Welcome to Home & Away. It has only been four days since the inauguration of the 47th president of the United States, but it feels longer—a lot longer. We are all being reminded—hourly at times—that elections have consequences.
Pardon Me
January 20 began normally enough, with the arrival of the President-elect and his wife at the White House and followed with what I expect was an awkward private meeting between the president and his successor and their spouses. It was from all accounts a formal tea time, not to be confused with a friendly tee time.
Biden and Trump then shared a limousine drive down Pennsylvania Avenue. That was about it for what passes as normal. I have already written about the inaugural address itself in Monday’s special edition of this newsletter—the lack of grace notes and the articulation of a foreign policy predicated on spheres of influence rather than the sort of global order we have championed and benefited from for the past eighty years. The speech was more State of the Union than an inaugural, aimed primarily at energizing Trump’s base, not bridging a divided public following an election close (in the popular vote) by historical standards. It was also hard not to be struck by the assemblage of American oligarchs in the room, some of whom already have a role in this administration and others who are likely to wield considerable influence. It was the technology-industrial complex that the outgoing president warned about in his farewell address.
The rest of the day saw the issuance of more than two dozen executive orders. Many, including the ending of birthright citizenship, will be challenged or are already being challenged in court. Biden’s last-minute pardons of his family were ill-advised; Trump’s pardoning of nearly all the January 6 insurrectionists, including hundreds who assaulted law enforcement officers, was far worse. Such pardoning is the stuff of monarchs, not presidents. It is not too early to begin thinking about a constitutional amendment that would rein in this power that is being used on a scale and for reasons not intended.
Let me also say something about executive orders. They have become the tool of choice for presidents of both parties as they seek to work around the partisan gridlock that makes it difficult to get things done in Congress. It is understandable but regrettable. Executive orders lead to more extreme policies as they require no compromise or buy-in from the other party, which also makes them ripe for being undone and replaced with something radically different when the occupant of the Oval Office changes. This is a recipe for policies that don’t last and that deepen the polarization that plagues us.
Green Light
I want to pivot to international subjects, to Away. The first is the Middle East and the Israel-Hamas agreement that has brought about a temporary ceasefire and an initial return of hostages. As welcome as all this is, any celebration needs to be limited. It is not just the striking imbalance: the exchange of a large number of Palestinian prisoners, some with Israeli blood on their hands, for a handful of innocent hostages who did nothing wrong. More critically, Hamas has taken advantage of the ceasefire to come out of its tunnels and reassert its rule over Gaza.
The current scenes from Gaza demonstrate that the Israeli government, despite over a year of attacks that have reduced large swaths of Gaza to rubble, has predictably been unable to achieve its stated goal of eliminating Hamas. Thousands of Hamas foot soldiers have survived and are quickly reconstituting power throughout the enclave. Hamas’s ranks may also be swelled by recruits motivated by antipathy towards Israel brought on by its military operations that have caused tens of thousands of civilian casualties and widespread destruction. What comes to mind is Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s October 2003 snowflake: “We lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror. Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrasas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?”
And whatever the specific number of Hamas’s new and old soldiers may be, the enduring truth—and one that I, along with some others, have been underscoring since October 7—is that Israel will never be able to permanently weaken, much less marginalize, Hamas by military means alone.
Israel must also put in motion a political process that provides a roadmap for Palestinians to achieve some degree of self-rule if an alternative and more moderate Palestinian leadership is to emerge. Such an effort must express an openness to eventual Palestinian statehood if specified conditions are accepted and met. Also required are constraints on Israeli settlement activity and continued land acquisition, both of which are inconsistent with any commitment to holding open the possibility of Palestinian statehood. Again, this is all essential not just to meet legitimate Palestinian hopes and secure the safety of Israel’s civilians, but also to preserve Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. Continued occupation of some five million Palestinians is inherently inconsistent with one or the other of these traits.
