MANCHESTER, Iowa — Vivek Ramaswamy knows he doesn’t have the foreign policy chops of some of his opponents. He hasn’t been a president, an ambassador, a senator or even a governor. But still, he wants to talk about it.

At campaign stops in early states, Ramaswamy is urging voters to ask him about his foreign policy views.

“Anybody have any questions about my foreign policy?” the candidate eagerly asked a roomful of Iowans at a diner in the small town of Manchester on Monday. 

Luckily for Ramaswamy, a voter took him up on it. 

“I was going to say that’s one of the criticisms about you, is that you don’t have enough experience in foreign relations,” the voter said. Ramaswamy acknowledged that he could tell his lack of experience was “weighing on people’s minds.”  

“I think we should just talk about it in the open,” he said before diving into the two key pillars of his foreign policy plan. 

“My foreign policy is clear: stay out of World War III, declare economic independence from communist China,” Ramaswamy said.  

Ramaswamy’s reluctance to leave his foreign policy unaddressed on the campaign trail comes on the heels of fresh attacks on the debate stage from rival Nikki Haley, who was ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration and was governor of South Carolina.

“Putin and President Xi are salivating at the thought that someone like that could become president,” Haley said at the most recent debate in Miami, slamming Ramaswamy for wanting to stop funding Ukraine in its war with Russia.  

After the attack, Ramaswamy shifted his strategy on the campaign trail. Previously, the 38-year-old businessman took questions from voters after delivering a stump speech without the subject-matter suggestion. But now, he wants to make sure his foreign policy stone isn’t left unturned. 

Just three days after the third GOP debate, while on a swing through New Hampshire on Nov. 11, he again pressured voters to challenge him on the topic. 

“And if anybody else, while we’re on this topic of foreign policy, we can maybe hit a couple of foreign policy questions and then we’ll bring it back home,” he said while campaigning in Hillsboro. 

Haley’s swipe at Ramaswamy for his foreign policy views wasn’t the first time she’s taken aim at him. At the first GOP presidential debate in August, again while Ramaswamy was questioning American support for Ukraine, Haley went for the jugular.  

“You have no foreign policy experience, and it shows,” Haley said to applause from the crowd.  

But it wasn’t until Haley’s latest barrage of attacks that Ramaswamy took on this new tactic. 

Ramaswamy’s plan to avoid the next world war relies on his noninterventionist philosophy and includes freezing the current lines of control between Russia and Ukraine. He’s also promised to keep American boots off the ground in Israel or Palestinian territory. 

He has said he and former President Donald Trump are the only “non-neocon“ candidates in the primary, taking aim at what was the predominant foreign policy stance of the Republican Party, particularly during the presidency of George W. Bush.

“As your next president, my sole moral duty is to you the American citizens here in our homeland, not any other country,” he explained, questioning if billions of dollars in aid to fund foreign conflicts benefit the people of the United States. 

“I sense that there’s a lot of people who love aspects of my candidacy but have questions about my absence of abroad experience, foreign policy experience in particular,” Ramswamy explained to NBC News on Monday when asked why he’s urging voters to ask him about his foreign policy.  

“Questions about faith also come up,” he added. 

Ramaswamy, who is Hindu, has been dogged by questions about his religion since he began campaigning in the first-in-the-nation caucus state, but he wants to bring it “out in the open.”

After a man questioned him about his faith during a campaign stop in Marshalltown, Iowa, this week, Ramaswamy called out the topic: “I think it ends up being an elephant in the room at times.” 

“I think they’re two of the topics that I want to give people full comfort in and asking about,” he said, referring to his new strategy of inviting questions about his religion and his foreign policy views. 

“If you think about it like a due-diligence checklist,” he added, “I think that those are some items that we need to make sure … people fully know where I am on.”

Source : NBC News

The post Vivek Ramaswamy Really Wants Voters to Ask Him About Foreign Policy appeared first on Policy Print.

It has been said that foreign policy is really domestic policy with its hat on. In a sense, this is true. — former US Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, June 29, 1966.

And the truth is that a country’s foreign policy carries all these small or large ideological, cultural and ethnic conflicts that unfold daily inside it. It incorporates, at the same time, however, the historical memory of a nation and is a sharp reflection of its positions.

In this chessboard, Greece and, by extension, its political leadership are consistently noteworthy actors and mobilisers of developments in foreign policy. With its unwavering position on the right side of history in any conflict or conflagration in the foothills of the European continent or its wider neighbourhood.

By vigorously renouncing from the first moment the expansionism and the illegal occupation acts created by the Russian invasion. At the same time, he decisively participated in material support and various international gatherings in favour of Ukraine’s right to defend its territory.

Today, with the flare-up in the Middle East ongoing, the Government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis immediately took a position in favour of Israel’s right to self-defence, calling on the friendly country, however, not to stray from the path of International Law and International Humanitarian Law. Proposing sustainable solutions that will lead to a bloodless future and not a repeat of the past in the region.

In Europe, our country has a steady pace and a special displacement, managing to change the attitude of the Union towards Immigration, but also the way of dealing with natural disasters and climate change. With initiatives such as the vaccination certificate amid the pandemic and the now coherent external border protection policy.

In our neighbourhood, in the Balkans, Greece is a driving force of developments and their accession perspective, undertaking specific initiatives. Without, however, being the “useful idiot” of the story, but by acting as a bellwether for their obligations. After all, it proved it recently when neighbouring Albania also slipped from the European path in the Beleri case and trampled on the principles of the rule of law.

At the same time, it does not neglect to strengthen its diplomatic and defence capacity. Recently, the launch of the first Belharra frigate was on our televisions, while over the skies of the SEF, we welcomed the new Rafalle and upgraded F-16s. All this is a sample of a country constantly developing, with its feet on the ground of the harsh reality of international politics.

Now, we are talking about a new Greece. A new Greece that has apparently left the era of withering and laxity behind for good. That develops, matures and sets the course for tomorrow.

It is precisely this Greece that wears its hat and exudes the same determination and punch, both abroad and at home.

Most importantly, our country is now invited and asked for their opinion. Before the recommendations, during the decision-making process, and afterwards, not only for her region but also for the wider European neighbourhood. A country that is a real actor and not a sidekick to developments.

Source : Greek City Times

The post Foreign Policy: Greece is a Actor and Not an Observer appeared first on Policy Print.

Argentina on Sunday chose a new president and a new course, pivoting away from decades of Peronist policy domestically and, if new president-elect Javier Milei sticks to his campaign rhetoric, toward a new neighborhood policy that might jolt Latin America and a new foreign policy in the Middle East and toward China.  

The results of the presidential election runoff were not surprising, knowing the depth of the anger of the electorate at the economic crisis in the country. Inflation has hit 140 percent and poverty affects 40 percent of the population, while a $44 billion debt program with the International Monetary Fund did not even scratch the surface of solving the problems of Argentina. 

People wanted and demanded change, even if it came in the form of a right-wing populist and self-described “anarcho-capitalist,” who even brandished a chainsaw during the election campaign, vowing to cut the government down to size. An economist and former TV personality, Milei won with 56 percent of the vote, compared to the 44 percent of his opponent, the current Economy Minister Sergio Massa. He promised Argentines that there is “no room for lukewarm measures” and vowed to purge the government of corrupt establishment politicians. 

His platform is very radical even for Argentines, who are willing to forgive his style for the sake of change and a new beginning. He has said he will dollarize the economy, abandoning the national currency, the peso; eliminate the central bank; shut down the ministries of education and health; privatize the state-controlled energy firm YPF, after making it better to get a good price; and privatize the state-owned media, which he described as “a covert ministry of propaganda” as it gave him negative coverage during the campaign. Sound familiar? 

The incoming Argentine president is an admirer of former American President Donald Trump and some see a resemblance between them, including the mop of hair. He is even referred to as the “Trump of Argentina.” He is also a friend of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and both congratulated him, with Trump telling Milei: “You will make Argentina great again.” Bolsonaro said: “You represent a lot for Brazil.” 

However, Argentina’s relationships with its two largest trading partners, Brazil and China, seem to be heading into uncharted waters with Milei’s presidency. During his campaign, he attacked Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, calling him an “angry communist” and a “socialist with a totalitarian vocation,” prompting a Brazilian official to demand an apology before any talks between the two leaders can start. 

The president-elect softened his position on some domestic measures in the last days of the campaign, such as retreating from his vow to abolish the ministries of education and health, signaling that reality might sink in and a more pragmatic approach might be contemplated, especially as his party does not control the Congress and he cannot pass any of his promised measures without its approval.  

The question is though, how will he handle his relationship with Brazil, or any of his Latin American neighbors, especially since some of them did not hide their disappointment at his election? 

The biggest change from Argentina’s previous policies is predicted to be in his China policy. The president-elect advocated during the campaign breaking off relations with Beijing in favor of ties with “the civilized side of the world,” meaning the West. His Middle East policy might also bring a sea change to Argentina’s traditional policy for the region.  

China is the second-largest trading partner of Argentina and their relationship has warmed recently, with Beijing investing billions of dollars in projects in different sectors of the economy. China even helped the country avoid default by offering a $6.5 billion loan to help it make its debt payments one month before the elections, according to Bloomberg.  

The growing relationship between Argentina and China was a matter of concern in Washington, especially after Buenos Aires joined the Belt and Road Initiative in 2022 and accepted the invitation to join BRICS next year.  

The Chinese have expanded their influence in Latin America with the billions invested in the region through its Belt and Road Initiative. Seven countries in South America were participating in the initiative as of 2022, with projects ranging from the construction of infrastructure to energy, challenging the US in its backyard.  

According to World Economic Forum figures, trade between China and Latin America grew 26-fold between 2000 and 2020, increasing from $12 billion to $315 billion. It is expected to double by 2035, reaching more than $700 billion, which is about the same as the current trade between China and the US.  

According to the House Foreign Affairs Committee website on China’s influence in South America, in 2021 alone, Chinese state-owned companies “funded $11.3 billion worth of projects in South American countries.” But the committee adds that the “US still provides more foreign direct investment in Argentina than any other country, totaling $131.6 billion in the past decade.”

Other Chinese projects in Argentina have added to the anxiety in Washington, such as talks on setting up a port in the southern Tierra del Fuego province, as well as the satellite tracking station in Patagonia that Reuters has referred to as a Chinese “military-run space station” and a “black box.” 

Washington was not a mere spectator in all of this. It has continued to seek close relations with Argentina to counter China’s influence. Argentine President Alberto Fernandez visited Washington earlier this year and, after a visit to Argentina, Colombia and Brazil by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, these countries all signed NASA’s Artemis Accords. Nelson was clear when he talked about the motive, as he noted “all of these countries have had entreaties from the Chinese government.” And, with Argentina in particular, he said the US wanted to “keep the ties, the information, flowing between our two countries.” 

Milei might try to decouple from China, as he promised, but experts echo what a Chinese spokesman said after the elections — that such a move would be “a serious mistake” on Argentina’s part.  

Both the US and China today need Argentina for a precious resource: lithium, which they need because it is essential for electric cars and the energy transition. Argentina has one of the world’s largest lithium reserves and it needs trading partners to get out of its economic crisis. Milei might soon learn that it is better for Argentina to keep all its options open.  

Milei’s platform is very radical even for Argentines, who are willing to forgive his style for the sake of change.

Dr. Amal Mudallali

Meanwhile, Argentina’s Middle East policy appears to be heading for a sharp turn toward Israel. Milei reportedly said that he plans to travel to the US and Israel before he takes office on Dec. 10. American and Israeli media outlets have written about his close ties to rabbis in Miami and New York, as well as his spiritual attachment to and his admiration of Israel.  

He has reportedly considered converting to Judaism and has supported Israel’s right to self-defense during its attack on Gaza. He has often waved Israeli flags at his campaign rallies. He has previously said he wants to move the Argentine Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, following in Trump’s footsteps, according to Politico. 

With Argentina’s turn to the right, the great power competition between China and the US is reminding people that America never likes to be challenged in its backyard. During their last debate, Republican presidential hopefuls spoke about reviving the Monroe Doctrine, which holds that any intervention in the political affairs of the Americas by foreign powers is a potentially hostile act. The Dallas Morning News warned that “reviving the Monroe doctrine is a dangerous idea” and cautioned that the Republican candidates’ posturing “will push Latin America into China’s arms.” Countering China’s influence is a bipartisan issue in Washington and Latin America will find that out soon.  

Source : Arab News

The post Argentina Set for Foreign Policy Shift Under Radical New President appeared first on Policy Print.

A recent indictment from the United States Department of Justice has alleged an Indian security official was involved in attempting to assassinate a U.S. and Canadian citizen in New York. The alleged target, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, is a leader in the Sikh separatist movement and has been involved in organizing referendums for the establishment of Khalistan, a proposed independent Sikh state in northern India.

The indictment also states that there is a link between the foiled attempt to kill Pannun and the murder of Canadian Khalistani leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C. earlier this year.

The Indian government said it was investigating the allegations, and had established a committee to “address the security concerns highlighted by the US government.”

This announcement by the U.S. could have potential ramifications for Indian politics, both at home and abroad. However, it is unlikely to have any significant impact on next year’s general elections, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be seeking his third term in office.

Bolstering Modi’s strongman image

Canadian allegations against India had handed Modi an excellent political platform for the next general elections.

It sent a clear message that India’s government would, under no circumstances, tolerate any threats to the country.

India’s foreign policy has become more muscular under Modi; and that’s a strategy that resonates with his supporters.

His landslide victory in 2019 had a lot to do with support for India’s “surgical strikes” in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir in 2016 in response to an attack that killed 19 Indian soldiers.

Following Canada’s allegations of Indian involvement in Nijjar’s killing, the Modi government was once again able to successfully generate a narrative against Canada in general and the Liberal party in particular.

India’s narrative consists of four parts:

• Canada is a safe haven for terrorists, extremism and organized crime, and there is a nexus between Indo-Canadian gangsters and Sikh separatists working with Pakistan’s intelligence agency.
• The Canadian government has consistently ignored repeated requests from India to take actions against Khalistani “terrorists” operating on Canadian soil.
• Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is pandering to the large Sikh diaspora in Canada.
• The Liberal minority government is dependent on support from the New Democratic Party leader, Jagmeet Singh, a Sikh supposedly sympathetic to the Khalistani cause.

Indian news media and politicians have repeated the official discourse constantly for weeks.

While India was quick to dismiss Canadian allegations, it has adopted a much more cautious approach to the U.S. indictment. India has much to lose by alienating the Biden administration as both countries have invested a great deal in enhancing Indo-U.S. relations and making India a central ally in America’s Indo-Pacific strategy.

Meanwhile, Indo-Canadian relations have been chilly since 2015, largely due to Khalistan activity in Canada. Moreover, annual trade between India and Canada is worth about $12 billion while trade with the U.S. is worth $192 billion. In short, India has much more to lose by alienating the U.S than it does by taking a hard line with Canada.

Furthering authoritarianism

On the surface it might appear that news of the U.S. indictment could fracture India’s muscular foreign policy. However, this episode is unlikely to have much impact on India’s domestic politics. Modi remains popular with an approval rating of 78 per cent.

He is credited, among other things, with India’s emergence as a global power, with his effective handling of border issues with China, for taking on Pakistan and with the success of the country’s space program.

The 26-party opposition coalition, Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), is unlikely to challenge Modi on this particular issue. The national defense narrative is a strong one, and India’s territorial integrity is a sacrosanct issue for all political parties.

However, among some minority communities, Muslims and Sikhs, both at home and abroad, revelations of assassination plots could raise serious concerns. The Modi government’s aggressive pursuit of a Hindu nationalist agenda, its repression of minorities and control over dissent have become more entrenched.

India’s parliament is in the process of amending its sedition laws. If the changes are passed, endangering the unity and integrity of the country could result in life-term imprisonment. These proposed changes to the already harsh and draconian penal code will only further criminalize dissent. The Modi government is ensuring that dissenting voices, particularly those of minority communities, completely disappear from Indian democracy.

Amplifying the Khalistan movement

India’s campaign of global repression of Sikh separatists could have the effect of unifying the Sikh diaspora. It was in 2018 that Pannun came up with the idea of holding a non-binding referendums to mobilize the global Sikh community.

That year, Sikh activists announced their campaign for holding referendums starting in 2021 across multiple cities. The first referendum took place in London on Oct. 31, 2021, followed by eight more referendums during 2022 and 2023 in the cities of Leeds and Luton (United Kingdom), Geneva (Switzerland), Brampton, Mississauga and Surrey (Canada), Melbourne (Australia), and Brescia (Italy).

Pannun announced plans for referendums in Punjab and the U.S, and for another round of voting in Canadian cities. In October, following Trudeau’s announcement of credible allegations against the Indian government, thousands of voters turned out to participate in a referendum in Surrey, B.C., some coming from as far as the cities of Edmonton and Calgary.

While only a small minority of the Sikh diaspora is thought to support creating a separate Sikh state, the majority were likely registering their disapproval of India and its repression of minorities. Memory of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in the wake of Indira Gandhi’s assassination which left thousands dead remains very much alive within the entire Sikh community to this day.

But Khalistani referendum politics relies heavily on images depicting so-called “martyrs” (separatists killed by India) and Indian diplomats as the assassins of Sikh activists. The desecration of Hindu temples also has the potential to create division within the Indian Hindu and Sikh diasporas. Canadian Liberal MP Chandra Arya has accused Khalistan supporters of targetting Hindu temples.

As more information comes out, the Canadian government will need to carefully manage its relations with India and the relationship between diasporic communities here.

Source : The Conversation

The post Alleged Assassination Plots in the U.S. And Canada Signal a More Assertive Indian Foreign Policy appeared first on Policy Print.

Declarations of the end of an era are made only in exceptional circumstances. Henry Kissinger’s death is one of them.

Kissinger was born into a Jewish family in Germany, and fled to the US in 1938 after the Nazis seized power. He rose to one of the highest offices in the US government, and became the first person to serve as both secretary of state and national security adviser.

The 1973 Nobel Peace prize, which Kissinger shared with his North Vietnamese counterpart Le Duc Tho, recognised his contribution to the negotiations that ended the Vietnam war.

Kissinger advised a dozen US presidents, from Richard Nixon to Joe Biden. For advocates of realpolitik – a quintessentially pragmatic, utilitarian approach to foreign affairs – Kissinger was both author and master.

Across many years, his viewpoint remained largely unchanged: national security is the centrepiece of sovereignty, as both a means, and end in itself. From this perspective, Kissinger’s transformative diplomatic involvement in seminal events in the 20th century, and iconic insights in the 21st have shaped swathes of western geopolitics.

His fierce ambition was a key part of his vision, namely to rework the bipolar structure of the cold war, bent on establishing both US power, and arguably his own role in it.

Kissinger had no qualms backing the military dictatorship behind Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor in the 1970s. He supported the CIA in overthrowing president Salvador Allende of Chile in 1970, advocated sustained bombing in areas of North Vietnam, and encouraged the wiretapping of journalists critical of his Vietnam policy. He prioritised security over human rights, and commercial control over self-determination.

None of this was surprising. Kissinger’s entire approach to foreign policy was unsentimental at best, and brutish at worst. Peace, and the power to conclude a peace, could only be hewn coarsely from the unforgiving fibre of state relations, he believed.

To his critics, Kissinger’s actions in Vietnam, Chile, Indonesia and beyond significantly challenged his legacy of negotiation and diplomacy, and – in the eyes of some – were tantamount to war crimes.

Peacemaker or polariser?

Kissinger’s legacy will remain a mixed one. It incorporated truly ground-breaking efforts in opening up talks between the US with China and the Soviet Union, alongside visibly polarising outcomes for US foreign policy in its relations with South America and south-east Asia.

As secretary of state to presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, Kissinger’s geopolitical achievements established him as an elder statesman of the Republican Party. This rested on a trinity of endeavours: pulling the US out of the Vietnam War, establishing a host of new diplomatic connections between the US and China, and cultivating the first stages of détente (improved relations) with the Soviet Union.

Vietnam remains the most contentious of these areas, with accusations that Kissinger blithely applied bombing and destruction in Cambodia to extract the US from the Vietnam war. The peace was fragile and hostilities continued for years afterwards without the Americans.

Nixon and China

Kissinger’s reputation is on sturdier grounds with the grand strategy to permanently open relations between the US and both China and the Soviet Union. This facilitated a reduction in east-west tensions that materially benefited the US. It also saw Kissinger effectively playing the two communist powers against each other.

Concentrated through the lens of the cold war, the majority of Kissinger’s interactions were based on an approach that balanced caution with aggression, and pragmatism with the acquisition of power.

This was sometimes directly, but often through the use of proxy wars, including Vietnam and the 1973 Yom Kippur War between Israel and Arab states, which descended into a power play with the Soviets, as did the 1971 India-Pakistan war. The image of Kissinger entirely comfortable with the high-stakes poker game between superpowers is an arresting one.

Post-cold war geopolitics did not diminish Kissinger’s overall approach. He counselled generations of US decision-makers to remember the virtues of allying with smaller states as well as superpowers for reasons of power and commerce, and a commitment to retain lethal force in the US foreign policy toolbox.

For scholars of international relations, Kissinger’s numerous books, from the iconic Diplomacy and Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, to Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy are an inventory of hard-headed views on the unrelenting demands of classic and modern statecraft and the challenges of crafting not just foreign policy, but grand strategy.

They are also a masterclass in European history, with a powerful message regarding sovereignty and the supreme role of the national interests in foreign policy, regionally and globally.

Kissinger’s relentless dedication to realpolitik as the fiercest approach to managing international affairs is at odds with the many elements of his personality. Nowhere is this more evident than in his writing, with “characteristics ranging from brilliance and wit to sensitivity, melancholy, abrasiveness and savagery”.

Kissinger’s final impact is on the hardware and software of global diplomacy: guns versus ideas. A pragmatic, even cynical approach tackling the imbalance of power between states impelled Kissinger to promote seemingly paradoxical approaches: ground-breaking diplomatic approaches to ensure peace, easily reconciled with a ruthless reliance on military power.

