ENOUGH ABOUT SYRIA. LET'S TALK ABOUT NO. KOREA. UGH!

• Last week, North Korea launched a medium-range missile — the latest in a series of “saber-rattling” demonstrations of the country’s military capability, which some nuclear observers feel could be leading up to a sixth nuclear test. [Wired / Eric Niiler]
• The Trump administration responded by sending a US aircraft carrier into North Korean waters on Sunday, in what wasn’t explicitly called, but was agreed by all to be, a show of force to deter the country from going any further in its tests. [NPR / Philip Ewing]
• But while Trump’s move was, if anything, less aggressive than his strike against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, North Korea is better equipped to strike back than Syria. And on Tuesday, North Korean state media threatened the carrier — and warned of nuclear retaliation if the US didn’t stand down. [Reuters]
• Both sides are posturing right now, but they’re also raising the stakes.... 
• [The most important variable could be whether China threatens the North Koreans with economic penalties — something President Trump is attempting to encourage, promising (on Twitter, of course) a more favorable trade deal in exchange for China’s “help” with the rogue nation-Esco.]  [NYT / Mark Landler]
• Belligerence aside, experts assume that the US response to North Korea’s latest provocations [will be] another round of economic sanctions — perhaps even a “dragnet” that would prohibit any companies in the US financial system from doing any business with the North Korean government (or companies that do business with that government). [USA Today / Oren Dorell]
• But if there’s one thing we’ve learned about the Trump administration’s foreign policy, it’s that it’s unpredictable. To some extent, that’s by design. But to some extent, it’s accidental — the function of a president who, for example, comes into meetings and waits for the other person to tell him what the agenda is. [Washington Post / Kevin Sullivan and Karen Tumulty​]

TRUMP’S WIN-LOSE-LOSE STRIKE ON SYRIA

WIN: Trump Just Yanked the Russia Card Right out of Democrats’ Hands — CNBC

The political context of all this cannot be ignored. The missile strike came at a moment when Trump had record-low approval ratings, while many Democrats were accusing him of being a Russian stooge. Prior to this week, he had expressed little public concern about the victims of Assad’s brutality, and had seemed content to let the Syrian leader crush the remaining resistance to him, with Russian assistance. By launching the attack, he has shaken up the domestic political environment, as well as the geopolitical one. “Because from now on, the narrative that the president is some kind of puppet of Russian President Vladimir Putin is going to be much harder to promote,” Jake Novak, a columnist at CNBC.com, wrote on Friday. Given Trump’s gushing statements about Putin in the past, and the ongoing F.B.I. investigation into possible connections between Russia and some of Trump’s associates, this is a tendentious interpretation, to say the least. But in the coming days it is an argument that the White House and its Republican allies will be eager to promote.

   A LONG GAME IS A LOSING GAME                                                     

 STEVE COLL, NEW YORKER


On August 7, 1998, Al Qaeda suicide bombers struck two U.S. embassies in East Africa, killing two hundred and twenty-four people, most of them Africans. Two weeks later, President Bill Clinton launched Operation Infinite Reach, a fusillade of cruise missiles aimed at a reported Al Qaeda meeting in Afghanistan, and at a factory in Sudan, which was suspected of involvement with chemical weapons. “There will be no sanctuary for terrorists,” Clinton declared. The retaliation produced few tangible benefits. And yet, since then, from Kosovo to Waziristan to Libya, the United States has repeatedly threatened or carried out missile and drone attacks and air strikes for limited and sometimes imprecise purposes. In the modern Presidency, firing off missiles has become a rite of passage.

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Syria’s civil war is the worst geopolitical disaster of the twenty-first century. It has claimed at least four hundred and seventy thousand lives; prompted a refugee crisis that has destabilized European politics and fuelled the rise of nativist populism; and created a playing field for Russian and Iranian adventurism in the Middle East. Six years of efforts to end the war through diplomacy have failed. The interference of regional and global powers, combined with the fragmentation of militias and guerrillas on the battlefield, have made the conflict appear all but unresolvable. During the past year, the more mainstream rebels opposing Assad have suffered repeated setbacks, including the loss of Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city.

Why, then, would the Trump Administration want to lob a few dozen cruise missiles into this splintered landscape? One limited rationale might be that Syria’s conflict has eroded global treaties banning the use of chemical arms—every time Assad gasses civilians, he increases the likelihood that another dictator or general will use them. It seems odd, though, to initiate armed intervention to prevent one sort of Syrian war crime but not others. Assad has tortured and executed thousands of his own people. Syrian and Russian forces routinely violate international law by targeting civilians, physicians, and rescue workers with bombs and artillery shells. And, if Trump has suddenly been moved to address the suffering, he might start recognizing the legitimacy of Syrians as refugees of war and welcoming them to resettle in the United States.

If President Trump broadens his aims against Assad, to establish civilian safe havens, for example, or to ground Syria’s Air Force, or to bomb Assad to the negotiating table, he will enter the very morass that Candidate Trump warned against. He would have to manage risks—military confrontation with Russia, an intensified refugee crisis, a loss of momentum against isis—that Obama studied at great length and concluded to be unmanageable, at least at a cost consistent with American interests.

Since the Cold War’s end, the United States has led or joined more than half a dozen wars or armed interventions lasting longer than a few months, including the ouster of Iraqi forces from Kuwait, in 1991; the conflicts in Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo; the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11; and, in 2011, during the Arab uprisings, the removal of the Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi. A few of these wars achieved their aims, albeit at a cost in lives and treasure; others went sideways or turned into disasters, as in Libya, where Obama’s intervention has been followed by six years of chaos, civil war, and the rise of a branch of isis. You don’t need an advanced degree in military history to identify the main lessons: once started, even limited wars upend initial plans and assumptions, violence produces unintended consequences, and conflicts are much easier to begin or escalate than to end.

Read more at STEVE COLL, NEW YORKER



  CIVILIAN KILLINGS BEGET MORE CIVILIAN  KILLINGS        

JUAN COLE, TRUTHDIG

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The Reagan administration shamefully ran interference for six years as Saddam Hussein of Iraq systematically deployed chemical weapons against Iranian troops at the front.  Everyone knew this was going on. 

Iraq used chemical weapons for the same reason that the Syrian army does.  They are deployed to level the playing field in the face of superior manpower on the other side.  Saddam Hussein had a country of 16 million and invaded a country of some 40 million.  US military doctrine of the time was you should only invade at a ratio of 3 to 1.  So Saddam would have needed a country of 120 million to invade Iran.  Needless to say, he lost the war very badly after an initial lightning invasion, since Iran could always over time raise a much bigger army than Saddam could.  Hence the use of mustard gas and sarin gas on Iranian troops at the front.

Some Syrian military units have a chem team in case they face being overwhelmed by a more numerous enemy.  The Syrian army was 300,000 before the war.  It is at most 50,000 now.  That number is not sufficient to control the whole country, though with the help of the Lebanese Hizbullah and Iraqi militias and some Afghans dragooned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, plus vigorous Russian air support, they have been able to fight off the rebels and to take most urban areas.  The small number of troops means that when they fight in a rebel-held territory like Idlib Province, they are tempted to deploy chemical weapons to offset their small numbers.

But it is indiscriminate fire and reckless disregard for innocent life that is the war crime here, and indeed a repeated pattern of war crimes is considered a crime against humanity.

By the way, Russian bombing has often been indiscriminate, but somehow Moscow has skated on war crimes accusations growing out of its heavy-handed role in Syria.

As for those decrying Obama inaction they need to, like, read the news sometime.  For the past several years the US has intervened in Syria in two ways.  President Obama used the Saudis to deliver money and weaponry to some 40 “vetted” groups supported by the Central Intelligence Agency, which is certified as having no ties to al-Qaeda or international extremism.  Except that several of these groups have in fact formed battlefield alliances with al-Qaeda in Syria (was Jabhat al-Nusra, now Jabhat Fateh Sham or the Syrian Conquest Front)...

