Hedging & Houthis (January 19, 2024)
Welcome to Home & Away. It has been a week that underscores the premise of this newsletter: that what happens out there affects things here, and that what happens here in the United States affects the rest of the world.
Trump 2.0
The latter was particularly evident with Donald Trump’s overwhelming win in Iowa on Monday. First, the domestic political angle. It would be difficult to design a better outcome for Trump: he garnered an outright majority and the two principal alternatives, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, each got enough to stay in the race, meaning they will continue to divide the vote not going to Trump at least through New Hampshire’s primary. What is more, the stronger of the two (Haley) came in a somewhat disappointing third, just behind DeSantis. This will make it harder for her to build momentum heading into New Hampshire and her home state of South Carolina, especially as she seems intent on trying to thread the proverbial needle of offering herself up as the alternative to Trump without taking him on as directly as she could. With Vivek Ramaswamy dropping out of the race, Trump will also gain most of his small band of supporters.
As a result, the likelihood that Trump will be the Republican nominee has increased from say eight out of ten to something closer to nine. For Americans and non-Americans alike who had been hoping against hope that this would not happen, reality arrived with a crash—or a thud. It is clear that Trump’s many legal problems will not derail his nomination; to the contrary, there is reason to believe they are fueling it. What effect further legal developments will have on his general election prospects, though, remains to be seen.
Donald Trump is also exerting sway over negotiations to extend aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan in exchange for more stringent policies governing the southern border. The Senate and White House appear close to a deal that would be in the national interest, but House Republicans seem more interested in maintaining the border as a political rallying cry this election cycle than in doing something about it. And they don’t seem to be concerned about handing Vladimir Putin a major strategic victory as a result. Clearly, they are unfamiliar with the tenth and final obligation of true patriots, which is to put country before party or self. I hope that this will change, but for now, this country’s interests, both at home and away, are being jeopardized by a handful of zealots.
All this, coupled with the polls suggesting that Trump is running slightly ahead of President Biden across a number of critical swing states, is increasing speculation around the world as to what a second Trump administration would entail and how to best prepare for it. Given Trump’s isolationist views, friends and allies are increasingly contemplating hedging strategies to address their security needs, be it by becoming more self-reliant, finding new partners to offset (at least in part) the potential loss of American backing, accommodating neighboring adversaries, or some combination of the above. They are also readying themselves for heightened pressure to increase defense spending and offset costs associated with any American military presence in their country. On the economy, they are preparing for a United States that not only resists free trade but embraces outright protectionism. And even if Trump 2.0 does not come to pass, any sigh of relief will be restrained by the legitimate fear that Trumpism will live on in the Republican Party and that America will remain politically dysfunctional and, as a result, unpredictable, far beyond this election.
I should slightly modify the above as it pertains to most, but not all, friends and allies. There are a handful that might actually welcome a second Trump presidency, such as Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Bibi Netanyahu’s Israel, all of which would prefer a White House less concerned with democracy and human rights, and, in Netanyahu’s case, diplomacy.
This country’s two most important foes will probably adopt something of a wait-and-see attitude. This applies to the Russia of Vladimir Putin, who hopes that Trump would reduce or even end U.S. military support for Ukraine, thus putting him in a position to gain on the battlefield, or at the negotiating table, or both. Putin’s waiting game means there likely will not be any diplomatic movement this year.
In the case of Xi’s China, my reading is that the Chinese would prefer 2024 to be a relatively calm year so that no additional trade and investment controls are introduced, further hampering its already beleaguered economy. China can bide its time on Taiwan in the hope that a Trump presidency would result in weaker U.S. ties with our Asian partners in the region. Given that Trump’s first presidency focused much more on the bilateral economic relationship than on geopolitics, Xi might even believe there is a deal to be struck with Trump over Taiwan’s head.