In the meantime, it is far from clear the ceasefire will hold. The second phase, meant to start in some five weeks, requires not just holding off acts of violence and continued hostage-for-prisoner exchanges but also an Israeli withdrawal from all of Gaza and mutual acceptance of an open-ended end to hostilities. It is uncertain whether the current Israeli government will opt for this despite the desire of Israeli citizens for the remaining hostages to be freed. Public displays of menacing, masked, and armed Hamas fighters have not made things easier. It may be noteworthy that Trump, who just days ago threatened there would be hell to pay if there were no hostage deal by the time he assumed office, now seems to be backing off, saying he is not confident the ceasefire will hold and that, “it’s not our war, it’s their war.” It will be interesting to see what the new administration and Marco Rubio, the now unanimously-confirmed secretary of state, will do to try to keep things on track.
Also worth noting is that conditions are worsening in the West Bank, home to some three million Palestinians, where Israel just announced a new major military operation around the city of Jenin. Relations between Israel and the Palestinians there are increasingly being defined by armed conflict, not negotiations or dialogue. Making matters worse is that President Trump has already issued an executive order rescinding the sanctions put into place by the Biden administration that targeted violent, far-right Israeli settlers who carried out violent attacks on Palestinians and seized or destroyed Palestinian property. This decision by the new U.S. administration is irresponsible, as it will be taken as a green light to go ahead with more such violence, and, quite possibly, new settlements or even annexation of parts of the West Bank—an area that some in Israel and in the Trump administration now insist on referring to as Judea and Samaria, biblical names that are intended to legitimize Israel’s claim to them. The West Bank is primed for a blow-up and could quite possibly replace Gaza as the focus of regional and international attention before this year is out.
New World Order
I want to raise some additional issues that received relatively little attention. Iran’s president visited Russia last week, and while there he signed what is being described as a “comprehensive strategic partnership treaty.” The twenty-year pact includes unspecified economic and military cooperation, although, unlike Russia’s agreement with North Korea, this one did not include a mutual assistance commitment in the event of an attack. Still, the risk is that Russia will not just help Iran get back on its feet after absorbing a string of strategic setbacks, but that Russia will assist Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for continued help from Tehran in its war against Ukraine, which has depended heavily on Iranian drones.
This development highlights the need to move forward with pressing for the sort of grand bargain with Iran I suggested a few weeks back in Foreign Affairs. I am hoping this approach has some appeal to a U.S. president who sees himself as an unconventional peacemaker. There is also a precedent, in that negotiating a new pact with Iran (one that is potentially much better than the 2015 deal Trump withdrew the United States from) would be akin to what Trump did when his first administration negotiated with Mexico and Canada to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. A new agreement with Iran would also obviate the need to respond to Iran’s continued push for a nuclear weapon by using military force on a large scale, something Trump has traditionally resisted.
I am raising all this for another reason: We see North Korea directly assisting Russia’s war effort, all but certainly in exchange for Russian help with its nuclear and missile programs. There is also the just mentioned Russia-Iran accord and two Russia-China strategic agreements, the first including the “no limits” pledge. And just this week Putin and Xi Jinping convened a video meeting in which they showcased their increasingly tight relationship. All this comes against the backdrop of a new U.S. administration setting its sights on Panama and Greenland, declaring its affinity for tariffs against friend and foe alike, pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization, signaling an unexpected toughness toward Russia on Ukraine, and vacillating in its approach (be it on tariffs or Tik Tok) to China. People are for good reason focusing on Mr. Trump’s policies and plans for this country, but it is quite possible that before he departs the presidency for the second time, his greatest impact will be on the shape of the world, in part because there are fewer constraints on a president’s actions in foreign policy than there are at home. Both the post-Cold War and post-World War II orders face a highly uncertain future.
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Richard Haass in the news
Thursday, January 23: U.S. Chamber of Commerce (The Call: What Does Richard Haass See for the U.S. in 2025 and Beyond?)
Friday, January 24: KERA Think, NPR Dallas (A Weakened Iran Is Still Dangerous)
Check out The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens