the counter-arguments now being made – and made all along by the Obama administration – reflect jaw-dropping misunderstandings about geopolitics and the role of international law in international relations that have practically defined mainstream foreign policy thinking across the American political spectrum.

Two in particular stand out, and they’re related to the principle objection to the September 11 law: If American citizens can now bring court cases against foreign governments, in violation of the longstanding international legal principle of sovereign immunity, then foreign citizens will feel free to file all sorts of lawsuits against the U.S. government and its representatives at home and abroad.

First, though, does anyone really think that it’s international law that keeps American diplomats and official Washington safe from the reach of foreign legal systems (and the flagrant pseudo-legal systems found in so many countries – including Saudi Arabia)? If they do, they shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the American foreign policy decision-making process.

What has really ensured these results is the shield that has always been America’s most reliable asset: American power in all its forms. This should be obvious when it comes to countries considered allies – since the United States is so inherently secure and prosperous that it needs them militarily and geopolitically much less than they need America. Indeed, if any allies are now considering or have ever even contemplated legally harassing American diplomats for any reason, that would count as a disgraceful failure of U.S. policymaking.

And P.S., that goes double for Saudi Arabia. In case the foreign policy establishment hasn’t noticed, even leaving aside the abundant support for Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists influential Saudis have provided for decades, the days when the United States and the rest of the world needed to tremble at the thought that Riyadh might push through a big oil price hike or even shut off the spigots ended long ago. Even better, that’s mainly because of the energy production revolution in the United States.

So although Saudi retaliation for the September 11 bill might unnerve its hired guns in Washington, the United States is fully capable of telling its government, “Enjoy fighting Iran by yourself.”

Second, fears about a new global wave of anti-American lawsuits stupidly assume that most and even all foreign governments will react in the same way. The worrywarts don’t seem to understand that the September 11 bill only permits suits against foreign governments accused of supporting terrorism in the United States. Is this new law really likely to worry the British? Or the Japanese? Or even the Chinese?

The September 11 bill fear-mongers aren’t normally the types to softpedal the differences between America’s friends and foes, or between democracies and dictatorships, or even between ordinary foreign governments of whatever stripe and rogue states. So what’s going on? Simply put, their analytical compasses and even bedrock common sense apparently have been thrown off by the assumption – so crucial to modern international law – that all sovereign governments are created equal and much be so treated legally. Therefore, September 11 bill opponents seem convinced that all sovereign governments can be counted on to act in the same way as well.

Dickens famously characterized the law as “an ass” when, as is the case from time to time, its precepts produce head-scratching decisions. But in countries with legal systems worthy of the name, those bloopers are rightly accepted as one price of seeking and enforcing equitable societies and the common standards of behavior they require.

But the international sphere lacks the ingredients needed for effective legal systems – i.e., consensus about those standards. And no such meeting of an adequate number international minds is remotely foreseeable. Therefore, the ludicrous controversy about the September 11 bill should be reminding us that in the foreign policy sphere, the law is especially asinine – and should have no meaningful influence on American decisions and actions.

September 11: Looking Back, Looking Ahead

Tags

border security, jihadism, lone wolf, Middle East, refugees, September 11, terrorism

It’s the fifteenth anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks, and arguably the biggest question immediately facing me is whether to watch the U.S. Open men’s tennis final this afternoon, or the New York Giants’ first game of the pro football season. Something definitely seems off about that.

Not that I haven’t taken the time to think about that day’s terrible events, and to contact the one person I know who lost a loved one to let him know that I haven’t forgotten him. But otherwise, aside from the television coverage of the memorials, it’s been an ordinary Sunday.

It’s humbling to contemplate adding anything useful to the torrent of September 11 commentary and analysis that’s come out today alone. But before trying to provide some useful perspective, I thought it might be of interest to provide a link to the first post-September 11 column I wrote – for the website of the organization I worked for – and then recall my own experience and principal emotions that day.

First the link to the article, which I was pleasantly surprised to see holds up pretty well. I hope you agree that its main warning – about the prospect that economic forces of internal division would eventually hamper America’s anti-terrorism efforts – still resonates today. The only main change I would make if I had to redo the piece fifteen years later would be to place greater emphasis on internal social and cultural divisions – which arguably have been widened by the unequal impact of economic pressures.

My own September 11 began much as that of many others did. I was having a quick breakfast at home before leaving for work, watching the morning news, when I heard the first report, at about a quarter of nine, EST, of an airliner hitting the World Trade Center. I immediately thought that was odd because I knew that, since a military plane flew into the Empire State Building in 1945, extensive precautions had been taken to prevent repeats along the New York skyline. The clear weather also made the idea of an accident seem fishy. When reports of the second plane strike started coming in, the accident theory was clearly over.

Since in those days I had no computer at home and wanted to follow as much of the news as I could, I figured I’d head to work and take advantage of the desktop. The D.C. Metro system was still up and running – presumably because the Pentagon attack didn’t occur until 9:37 A.M. So I didn’t hear about that third attack until I got to my downtown office via subway.

I spent the rest of the morning trying to separate news from rumor, and phoning New York area friends and relatives to find out their circumstances. Then remembered I had scheduled a lunch that day with a scholar visiting from out of town. I made contact by email, she had of course heard about the news, and we agreed that we might as well try to keep the appointment. Evidently, I had seen something on-line about one restaurant being open in the DuPont Circle area, which was where she was staying, and which was an easy walk from my office. So at about noon I set off northward along Connecticut Avenue.

That walk remains my most vivid memory of the day. It was uneventful in and of itself, and the street didn’t seem especially deserted by pedestrians, although most businesses were closed. (Downtown D.C. can be remarkably un-urban.) But I kept looking up at the sky, and all around me, wondering whether another hijacked plane or truck would strike someplace in the vicinity. It was the first and only time that I’ve ever been on American soil and felt threatened by foreign attack.

The lunch took place – though my memory is unclear, I’m sure we spoke of nothing except for the stunning events of the day. We parted company, and since the Metro was closed by that time, I figured the only sensible thing to do was walk the two miles back home. It was, remember, a beautiful early autumn day in the Northeast. And like so many others, I spent the next day or two glued to the TV set and tracking down loved ones by phone.

As for the lay of the land now, it seems clear to me that the conventional wisdom is correct, and has been summarized pretty accurately by the Washington Post: Homeland security is considerably improved, but jihadism abroad looks much stronger than it was 15 years ago despite massive military, propaganda, and diplomatic efforts to combat it.

What the conventional wisdom doesn’t seem to recognize is that not only is this a major win for the United States. The contrast between success on the home front and ineffectiveness abroad sends a powerful message that a homeland-focused defense that tightens border security is America’s best bet for handling the terrorist threat – as I’ve written repeatedly. The logical follow on remains true as well – the last thing Washington should want to do is to worsen the emerging “lone wolf” problem at home by admitting more unvettable refugees from the chaotic Middle East.

I’m watching the Open.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: A New Phase for Global Terrorism?

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Afghanistan, American Muslims, border security, Iraq, ISIS, Middle East, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, September 11, Syria, terrorism

Another day, another terrorist bombing – or three of them, as is the case with Saudi Arabia today. And oddly, they persist, and even multiply, at the same time that the world’s most dangerous terrorist organization, ISIS, continues to lose ground militarily in Iraq and Syria, where it had seized control over a scary amount of territory in recent years. I suspect that this seeming paradox both might become an appalling New Normal, and is telling both supporters and critics of America’s counter-terrorism strategy – including yours truly – that they need to question some of their major assumptions.

As I’ve written repeatedly, major U.S. leaders across the political spectrum have it backward in claiming that America’s top ISIS-related priority needs to be to defeat the group militarily on the battlefield. Though they often differ as to the mix of American, other free world, and local Middle Eastern forces that will be needed to accomplish this mission, they all insist that in this era of free global travel and nearly instantaneous global communication, it’s folly to believe that the United States can protect itself from ISIS and similar terrorism by tightening border control.

These voices add that neglecting ISIS’ self-styled caliphate would enable the group to consolidate a sizable, Afghanistan-type base for planning the launching big September 11-like attacks on U.S. and other targets; jeopardize other American interests in the Middle East, like ensuring access to oil; and keep ISIS’ main recruitment pitch intact – including for U.S. “lone wolves” – by reinforcing its claim to be successfully defying the infidel world and riding the wave of history.

I’ve responded that defeating ISIS would at best simply create a breathing spell until the utterly dysfunctional Middle East spawned a successor, and that however difficult it is to control visitors’ access to the United States, it’s much easier than shaping the evolution of the Middle East in more favorable, constructive ways.

At the same time, I’ve recognized that because better border security won’t happen overnight, military pressure needs to continue on the caliphate to impede its consolidation, and keep its leaders too busy defending themselves to be plotting future global strikes. My preferred instrument has been a combination of air strikes and special forces harassment. I’ve also emphasized that, because of the domestic U.S. energy production revolution, the Middle East has become much less strategically and economically important, and that Washington can now afford to focus narrowly on terrorist threats.

But the proliferation of foreign ISIS or ISIS-inspired attacks as the so-called caliphate shrinks – especially in Iraq – raises doubts about all these analyses. As I see it right now, here are the likeliest implications:

>ISIS’ prowess with internet-style recruiting is now so formidable that it can spark major terrorist threats to the United States even without a significant territorial base. So significant U.S. military involvement in the Middle East no longer matters much anymore.

>ISIS is lashing out globally precisely because it’s failing on the ground in the Middle East. (Contributor BJ Bethel made that argument on RealityChek in April.) So staying the current policy course makes the most sense.

>Territorial bases are no longer essential for fostering large-scale terrorism, but their potential to generate these attacks must still be minded. As a result, preventing their consolidation is a necessary but not sufficient response.

>Territorial control remains vital for ISIS’ power and global strike capabilities, and the United States and its allies simply haven’t undermined ISIS’ thoroughly enough.

Right now, I’m leaning toward Number Three – along with my ongoing conviction that better border security (including more monitoring of the U.S. Muslim community) will provide the most effective protection for Americans. But the latest twist in the struggle against terrorism should be reminding everyone that these forces remain impressively agile and adaptive. Consequently, both supporters and opponents of U.S. strategy need to display these characteristics, too.