[Further] the rebel groups committed their own massacres of civilians.
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Trump can’t stop Syria from using poison gas by bombing Damascus.  Since he’s such a good buddy of Russian president Vladimir Putin, maybe he could pressure Putin to have Bashar al-Assad cut it out.

But that somehow the Syria situation can be made better if only Donald J. Trump would stick his fingers into it is a wildly implausible premise.

Read the entire article at JUAN COLE, TRUTHDIG

Senate Confirms Neil Gorsuch to Supreme Court.

The new justice is likely to consider how voting rights should be protected and to weigh in on whether to expand the breadth of the Second Amendment. He may even cast the deciding vote in a major case on the separation of church and state.

Republicans voted to change Senate rules, upending a longstanding tradition by eliminating the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. The move paved the way for Judge Neil Gorsuch to be confirmed on a simple majority vote after what could be some of the most contentious debate in Senate history.

Budget Deal Comes Together in Albany, After Delay and Frustration

NY TIMES

Sitting in the ceremonial Red Room of the Capitol, Governor Andrew Cuomo said he and lawmakers had come to agreement on an array of big-ticket items, including changes to the state’s system of workers’ compensation, a priority for Republicans, and to its juvenile justice system, a priority for his fellow Democrats; popular issues like expanding ride hailing to upstate New York; and an extension of the so-called millionaire’s tax, on which Mr. Cuomo had hinged much of his 2017 agenda.

 Under the deal announced by the governor, beginning in October 2018, many 16- and 17-year-old offenders would be processed through family court rather than criminal court.Mr. Cuomo said that statewide school aid would increase by $1.1 billion, or 4.4 percent allowing for tuition-free education at state colleges, a larger boost than the governor had proposed but less than the Assembly had hoped for.

The deal also includes a renewal of a lapsed tax-abatement program that spurs affordable housing.

House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes recuses himself from Russia probe.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) temporarily stepped aside Thursday from the committee’s probe into Russian interference in the presidential election, as House investigators look into ethics charges against him.

The House Ethics Committee released a statement Thursday saying it had “determined to investigate” allegations that “Nunes may have made unauthorized disclosures of classified information, in violation of House Rules, law, regulations, or other standards of conduct.”

A month ago, Rep. Devin Nunes was a semi-anonymous member of the House of Representatives, with no national profile and little to distinguish him from his 434 colleagues. But today, he’s the most visible manifestation of the the comprehensive and at times comical effort by the administration, Republicans in Congress, and the conservative media to protect Donald Trump. And it all happened because of a couple of inane and false tweets the president sent.

Read more at WASHINGTON POST

U.S. strikes Syrian military airfield.

Officials said President Trump authorized 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles to slam into a Syrian airfield to punish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and damage the Syrian air force, which carried out an attack Tuesday that killed dozens of civilians, including children, in northwestern Syria. It was the deadliest chemical assault on Syrian civilians since 2013.

By Dan Lamothe, Missy Ryan and Thomas Gibbons-Neff  •  Read more » : At least 13 Syrian soldiers and civilians were killed.   The Russian Foreign Ministry called for an immediate meeting of the United Nations Security Council after President Vladi­mir Putin declared the U.S. attack a violation of international law. Russia also said it was pulling out of an agreement meant to minimize the risk of in-flight incidents between U.S. and Russian aircraft operating over Syria. “The Kremlin’s decision to suspend the 2015 memorandum of understanding on the air operations immediately raised tensions in the skies over Syria,”  “Putin’s spokesman said the risk of confrontation between aerial assets of the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS and Russia has ‘significantly increased.’” By David Filipov  •  Read more » When Russian President Vladimir Putin got word that U.S. cruise missiles were going to strike his Syrian ally early on Friday morning, he had several options for firing back. He could have used Russia’s air defense systems in Syria to shoot the American rockets out of the sky. As a rebuke to the Americans, he could also have cancelled his meeting next week with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. But he did neither. Reading between the lines of Russia’s initial response, at least in the hours following the first targeted U.S. strike against the Syrian military, it seems that Putin is choosing to step back, bide his time and leave plenty of room to smooth things over. In Moscow’s diplomatic circles, there is even hope that Tillerson’s visit on Tuesday could still mark the start of some grand bargain – if not exactly a love affair – between Putin and President Donald Trump.  Acting on Instinct, Trump Upends His Own Foreign Policy By MARK LANDLER President Trump took the greatest risk of his young presidency, putting aside a foreign policy doctrine based on avoiding messy conflicts in distant lands. In doing such a turnabout, Trump perpetuates the notion among his critics that he's amenable to whomever last talked to him, writes The Fix's Aaron Blake: “Arguably his biggest liability was that people — even many supporters — believed he lacked the proper temperament to be president. The prospect of the hotheaded, itchy-Twitter-fingered reality TV star having access to the nuclear codes was an attack ad that practically wrote itself.” “Within the administration, some officials urged immediate action against Assad, warning against what one described as ‘paralysis through analysis.’ But others were concerned about second- and third-order effects,” according to Pentagon reporters Dan Lamothe, Missy Ryan and Thomas Gibbons-Neff. “The attack may put hundreds of American troops now stationed in Syria in greater danger. They are advising local forces in advance of a major assault on the Syrian city of Raqqa, the Islamic State’s de facto capital.” A direct confrontation with Russia, even if accidental, is now more likely. This back-and-forth could prompt Trump to recalibrate his position toward Putin, potentially taking a more aggressive posture. The U.S. intervention, on the other, might also make Russia more willing to negotiate a deal to end the civil war and remove Assad. You never know. In Europe, despite their frosty relationships with the new U.S. president, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande backed Trump’s actions. Britain also offered backing but said it would not participate if asked. Hillary Clinton supported a no-fly zone over Syria during the campaign last year, putting her in a more hawkish place than Obama. Speaking in New York yesterday, she called on Trump to take out Assad’s air force. "Assad has an air force, and that air force is the cause of most of these civilian deaths as we have seen over the years and as we saw again in the last few days," the former secretary of said at a "Women in the World" summit, per CNN. "And I really believe that we should have and still should take out his air fields and prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop sarin gas on them." She added that if she were in power, she would tell Russia they were either “with us or against us” on the no-fly zone. "It is time," she said, "the Russians were afraid of us because we were going to stand up for the rights, the human rights, the dignity and the future of the Syrian people."

If white America is in ‘crisis,’ what have black Americans been living through?



WASHINGTON POST

Trump Removes Stephen Bannon From National Security Council Post.

-- Trump removed Steve Bannon from his position on the National Security Council Wednesday as part of a major staff reshuffling, elevating key military and intelligence officials to greater roles on the council and greatly reducing Bannon’s influence in shaping day-to-day security policy. Robert Costa, Abby Phillip, and Karen DeYoung report: “The restructuring reflects the growing influence of national security adviser H.R. McMaster, an Army three-star general who took over the post after retired general Michael Flynn was ousted in February and who is increasingly asserting himself over the flow of national security information in the White House. McMaster has become a blunt force within the administration who has made clear to several top officials and the president that he does not want the NSC to have any political elements.

H.R. McMaster

“Bannon's place on the committee had been a subject of intense controversy … [and national security experts] characterized it as an elevation of a White House official with no national security experience, even while other national security officials in the administration were included on the NSC only when ‘issues pertaining to their responsibilities and expertise’ were involved,” our colleagues write.

-- Bannon threatened to resign from his White House post amid continued West Wing infighting – namely with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner – but he was convinced to stay on by Republican megadonor Rebekah Mercer, Politico’s Eliana Johnson, Kenneth P. Vogel and Josh Dawsey report: “Five people, including a senior administration official and several sources close to the president, tell POLITICO that Steve Bannon, one of Trump’s closest advisers, has clashed with the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who’s taken on an increasingly prominent portfolio in the West Wing. Bannon has complained that Kushner and his allies are trying to undermine his populist approach, the sources said. … [but] Mercer, a longtime Bannon confidante who became a prominent Trump supporter during the campaign, urged Bannon not to resign. [One] person familiar with the situation, a GOP operative who talks to Mercer, said: ‘Bekah tried to convince him that this is a long-term play.’ The tension between the two is indicative of a larger power struggle in the White House as Kushner’s prominence and responsibility have ballooned. Kushner has also told people that he thinks Mercer as well as her father … have taken too much credit for their role in his victory, and has expressed misgivings about their go-it-alone approach to outside spending boosting Trump’s agenda.” “If Bannon leaves the White House, Bekah’s access and influence shrinks dramatically,” said the GOP operative who talks to Mercer. 

Conservative donor Rebekah Mercer

Politico also reports that "Bannon's removal from the NSC is symbolic of a broader realignment in the West Wing that has Bannon increasingly marginalized and at odds both with the president and Kushner....The tension between the two is indicative of a larger power struggle in the White House as Kushner’s prominence and responsibility have ballooned. He has helped to expand the authority of two senior West Wing officials who, like him, are less ideological in nature: former Goldman Sachs executives Gary Cohn, who is now chairman of the National Economic Council, and Dina Powell, the deputy national security adviser for strategy.

-- “The removal of Bannon from the NSC comes in the wake of a series of other moves -- most notably the arrival of Trump's daughter, Ivanka, in the West Wing -- that suggest that the president is moving away (at least for the moment) from the more hard-line ideological bent of Bannon,” CNN’s Chris Cillizza writes. “It's hard not to see the Bannon move in the broader context of Trump's first 75 days in office, which have been, to put it mildly, chaotic … While Trump -- like all politicians -- is loathe to admit a change of direction is needed or that mistakes have been made, it's hard to look at his current position and conclude anything else. To be clear: Bannon will remain in the White House -- and in a senior role. But the diminution of his power -- and in such a public way -- is a clear sign that a shakeup in the Trump power structure is under way.”

Scores killed in one of Syria’s deadliest chemical attacks in years.


Activists said airstrikes in the northwest delivered an unidentified chemical agent that killed at least 75 people and filled clinics across the area with patients foaming at the mouth or struggling to breathe. This is the deadliest chemical attack since Assad’s forces dropped sarin gas on the Damascus suburbs in 2013.

 Syria turned a northern rebel-held area into a toxic kill zone  inciting international outrage over the ever-increasing government impunity shown in the country’s six-year war.

Western leaders including President Trump blamed the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad and called on its patrons, Russia and Iran, to prevent a recurrence of what many described as a war crime.

After gas attack, Trump says crisis in Syria ‘is now my responsibility’

The president said the images of young victims had a “big impact” on him but would not say how he would address the Assad regime's apparent use of a chemical weapon. Earlier Wednesday, U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley assailed Russia in blunt terms for protecting the Syrian government.

By Anne Gearan  •  Read more »

-- Foreign policy has dominated the opening chapters of the Trump administration to a degree the president clearly did not anticipate. If he’s got 99 problems, Syria is now certainly one.

“For Trump, a Focus on U.S. Interests and a Disdain for Moralizing,” by the New York Times’s Peter Baker: “Mr. Trump has dispensed with what he considers pointless moralizing and preachy naïveté. … ‘We would look like, to some degree, rather silly not acknowledging the political realities that exist in Syria,’ said spokesman Sean Spicer. … He has taken foreign policy to its most realpolitik moment in generations, playing down issues of human rights or democracy that animated his predecessors, including Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Obama. … His foreign policy seems defined more by a transactional nationalism, rooted in the sense that the United States is getting ripped off. Rather than spreading American values, Trump’s policy aims to guard American interests.”

-- Trump is learning that the panaceas he promised so often as a candidate do not actually exist. "No one — not even President Obama, as far as I could tell — was satisfied with the Obama administration’s approach to the conflict in Syria," Andrew Exum, who was an Obama appointee at the Pentagon, writes for The Atlantic. "But if you assembled all of the Obama administration’s critics in one room, they would not agree on an obvious alternative. The problem is wicked enough to confound easy solutions, and each policy alternative had strategic and moral deficiencies."

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said “Assad believes he can commit war crimes with impunity,” and he challenged Trump to do something. The question now confronting Washington, he said, “is whether we will take any action to disabuse him of this murderous notion.”