Taiwan Elections, Middle East Missiles
Speaking of Taiwan, the election results did not surprise. There will be continuity at the top, as the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) candidate William Lai (Lai Ching-te) came out on top. But he will rule without a parliamentary majority, as the DPP lost ten seats in the legislature and will need support from Taiwan’s upstart third party to pass legislation. This will probably be to China’s liking, as Lai’s need to recruit prospective coalition partners will force him to moderate what he says and does and create the possibility that the next four years could be marked by gridlock and dysfunction within Taiwan. The mainland should also be reassured by Lai’s victory speech, in which he underscored his commitment to the cross-strait status quo and expressed a desire to lower tensions with China.
As for the Middle East, the war in Gaza has now passed the 100-day mark. Israel has largely switched over to a more calibrated strategy, but not before a bombing campaign that left more than twenty thousand Gazan civilians dead. Much of the territory is uninhabitable, and more than one hundred Israeli hostages remain in captivity. There is still no viable plan for transitioning to a post-Hamas authority or for meeting at least some Palestinian political requirements.
In short, not a lot has changed, although a debate in Israel is brewing over whether to accept a ceasefire in exchange for the remaining hostages and whether Israel should commit to occupying Gaza even after the war ends. The cracks are also starting to show in Bibi’s wartime government with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant openly defying Netanyahu to support the U.S. position that, “a strong Palestinian Authority is an Israeli security interest,” and leaks that Minister Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s chief political rival, is frustrated with the government’s lack of a serious day after plan for Gaza. Most significant might be comments by Gadi Eisenkot, another member of the war cabinet, who yesterday said that anyone, i.e., the prime minister, who claims that the absolute defeat of Hamas is possible is not telling the truth. He also called for early elections, again undermining Netanyahu’s position, to rebuild trust between the Israeli public and their government.
What is also worth commenting on is the change in Saudi Arabia’s position. The Saudis initially dangled the prospect of normalizing relations with Israel to get closer to Israel economically and to the U.S. strategically. A link to Palestinian interests was inserted into the proposed deal by the Biden administration, which understood that without such a link Senate Democrats would not support a new security pact with the Saudis, endangering the two-thirds majority necessary to pass such a treaty. But the Gaza crisis has changed Saudi calculations, as even authoritarian regimes must have a healthy respect for public opinion, which in this case has swung sharply in the direction of Palestinians. Crises have a way of changing things. And at the end of the day, it is possible that the Saudi offer will play a prominent part in shaping Israeli policy, as it could well trigger a public debate there, one that forces Israelis to make a historic choice between a greater Israel, increasingly isolated from the region and the United States, and a greater peace. What Secretary of State Blinken told audiences at Davos, that this opportunity with the Saudis marks “an inflection point” for Israelis, has the added virtue of being true.
The big immediate development in the region is that there have now been multiple U.S.-led strikes against Houthi positions in Yemen, mostly against anti-ship missile sites. There has also been at least one successful but costly effort to seize Iranian weaponry headed to the Houthis. Still, the Houthis are continuing their attacks on merchant vessels and Red Sea shipping remains at risk, forcing an increasing number of vessels to take the longer and more costly route around Africa. It is not clear how to decisively eliminate the threat to shipping, and, based on previous unsuccessful Saudi and Emirati air campaigns in Yemen, it is not clear the Houthis can be persuaded or forced to stand down. Like Hamas, the Houthis are Iran-backed but appear to retain a degree of autonomy. All of which is to say that this aspect of the crisis could persist for some time, although there is a chance China and Iran may want to keep things from spiraling further out of control.
Finally, it is impossible to write about the Middle East this week and not pick up on one of the more ironic developments. Iran, long a state sponsor of terrorism and the backer of numerous terrorist groups such as the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas, has now carried out strikes in Pakistan, Iraq, and Syria. Their rationale? To go after groups such as Jaish al-Adl and the Islamic State (Daesh) that Iran sees as having carried out terror attacks inside their territory. And now Pakistan, which provided the Taliban sanctuary for decades during their effort to gain control over Afghanistan, is attacking what it claims are terrorist groups in Iran. In the Middle East as elsewhere, what goes around comes around.
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Richard Haass in the news
Monday, January 15: Tonight With Andrew Marr on conflict in the Middle East.
Wednesday, January 17: MSNBC Morning Joe on the Israel-Hamas war.
Check out The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens