Tim Talks Politics - The Weekly Brief, June 21, 2019
The Weekly Brief - June 21, 2019
What doesn’t kill you... US and Iran on the brink
The bulk of this week's newsletter is being taken up with Iran-US tensions in the Persian Gulf.
What started with a couple of mild rounds of allegedly Iranian-backed sabotage of oil tankers in the Persian Gulf (which had no impact on global oil prices) seems to have spiral not quite out of control with the announced shooting down of a US drone and the stand down of a US strike as of this morning.
Between the sabotage of tankers and the drone downing, Iran announced that it would begin enriching uranium and would have a stockpile of enriched uranium beyond the scope of the JCPOA in as little as 10 days. This very visible step back from the JCPOA signals a significant shift in Iranian policy which up to this point has opted to work with Russia and European countries to abide by the deal despite the American withdrawal.
So now there's a bunch of questions: Does America have a casus belli to go to war with Iran? Will Donald Trump go to war with Iran? Will Iran follow through on its threats to enrich uranium and then continue on with the development of a nuclear program? Can the Iranian economy and government sustain such a conflict?
This last question and the second question relating to whether or not the Trump Administration will go to war is very important. That is because both countries do not have very good reasons to fight a war. That's not to say that they wouldn't get into a war, accidents have been known to happen in these types of situations, but with Iran stressing that it is not interested in a military confrontation it leaves the ball more or less in the Trump’'s court to decide what to do, making the public announcement of a stand down a significant deescalatory gesture.
So while there seems to be some alarming escalatory measures such as sending more troops to the Middle East, the lack of public support for any type of military confrontation with Iran, the lack of a clear objective of what that confrontation would seek to achieve, and the near-certainty that an unnecessary war would ensure Trump’s loss in the 2020 election seem to point away from war.
What seems to be needed in what in what has arguably been one of the strangest weeks in US-Iran relations in a long time (and that's saying something) is restraint and perspective. Restraint can look like a non-response, though Lawfare does acknowledge that the US does have some self-defense rights in this particular circumstance. However, the fact that the drone was unmanned and no one was hurt raises an interesting question about the threshold at which military action can happen. That concern is probably what's driving House Democrats in their move to revoke the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) which has been used to justify multiple military missions since 2001.
Meanwhile, in the same neighborhood...
Even though Iran took up most of America's time and attention over the last week, the Middle East was still a rocking place outside of Persia.
Remember, there's still some kind of economic conference happening in Bahrain to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Certainly, US-Iran tensions do not bode well for such a conference, but the conference is moving forward and it seems that the Palestinians have finally gotten the ear of the Americans as the US decided not to invite the Israelis to the conference.
Even as the United States up its troop presence in the region and rattles sabers, Congress is making moves to rein in the Trump Administration in other quarters. The Senate delivered a stinging rebuke by sending a bipartisan bill to President Trump to block Saudi arms sales. Trump plans to veto this bill, but it demonstrates a clear break between Trump and the Republican Party. The bill comes up in the wake of the publication of a UN report that verifies that Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had knowledge of and even ordered the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in a in Istanbul last year.
In Egypt, former Muslim Brotherhood leader and one-time president of Egypt, Mohamed Mark Morsi died in custody after collapsing at a court appearance. His death throws into question the future of the Muslim Brotherhood as an opposition group within Egypt as well as raises questions about the treatment of dissidents in the Egyptian political system.
Further afield, in the expanding fight to both contain ISIS as well as to jockey for position in the Libyan civil conflict, the United Arab Emirates reached a deal with Niger to set up a military base at the Libyan border.
I'm really not sure how to fit this into a larger picture about politics in the region, but to the degree to which ISIS affiliates are spreading across North Africa and Iran is seeking to leverage its influence in different hot spots it stands to reason that Sunni Arab governments are starting to take notice and step up their own enforcement efforts. Whether or not that demonstrates cooperation or lack of trust in the United States is hard to say
Hong Kong update
Last week, we talked about the massive protests in Hong Kong over a proposed extradition bill. Those protests seem to have been met with success as Hong Kong’s executive leader suspended the passage and implementation of that bill.
The American Interest seems to think that the freedom movement in Hong Kong is not going to stop at this one off victory but will continue to exert pressure on executive leadership to maintain a distance from Beijing befitting of an autonomous region.
The National Review argues that the protesters in Hong Kong provide an excellent example on how to resist tyranny to potential compatriots elsewhere around the world.
The Carnegie Endowment considers the role of street protests in the expansion of democratic governance. Just how effective are they?
And the world kept spinning
Though the Mid East dominated the foreign policy picture for the United States this week, the world kept spinning.
With talks breaking down between the Sudanese military leadership and protesters in the street, the future remains uncertain for that country as it looks to make a transition away from Omar al-Bashir’s autocracy and military rule.
An interesting wrinkle in the ongoing tariffs and trade wars saga that has come to define American trade policy, India has imposed tariffs on US goods. As America works to push back on Chinese influence both at home and abroad, a rift in India-US relations is something to keep an eye on.
Axios also reports that as part of the broader conflict over border policies and immigration from Central America to the US, the State Department has chosen to cut off foreign aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador ostensibly as a punishment for being unable to prevent the flow of migrants to the United States.
Over the last couple of weeks, we've looked at the opening of a massive free trade zone in Africa. Another step in economic integration was taking this week as several West African countries announced the plan to adopt a new single currency.
And finally, in the latest rebuke to Russian foreign policy, the Pentagon approved a 250 million dollar aid package to the Ukrainian military, which includes lethal aid.
SCOTUS and the future of American politics
It's been a busy season at the Supreme Court and the Weekly Brief has not covered it nearly as closely as it probably should have. So, as we're hitting summer, which means recesses are about to begin, it might be helpful to actually check in with SCOTUS.
FiveThirtyEight looks at two separate issues that are interlinked and that is the issue of gerrymandering and a census question on citizenship.
They're linked because in separate Supreme Court cases touching on the two issues, FiveThirtyEight points out that this can have an impact on how Congressional districts are drawn and Representatives distributed across the 50 states after the 2020 census.
Here’s how your tax dollars got spent last year
The month of June ends next week, which means it's the end of the fiscal year, which means it's time to think about a new federal budget. The Congressional Budget Office provides several excellent infographics giving us a great overview of where the taxpayer dollars went in FY2018 and how the government got its spending money. I'll just lay them out in several bullet points here for you
Check them all out, they’re very insightful. As you hear about future budget battles, always consider the percentage of mandatory spending to discretionary spending and realize that federal budget debates are almost entirely on the side of discretionary spending. How might that affect how we look at budgets deficits?