-- “Jared Kushner has a singular and almost untouchable role in Trump’s White House,” by Ashley Parker and John Wagner: “In an administration riven by competing factions and led by a president who demands absolute loyalty, Kushner’s position — elevated and so far nearly untouchable — emanates from his familial relationship with [Trump]. Kushner’s portfolio has already grown to encompass slices of foreign policy (Mexico, the Middle East) and domestic issues (opioid addiction, veterans affairs), in addition to serving as the in-house mediator for the various feuding camps within the West Wing (the ideologues, the Wall Street guys). But Kushner’s outsize role has led to larger-than-life sniping and resentments, with rivals whispering that he has little depth and lacks the self-awareness to know what he doesn’t know. Simply put: Kushner’s role and relationship with the president — neither chief of staff nor regular political adviser — come with no precedents.

”

Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, compares the Trump-Kushner dynamic to “a mob family operation”: “It’s as if Trump is the don and he only trusts his close family members. There’s no indication that experience in the real estate business prepares one for the tasks at hand. It’s the hubris of a businessman imagining he can run government just because he’s a businessman. I don’t know if Jared Kushner shares the hubris of his father-in-law, but he’s certainly willing to say, ‘Yes, sir.’”

IN TRUMP'S AMERICA, LOYALTY -- OR DENIAL -- RUNS DEEP:

-- Jenna Johnson files from Durant, Oklahoma, where Trump’s budget would hit hard but his supporters are still willing to trust him. “In this town of 16,000 — located near the Texas border in Oklahoma’s Bryan County, where Trump won 76 percent of the vote — excitement about Trump’s presidency has been dulled by confusion over an agenda that seems aimed at hurting their community more than helping it. Many red states like Oklahoma — where every single county went for Trump — are more reliant on the federal funds that Trump wants to cut than states that voted for [Clinton].” Still, many Trump supporters are holding out hope that the possible budget sacrifices will be worth it. Tire shop owner Rick Munholland said he wants to see more jobs in the area, fewer undocumented immigrants and lower monthly health-insurance premiums. “Working people like me can’t afford it. Now, if you’re low-income, they can get it for nothing — but the low-income gets taken care of regardless,” Munholland said. “God bless America, but it has gone to the dogs.”

-- The New York Times’ Yamiche Alcindor goes to Trumball County, Ohio, where residents are heavily reliant on affordable housing programs and HUD-sponsored initiatives. “For years, Tammy and Joseph Pavlic tried to ignore the cracked ceiling in their living room, the growing hole next to their shower and the deteriorating roof they feared might one day give out. Mr. Pavlic [was forced to leave his job as his multiple sclerosis advanced] ... By 2015, Ms. Pavlic was supporting her husband and their three children on an annual salary of $9,000 …” That year, they tapped a Congressionally-funded county project called HOME to help repair their house. The next year, they voted for Trump, who has moved to cut the program in favor of beefing up military spending and building a U.S.-Mexico border wall. “Keeping the country safe compared to keeping my bathroom safe isn’t even a comparison,’ Joseph Pavlic said of Trump’s proposed budget cuts. ‘We have people who are coming into this country who are trying to hurt us, and I think that we need to be protected.’”

• “Our county voted for [Trump], so I’m not sure they quite understand what is going to happen,” said Julie Edwards, the county’s economic development coordinator. “I don’t think people realize how much we rely on these services. I don’t think people are making the connection between cutting the HUD funds and paving our streets or building new affordable housing.”

-- New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof also journeyed through “Trump country" to see how his most fervent supporters were reacting to news of the budget cuts. None said they regretted their votes in November, and they all said that they might vote for Trump for re-election: “Judy Banks, a 70-year-old struggling to get by, said she voted for Trump because ‘he was talking about getting rid of those illegals.’ But Banks now finds herself shocked that he also has his sights on funds for [a senior citizen service program], which is her lifeline. It pays senior citizens a minimum wage to hold public service jobs. Banks said she depends on the job to make ends meet … ‘If I lose this job,’ she said, ‘I’ll sit home and die.’ Yet she said she might still vote for Trump in 2020.”