This, in turn, gave his counterparts little option other than to cooperate, which they generally did, from the North Vietnamese to Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, to China’s prime minister Zhou Enlai.

In his later years, seemingly immune to his foreign policy bungles, Kissinger’s celebrity diplomat status remained undimmed, somehow confirming the sense that international relations routinely transcends domestic politics, and in doing so, remains both a high stakes game, and a distinctive area of practice. His passion for foreign affairs never dimmed, commenting on the October 7 Hamas attack just a few weeks before his death.

For every one of Kissinger’s brilliant moves, there was a bungling countermove. Students of foreign policy need therefore to consider both Kissinger’s scholarship and his practice.

They should look through examples of his work in which one side seizes upon anything resembling a diplomatic opportunity, and commandeers its potential to produce a win, and then calls that a victory. Such victories however could be fleeting and left behind tensions that frequently came home to roost.

Source : The Coversation

The post Henry Kissinger Was a Global – and Deeply Flawed – Foreign Policy Heavyweight appeared first on Policy Print.

“The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades,” asserted US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on 29 September.

“Now challenges remain, but the amount of time that I have to spend on crisis and conflict in the Middle East today compared to any of my predecessors going back to 9/11 is significantly reduced.”

Sullivan’s comments have aged horribly. Just eight days later, Hamas waged its incursion into southern Israel, triggering a brutal Israeli campaign of bombardment of Gaza. The fighting since 7 October has thus far killed more than 8,000 Palestinians in Gaza and 1,400 Israelis.

The violence has spilled into Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and Egypt. At this point, the escalating crisis risks spreading to other parts of the Middle East, possibly entailing direct US and Iranian involvement.

Now a full-scale Israeli ground invasion of Gaza looms and Palestinians are concerned about a ‘Nakba 2.0’. Considering rhetoric coming from high-ranking Israeli officials and Tel Aviv’s plans and actions this month, such concerns are entirely valid. As usual, the US has not put any real pressure on Israel to change its destructive and destabilising behaviour.

“Looking ahead, it will be increasingly difficult to imagine the Global South taking the Biden administration’s rhetoric about human rights with anything more than a grain of salt. The hypocrisy from America is just too great”

The timing of this crisis is also particularly horrible given that President Joe Biden, who is seeking re-election next year, doesn’t want to appear to be giving Israel anything less than ironclad support.

As the world witnesses Israel’s war crimes in Gaza carried out with Washington’s blessing, the US’s capacity to be taken seriously when criticising Russia’s rogue behaviour in Ukraine has been severely, and most likely permanently, damaged.

Looking ahead, it will be increasingly difficult to imagine the Global South taking the Biden administration’s rhetoric about human rights with anything more than a grain of salt. The hypocrisy from America is just too great.

“It’s been an unseemly spectacle to see Washington and its European allies support Israel as it cuts off aid, water, and food to besieged civilians in Gaza,” Aron Lund, a fellow at Century International and a Middle East analyst, told The New Arab.

“It is exactly what these same nations denounced the Syrian regime for doing in Homs, Ghouta, Aleppo, and other places. They didn’t mince words when Russia stepped up to support Damascus and vetoed UN condemnations. Now when their own ally blocked aid and food in the same way, they couldn’t muster even mild criticism,” added Lund.

A foreign policy blunder

It is increasingly difficult to deny the major failures of Washington’s foreign policy in the Middle East. While continuing many aspects of the Trump administration’s approach to the region, the Biden administration has made expanding the scope of the Abraham Accords central to its agenda in the Arab world.

The White House naively believed it could bring Libya into a normalisation deal with Israel, which backfired disastrously.

The Biden administration has also invested massive amounts of diplomatic energy into trying to pull Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords – something that no expert can imagine happening any time soon given ongoing developments in Israel and Palestine.

“The recent events have punched a giant hole into the paper-thin superficial Biden administration policy on the Middle East, which has deluded itself into believing that establishing close ties with apartheid Israel and dictatorships in the Middle East is some kind of recipe for stability,” Sarah Leah Whitson, the Executive Director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), told TNA.

What is being painfully demonstrated is that lasting peace and security for Israel will not come from diplomatic deals with Arab states such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which were arguably never confrontational toward Israel.

It can only come from a lasting solution to the unresolved Palestinian question. Attempts to bury the Palestinian issue based on the assumption that the Palestinian cause stopped mattering to the Arab world have proven extremely misguided.

“As with Israel, one of the assumptions of US foreign policy in the Middle East has been annihilated in the past three weeks: that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be contained, and that the region could move on,” said Dr Thomas Juneau, an associate professor at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, in an interview with TNA.

“This was predictably an unsustainable assumption, but it was one of the premises of American foreign policy under Biden (and Trump) nevertheless. There are still some positive elements to the Abraham Accords – the stabilisation of relations among Israel and key Arab states – but to be sustainable, it needs to be accompanied by genuine, not fictitious, progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front,” added Dr Juneau.

“Recent events have punched a giant hole into the paper-thin superficial Biden administration policy on the Middle East”

Arab backlash

Anger at the US is growing in the Middle East. Large scale protests in capitals from Amman to Manama, Sana‘a to Baghdad, and Rabat to Beirut speak to the widespread support that the Palestinians are receiving across the Arab world.

In response to public opinion in their own countries, Arab leaders and policymakers have had no choice but to strongly condemn Israel and express support for the Palestinian cause.

Each Arab government faces slightly different circumstances given differences in these countries’ relationships with the US and Israel. Yet, the dynamics across the region are putting pressure on all of them to speak up in defence of the Palestinians and, at least in the case of most Arab states, refrain from directly criticising Hamas.

It was notable that Saudi Arabia, which only several weeks ago was flirting with normalisation with Israel, referred to Israelis as “occupation forces” in its response to Hamas’ Operation al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October.

Despite the Abraham Accords, the UAE, in its capacity as the only Arab state currently on the UN Security Council, has been highly critical of Israel and condemned various aspects of its response to Hamas’ surprise attack. As the humanitarian suffering in Gaza worsens, it’s safe to assume that such criticisms from the UAE will increase.

However, this appears to be about safeguarding regimes from internal legitimacy crises rather than a true commitment to the well-being of the Palestinians.

“It is heartening to see that kind of a pretty united Arab response, but I think it probably has more to do with their concerns about popular unrest in their own countries and wanting to temper that than any pure or genuine concern for Palestinians,” Whitson said.

“All Arab states want Washington to be more mindful of Palestinian and Arab interests, but they’re not equally vocal about it,” explained Lund.

The failure of Biden’s Middle East foreign policy threatens to undermine US standing in the region as well as the US president’s position in the upcoming election. [Getty]

“Governments like that in Syria, which is already hostile to the United States, delight in the opportunity to denounce Washington’s support for Israeli policies,” Lund added.

“Some Arab states, including US-allied nations in the Gulf and states that normalised their ties with Israel, mainly seem to be turning up the volume on Palestine for domestic reasons, or to avoid exposing themselves to criticism from rivals.”

Lund explained how many of these Washington-friendly Arab states are not comfortable confronting the Biden administration about their problems with blind support for Israel.

“You see them criticising Israel in harsher terms than on a normal day, but they haven’t said much about the US support that enables Israel’s actions,” noted Lund.

“On the other hand, I think most realise that if this situation is going to be de-escalated somehow in the future, it’ll have to be the United States that leads the way.”

A time to reassess US foreign policy

When it comes to the White House’s approach to the Middle East, the Biden administration would be wise to change course and ask some tough questions about how we arrived here. But this is unlikely for two principal reasons, said Whitson.

First, Team Biden, “continues to calculate based on short-term interests – namely the upcoming elections – and continues to believe that [Biden’s] victory in the polls is tied to demonstrating extreme support for Israel,” which Whitson sees as a “growing miscalculation”.

Second, the “deeply held personal biases of the Biden administration, of people in the State Department who are not approaching this conflict with clear eyes, with independent thinking, with thinking that prioritises the interests of the American people,” explained Whitson.

“Rather, as Secretary Blinken amply demonstrated during his visit to Israel, their approach to Israel is driven by their own personal, familial feelings of affinity for Israel.”

Source : New Arab

The post Biden’s Foreign Policy Failure in the Middle East appeared first on Policy Print.

Montreal, Canada – More than a month into its bombardment of Gaza, the Israeli military issued a warning: Ground troops had surrounded the largest hospital in the Palestinian enclave, al-Shifa. A raid would be launched “in minutes”.

The impending siege of the Gaza City health complex sparked panic among the thousands of injured patients, medical staff and displaced Palestinians sheltering there.

But amid urgent international pleas to protect Gaza’s hospitals, much of the focus in Canada was on the tougher tone of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“I have been clear: The price of justice cannot be the continued suffering of all Palestinian civilians. Even wars have rules,” Trudeau said in a news conference on November 14, around the time the al-Shifa raid began.

“I urge the government of Israel to exercise maximum restraint,” he continued, offering his toughest comments since the war began. For weeks, Trudeau had been ignoring calls – and some of Canada’s largest protests in recent memory – demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

“The world is watching. On TV, on social media, we’re hearing the testimonies of doctors, family members, survivors, kids who’ve lost their parents. The world is witnessing this. The killing of women and children – of babies; this has to stop.”

The response from Tel Aviv was swift. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted publicly to Trudeau’s speech, arguing on social media that the Palestinian group Hamas, not Israel, was responsible for any civilian casualties. Netanyahu pointed to Hamas’s attacks in southern Israel on October 7, one of the events that precipitated the war.

Pro-Israel lobby groups in Canada echoed that argument, saying “the blood of dead babies – Israeli and Palestinian – is on Hamas” and accusing Trudeau of fuelling anti-Semitism.

In the days that followed, Canadian ministers sought to temper Trudeau’s comments.

“The prime minister, quite understandably, is concerned about innocent lives on both sides of that border,” Defence Minister Bill Blair told the Canadian network CTV. “We’ve also been crystal clear: Israel has the right to defend itself.”

The episode is one of many examples in recent weeks of what observers have described as Canada’s “schizophrenic” foreign policy when it comes to Israel and Palestine.

“Whenever [Trudeau] does show any mettle with respect to this, he invariably then steps back from what he said after any sort of criticism coming from either the Israel lobby in Canada or Israeli leaders,” Michael Lynk, a former United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, told Al Jazeera.

Unlike its powerful neighbour and Israel’s foremost backer, the United States, Canada says it aims to tread the middle ground in its policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It supports a two-state solution, opposes illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied territories and says international law must be respected by all parties.

But experts say Canada has two policies when it comes to the conflict: one on paper and one in practice.

They note that Canada has cast UN votes against its own stated positions and opposed Palestinian efforts to seek redress at the International Criminal Court, and argue that it has backed hardline, Israeli policies and failed to hold the country accountable for rights abuses.

“This government, as well as previous Canadian governments, have unfortunately had a blind spot with respect to Israel,” said Farida Deif, Canada director at Human Rights Watch.

She added that Canada’s stance has not changed despite the nearly two-month-long military campaign in Gaza, where bombs have struck hospitals, refugee camps and schools serving as shelters. More than 15,200 Palestinians have been killed.

“What we’ve seen with respect to Canada’s policy on Israel-Palestine is really a lack of coherence, confusion, and essentially not really engaging with the reality on the ground,” she told Al Jazeera. “And the reality on the ground that we’ve seen – that Palestinian organisations, Israeli organisations, international organisations have documented – is the reality of apartheid and persecution.”

So what drives Canada’s position?

Al Jazeera spoke to nearly a dozen human rights advocates, politicians, former officials and other experts about how foreign and domestic calculations influence Ottawa’s stance – and whether public outrage could shift its strategy.

Canada has had close ties to Israel for years. It recognised the country shortly after it was founded in 1948 and established an embassy there not long after.

The two countries have had a free-trade agreement in place since 1997, with two-way trade totalling 1.8 billion Canadian dollars ($1.3bn) in 2021. Last year, Canada also exported 21.3m Canadian dollars ($15.7m) worth of weapons to Israel.

Some observers argue that the countries enjoy a natural affinity because of the similar ways in which they were created. Like Israel, Canada was built on the dispossession and forced removal of Indigenous peoples from their lands.

But relations truly flourished during the almost decade-long tenure of Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper. “Canada and Israel are the greatest of friends and the most natural of allies,” Harper said in a speech to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, in 2014.

A year later, the Conservatives would lose to Trudeau’s Liberal Party in the federal elections, ending Harper’s tenure.

Yet, while Harper’s support for Israel was largely motivated by right-wing, Christian ideology, Trudeau and his more centrist government appear driven by political pragmatism.

Part of that pragmatism stems from Canada’s need to maintain good relations with the US, the country’s largest trading partner and most important ally, according to Peter Larson, chair of the nonprofit Ottawa Forum on Israel/Palestine.

“Canadian policymakers make a political calculation that coming out strongly or critical of Israel or supportive of the Palestinians is likely to get the Americans angry with us,” Larson said.

The government’s perspective, he said, was that Canada has “no control” over what happens in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. “We have no purchase there, we have no trade there, we have no military there. So why in the world would we get the Americans mad at us when we can’t really do anything anyway?”

Michael Bueckert, vice president of the advocacy group Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), agreed. “Every time we see an indication of a policy position [from Canada], it’s closely following whatever the US says,” he told Al Jazeera.

He pointed out that Canada has continued to mirror US positions during the war in Gaza.

“It just seems like everything that Canada does is triangulated based on what the US and Israel are saying,” Bueckert said. “That’s more important to them than being aligned with all other members of the UN, for example, or every humanitarian agency, or a majority of Canadian public opinion.”

Yet sources with knowledge of the government’s inner workings say that domestic politics is the primary driver behind Canada’s position. One of the most important factors, they maintain, is the pro-Israel lobby.

Corey Balsam, national coordinator of Independent Jewish Voices Canada, an advocacy organisation, said the lobby groups have an “unmatched” ability “to be in the room” with political decision-makers.

“The lobby writ large is very well-resourced and influential and well-placed,” he said.

That has forced the Liberal government to weigh whether their decisions will spark a backlash among pro-Israel lobby groups, which could lose them votes, notably to their Conservative rivals, Balsam said.

“I don’t know exactly the calculations that they’re making, but these are the things that they pay attention to – votes in certain ridings [electoral districts], for instance. Also funds and fundraising for the party, I think this is a big factor for them.”

Lynk, the former UN special rapporteur and Canadian law professor, also said Ottawa’s position on the conflict relates in large part to “who has access to the corridors of power”.

The Trudeau government attacked Lynk’s UN appointment at the outset in 2016, as did pro-Israel lobby groups, which put out statements arguing that he had an anti-Israel bias. Green Party leader Elizabeth May and Lynk’s colleagues at Western University in Ontario came to his defence, but the damage was done.

“I tried to engage with as high a level of political and diplomatic decision-makers as I could. I didn’t get very far [in Canada],” he told Al Jazeera.

“What I was trying to do is say, ‘I’m showing you what international law says. I’m showing you what, in fact, your own foreign policy ends up saying … Why is your foreign policy so schizophrenic when it comes to Israel and Palestine?’ Doors weren’t open for me.”

Several people Al Jazeera spoke to for this story described a pervasive fear of being accused of anti-Semitism for speaking out on Israeli rights abuses.

“There’s a certain weight [to anti-Semitism accusations] that is instrumentalised,” said Balsam.

“I think racism influences whose complaints are taken more seriously and whose pain is taken more seriously more broadly,” he added. “Complaints that invoke anti-Semitism – whether or not it is actually anti-Semitism – are taken seriously, whereas on the other hand, with Muslim and Arab groups or Palestinian groups and individuals, they can be much more easily brushed off.”

During the Gaza war, nowhere has Canada’s position been more clearly on display than at the United Nations. After the UN Security Council failed to pass any resolution to address the situation, the focus shifted in late October to the General Assembly, where a non-binding motion was put forward to urge a humanitarian truce.

The measure passed with overwhelming support, but Canada abstained. It also put forward an amendment to the resolution to condemn Hamas.

“Unfortunately, Canada cannot support the text as it is currently proposed. We cannot act as the UN General Assembly without recognising the horrible events of October 7 and without condemning the terrorists behind them,” Canada’s UN ambassador, Bob Rae, said as he presented the amendment on October 27. It failed.

Peggy Mason, president of the Rideau Institute, an Ottawa-based nonprofit, said whereas Canada previously was seen as a bridge-building country, the amendment was a “bridge-weakening exercise”.

“And it was unconscionable, in my view, in the context of efforts to curtail an unfolding humanitarian crisis of horrific dimensions,” she told Al Jazeera.

Canada came under even closer scrutiny when its UN mission voted against a draft resolution on November 9 condemning Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories as illegal – even though the government’s stated position is that the settlements violate international law.

In a statement explaining the vote, Canada said it was concerned by the number of resolutions that “unfairly single out Israel” at the General Assembly every year.

“Canada reiterates the importance of a fair-minded approach at the United Nations and will continue to vote ‘no’ on resolutions that do not address the complexities of the issues,” the statement read.

According to Bueckert of CJPME, no one is buying that excuse. “They’ve created this rationale for it, but good luck convincing Canadians of this, that these actions make any sense. That it makes sense to vote against things that you say you support,” he told Al Jazeera.

The resolution to condemn the Israeli settlements is among a number of Palestinian-related motions that come up for a vote at the UN General Assembly every year.

And the way Canada votes on these resolutions is dictated by the prime minister’s office, according to a source familiar with the matter, who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity in order to speak freely.

“It’s unusual that the [prime minister] would directly intervene on an issue before the United Nations,” the source said. Usually, foreign policy files are handled by Canada’s foreign affairs department, known as Global Affairs Canada.

Lynk, the former UN expert, also told Al Jazeera that most foreign policy issues “are decided at Global Affairs and rarely ever make it to the prime minister’s office for yea or nay”. But matters related to Israel and Palestine are different. They are “determined and directed out of the prime minister’s office”, Lynk said.

Meanwhile, the anonymous source said Canada’s UN mission has faced direct pressure from pro-Israel lobbyists. That person described a meeting years ago in which a top lobbyist urged Canada to change its votes. The mission told the lobbyist no, but 24 hours after their meeting, the prime minister’s office directed the mission to vote the way the lobbyist had wanted.

“I thought it was outrageous, and I was angry and offended,” the source said. “It’s not the way to run a country. It’s not the way to run a foreign policy.”

Trudeau’s office redirected Al Jazeera’s question on whether it handles Canada’s UN votes to Global Affairs Canada. Global Affairs Canada did not answer the question when pressed by Al Jazeera.

“When it comes to votes at the UN, Canada reiterates the importance of a fair-minded approach,” the department said in an emailed statement.

“We will continue to vote no on resolutions that do not address the complexities of the issues or address the actions of all parties. We also remain opposed to the disproportionate singling out of Israel for criticism. Canada rejects the suggestion that there is any kind of ‘double standard’ at play.”

Many people Al Jazeera spoke to said there is a growing sense that the Canadian government’s position on the Israel-Palestine conflict could change in the face of shifting demographics.

“As Parliament gets more diverse and has connections to different communities, I do think that the calculus – in terms of, ‘Is this going to hurt me or help me electorally?’ – is shifting,” said Bueckert.

“It clearly hasn’t shifted enough to change Canada’s position in a meaningful way, but that is how we can make sense of the change in tone where Canada at least has to appear to care about what’s happening to people in Gaza.”

Since the war began, there also has been a split within the Liberal Party between politicians who staunchly support Israel and those calling for a ceasefire despite Trudeau’s own reticence to do so.

Less than two weeks into the Israeli military operation, Liberal MP Salma Zahid, who represents a district east of Toronto, Canada’s largest city, stood up in the House of Commons to urge Ottawa to call for a ceasefire.

“It’s very, very important that Canada be a strong voice to call for a ceasefire and make sure that we put an end to the killing of these innocent civilians,” she told Al Jazeera in a phone interview in November.

Asked about divisions within her own party, Zahid said the Liberal Party is a “big tent” and that all views can and should be heard. But she said she aims to represent her constituents, many of whom are Muslim Canadians.

“Some people have called me a terrorist sympathiser. That is sad to see that. But I will not stop because of these comments on social media or anything. I think it is really very important that I be there as a strong voice for the Palestinian people and also for the community,” Zahid said.

Uthman Quick, communications director at the National Council of Canadian Muslims, said a recent poll showed the disconnect between public opinion and the Liberal government’s positions.

The poll, released by the Angus Reid Institute on November 7, found that 30 percent of Canadians said they wanted an immediate ceasefire, compared with 19 percent who did not. Among Liberal voters, 34 percent supported a ceasefire compared with 12 percent who were opposed.

While Quick said the federal government’s tone has shifted since the war began, rhetoric alone is not enough. “For the amount of violence and killing that we’ve seen in Gaza, I think that warrants a more drastic approach from our government to really call for peace and for a ceasefire,” he told Al Jazeera.

He also said the government’s position could lead to political ramifications that extend beyond Arab and Muslim communities, as anti-war protests draw people of all backgrounds. “It’s not just a purely Muslim slash Palestinian slash Arab community divide on electoral fronts,” Quick said.

According to Deif at Human Rights Watch, Canada should be trying to pursue a “consistent policy” rooted in international law – and condemn war crimes regardless of who is responsible and who is the victim. It also should suspend weapons sales to Israel so long as “Israeli forces commit widespread, serious abuses against Palestinian civilians with impunity”.

“What we would like to see is Canada engaging on Israel-Palestine in the way that Ambassador Bob Rae engaged on Myanmar and the Rohingya crisis, in the same way that [Foreign] Minister [Melanie] Joly engaged on Ukraine following the Russian invasion,” she told Al Jazeera.

The consequences of inaction, she added, can be devastating.

“When powerful governments, whether it’s Canada or other Western states, turn a blind eye to the Israeli government’s abuses and serious violations of international humanitarian law, it certainly sends a message that it can continue to commit those acts.”

Source : Al Jazeera

The post Israel, Palestine and Canada’s ‘Schizophrenic Foreign Policy’ appeared first on Policy Print.

The EU’s foreign policy chief on Saturday expressed “regret” over the resumption of Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, emphasizing Tel Aviv’s obligation to respect international humanitarian law and the laws of war, which he described as “not only a moral obligation but also a legal one.”

“The way Israel exercises its right to self-defence matters. It’s imperative that Israel respects International Humanitarian Law and the laws of war,” Josep Borrell wrote on X.

His remarks came after the Israeli army resumed attacks on Gaza after declaring the end of a week-long humanitarian pause on Friday morning, for which Borrell expressed regret, fearing that the already high civilian death toll would rise further.

Reiterating his call for Israel to respect international law, he stressed that this is “not only a moral obligation but a legal one as well.”

He also mentioned the increasing violence in the occupied West Bank. Citing the UN figures, Borrell said 271 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis since Oct. 7.

“It’s not sufficient humanitarian pauses should be resumed, while simultaneously working towards a comprehensive political solution for all the Palestinian territories,” he added.

The Israeli army resumed bombing the Gaza Strip early Friday after ending a week-long humanitarian pause with the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.

At least 178 Palestinians have been killed and 589 injured on Friday in Israeli airstrikes, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The humanitarian pause began on Nov. 24 as part of an agreement between Israel and Hamas to temporarily halt fighting to allow hostage swaps and aid delivery.

More than 15,000 Palestinians, mostly children and women, have been killed in Israeli attacks since Oct. 7 following a cross-border attack by Hamas.

Around 1,200 Israelis have also been killed, according to official estimates.

Source : AA

The post EU’s Foreign Policy Chief Regrets Resumption of Attack on Gaza, Urges Israel to Respect Laws of War appeared first on Policy Print.

If you want to understand how Joe Biden’s “build back better” domestic industrial policies will connect to a new foreign policy, talk to Jennifer Harris. She was, until recently, a special adviser to the President and senior director for international economics at the National Security Council, reporting to both its head, Jake Sullivan, and former head of the National Economic Council, Brian Deese.

A former Clinton State Department alumnus and former founding head of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation’s economy and society initiative — where she funded many of the most influential policy thinkers in areas like antitrust and corporate governance — Harris’s job was to figure out how to best balance the interests of the President’s two favourite interest groups: American workers and diplomatic allies. She is behind much of the structure of the administration’s signature Inflation Reduction Act, and is currently overseeing BuildUS, a philanthropic fund to support the Act’s implementation across the United States.

Harris is also one of the key reasons that the White House has a new willingness to use economic tools of statecraft to forward its foreign policy aims, something she advocated in her 2016 book, War By Other Means, co-authored with Robert Blackwill. Here, she discusses the opportunities and the challenges of a post-neoliberal world.  Rana Foroohar: How did you first become interested in economics as a tool of statecraft?  Jennifer Harris: During my time at the State Department, I was thinking about economics really through the lens of the US’s relationship with China.

This was back in the early days after China’s WTO membership when the George W Bush administration was telling us that this was really a geopolitical necessity, that we would be changing China more than China would be changing the system. Obviously, I had scepticism at the time, but didn’t quite know how vindicated I would be some 20 years on. And it wasn’t until I left the State Department and wrote a book (War By Other Means) that I traced how we used to be pretty good at flexing economic muscle for geopolitical rather than economic ends, as a country. It’s what explains the success of the US in foreign policy from, really, the founding, on through to the middle of the cold war.  With the rise of the Chicago School, you saw a more neoliberal market order which said that the market should be placed above all national aims. And so began the logic of trade for trade’s sake and market liberalisation as an end unto itself. It took on normative weight, and that meant that there was a whole lot that became unseemly about using economics for a set of foreign policy ends. 

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We used to be pretty good at flexing economic muscle for geopolitical ends. It’s what explains the success of the US in foreign policy from its founding through to the middle of the cold war

And when you’re talking about questions of war and peace, I think that that’s just really dangerous, sloppy logic that really needed to be better interrogated. So, I came full circle when I went to the Hewlett Foundation after the 2016 election and started a programme there, really squarely focused on replacing the neoliberal economic ideas with something that worked a little better, that was better suited to our times. Something that took on the [neoliberal] orthodoxy across the political spectrum, and really understood how deeply those ideas were constraining all of our policy, domestic, foreign or otherwise. 

RF: You’re a lawyer by training, and I’ve always thought it was easier to see the flaws in the economic paradigm when you come from outside the profession. Was there a particularly telling “aha” moment for you on that score?

JH: Yes. It was right around 2012, the fever pitch of the Iran nuclear sanctions episodes, back when Benjamin Netanyahu had his nuclear risk charts that he was trotting out to whoever would listen to him. And it was clear that the West’s sanctions had created a bit of a currency crisis in Iran.  Shipping insurance was needed to underwrite the buyers who, under the US-led sanctions regime, were legally allowed to buy some threshold of oil from Iran. It was clear that it would not be hard for a set of countries to do some dance moves in the currency markets to make that kind of shipping insurance four times more expensive overnight. And that was exactly the kind of force multiplication of pressure that we could capitalise on, the underlying currency crisis, to really put the squeeze on Iran. And that was somehow seen as a third rail. The idea that we would make some calls to see whether countries were interested in really pushing on this point of leverage through some well-executed moves in the currency markets was just perceived as totally unseemly.  And I was like, am I wrong to think that we are within spitting distance of nuclear war? Is this really the equivalence that we’re going to have? And that was really the moment for me where the whole thing just felt, if it weren’t so dangerous, laughably silly. 

RF: For years now, you’ve been more hawkish on China than many others in policy circles. Was there a point where your views on the risks crystallised?

JH: I was looking at their economic model and just appreciating how it seemed incredibly adept at disentangling the liberalisation-cum-democracy story that we were all sold. That, in fact, there was a lot of twisting of market mechanisms as points of leverage that, in geopolitical terms, could make it seem as though China would meaningfully integrate themselves into the liberal order, when in fact that wasn’t going to happen.   That’s when there was a debate about whether China’s Treasury holdings were more of a point of leverage for them or for us. And my point there, going back to the Iran example, was, the reason often given why it would be unthinkable for China to dump their holdings in a way that would cause the US a lot of pain and instability was that it would be really costly for China to do this. To which I said, yes, everything costs something in foreign policy terms. There are no free lunches here either. Certainly, war costs something, by my count. Sending a signal of this sort to the Americans over something that was really valuable — like Taiwan or Hong Kong — would have been pretty cheap, as geopolitical signals go. 

RF: When you were at the Hewlett Foundation, before you entered the White House under Biden, how were you thinking about grant-making and philanthropy as a way to push your post-neoliberal world narrative forward?

JH: The deeply pragmatic starting point is, essentially, to note that society is always living in these intellectual boxes, from, really, going back to the beginning of modernity and the advent of classical liberal laissez-faire ideas and, in some ways, mercantilism before that.  Those philosophies were in service of a set of national prerogatives. Mercantilism was the reigning orthodoxy because it worked pretty well for a lot of the empires of note, like the British empire. And actually, once you had hegemony comfortably established, and this is in the Anti-Corn Law League, mid-1800s, you see this brief moment of flirting with more liberal economic ideas because there was no competition. That lasts for about five years or something before Germany seems like it’s catching up in ways that feel a little uncomfortable, and then you see a slip back closer to mercantilism. 

The idea that we would make some calls to see whether countries were interested in really pushing on this point of leverage [against Iran] through some well-executed moves in the currency markets was just perceived as totally unseemly

In the US context, at the beginning of the country, there’s a push back against mercantilism, married with an interesting Hamiltonian set of ideas about industrial policy as a national security imperative. As you get closer to the industrial revolution, and I think that gets you to another set of issues that then need dealing with, and you align that with the Great Depression, there’s a sense that perhaps our economic ideas were falling down on the job.  So, along comes Keynesianism.

These ideas seem to work better with the blocking and tackling of the problems of the day. And when they don’t, it creates room for Milton Friedman and his team to come along. So, it is really just about respecting the evolution of history and the ways in which there’s always a need for the next turn of the intellectual screw, based on the problems of the day. I think that’s the first point.  The second point is that I really looked around for concrete domains of policy that had been colonised, really overtaken, by neoliberal ideas. So, areas like antitrust, corporate governance, and industrial policy were three big bets that Hewlett put down. I think two of them paid off really, really well — antitrust and industrial policy. 

RF: So, who brought you into the White House? 

JH: I’ve been fortunate to have a close intellectual collaboration and professional relationship with Jake Sullivan for probably 15 years, going back to our time together at the State Department. When I was saying all these heretical things, he was one person that would at least hear me out more times than not. And he’s somebody who was a close student of all that went wrong in 2016 and all that wasn’t seen in Donald Trump’s rise. He was asking a lot of critical questions about the failings of the Democratic party and the bankruptcy of a lot of those [neoliberal] ideas. And I had been on the Clinton Campaign, really pushing, often alone, against things like Trans-Pacific Partnership and for harder lines on China earlier. So, we came up with a portfolio that would involve running offence on all of these ideas, including the narrative component of really telling a different story about what US foreign policy should be trying to do, and the important stitching together with our domestic economic agenda. That was probably the piece of the job that sold it for me. I would be reporting to both Brian Deese at NEC, as well as to Jake, and I’d be the person responsible for that stitching across our domestic economic and our foreign policy agendas. 

RF: Let’s talk about the Inflation Reduction Act. It represents a very powerful turning away from the ‘market knows best’ approach and towards the idea that climate is a national emergency, a war that we need to wage. Talk a little bit about that evolution and what the conversation was around the way the IRA would be structured. 

JH: Climate change was a problem that did not lend itself well to the neoliberal policymaking recipe. And I think the largest indictment there is the attempt and failure and reattempt to put a price on carbon, running at that brick wall again and again and again and having it just get more and more politically toxic.  We needed to create a different story about the relationship between state and market and the responsibility of government to really shape markets and pivot them towards a set of national or, in this case, global needs that are, I think, much larger than the outcomes that markets left to their own devices would provide. People also tend to be a fan of good jobs, and if this is the vehicle to get there, I think that it’s load-bearing as a multilateral idea. 

RF: You’ve written about the need for multilateral purchasing agreements to underwrite the supply of rare earth minerals needed for the green transition. What are some of the other ways in which you think the rubber is meeting the road in a post-neoliberal world right now? What do we need to be paying attention to?

JH: What’s the balance of foreign and domestic needs? How can we square Biden’s two favourite things — made in America and allies — and why does the moment demand it? This is really the project, I think, of the next decade of US foreign policy. What might this look like practically? It’s a threefold agenda. One is to open up that fiscal space for the rest of the world, mindful that that’s where the meaningful differences are between America and everybody else. That looks like a global minimum corporate tax deal that would be generating a lot more revenue. It looks like emerging market debt forgiveness. It looks like a really sleeves-up agenda on multilateral development bank reform. It looks like getting serious about global infrastructure finance machinery that works a whole lot better than it does now. RF: What are the challenges to getting all this done? JH: I think there’s a double standard between the way the US foreign policy establishment tends to expend political capital on what I like to call kinetic issues of the day, Ukraine, and Iran before that.  These kinds of questions have always sat on the high table of US foreign policy, and that’s really where the senior time and attention is. We need to be willing to expend a lot more political capital on things like a global minimum corporate tax deal, which involves getting Europe to do what’s needed with some unhelpful actors like Poland, like Hungary, to get them back in the box so that they could do the political implementation that people like Senator Joe Manchin would have needed to see for the US to have implemented the agreement on our part. 

Climate change was a problem that did not lend itself well to the neoliberal policymaking recipe . . . We needed to create a different story about the relationship between the state and the market

We needed to create a different story about the relationship between state and market and the responsibility of government to really shape markets And it’s the same deal on emerging market debt forgiveness. That might involve lending into official arrears for a country like Sri Lanka, or any country experiencing high debt distress, really created by irresponsible lending on the part of the Chinese. And there are ways to push through IMF packages that would allow those countries to default just on the predatory Chinese stuff and get the package of support from the rest of the IMF creditor nations in the face of that non-payment.

We could be coupling that with a most favoured creditor clause that makes sure that once the country gets the benefit of an IMF package, and they get back to a little better fiscal health, they’re not going to go start repaying the Chinese as a first order of business. Coupling that twofold policy solution, I think, would have the US really earning support from a lot of the emerging markets, not condemning them to another generation of austerity.  RF: One of the advantages of the neoliberal system was its simplicity. It may have been false in its not taking into account negative externalities, but it was simple. As long as the share price is up and consumer price is down, you’re all good.

That simplicity is hard now, in this new world. How do you think about communicating around a post-neoliberal world?  JH: I’m clearly biased here, but I feel like we’re not far off from a fairly simple story, which is that we’re going to get back to the business of actually building things again and do a lot of the things that are necessary to that task. And I think that gives you a framework for thinking about stuff like permitting reform. It gives you a framework for thinking about why we need to come up with a new global critical minerals arrangement, rather than go back and bear hug TPP, so as to make the world safe for more multilateral pharmaceutical companies. 

RF: You talked about historical paradigm shifts earlier, and historical paradigm shifts play out over generations, often encompassing more than one leader, more than one administration in the case of the US. Let’s say, we were to get Trump, or let’s say, something were to happen to Biden, even, and you have a different Democratic president. How much of this paradigm shift is going to just stick because that’s what the moment requires?

JH: There are some promising green shoots to suggest this shift will stick. Look at the historic and increasingly bipartisan support for labour unions in the US, and a lot of the new asks that the United Auto Workers leadership is making at the bargaining table. Most striking about those asks is how they are not simply just trying to carve out a private security net for UAW workers, but reaching to the core of the Big Three’s business models, going after things like corporate buybacks (by requiring additional worker pay tethered to buybacks). Antitrust is a thing again. And not only is industrial policy back — it seems like the US’s public investment might deserve credit for the immaculate cooling we’re seeing on inflation. It adds up to a reckoning with how political power moves through the economy; how economic power can warp our political system; and the necessary — not exclusive but necessary — role of both government and public investment in solving the big problems of the day, starting with a clean energy buildout that doesn’t simply trade energy dependence on the Middle East for supply chain dependence on China.  

RF: Yes, the US economy right now feels like a repudiation of the economics of trickle down and tax cuts. The stimulus effect has just been so much more powerful and so much longer lasting. Now, maybe there will be some reckoning in the future.

JH: Right, and some people are saying, well, it’s really just supply chains healing themselves. Well, yes, but they are, I think, correcting, in part, on some of the early fruits of the investments we’re making. Certainly, at least, there’s the confidence that these investments are giving those portions of the markets, and this looks a lot like what we always described as the necessary solution for secular stagnation, which never really went away. 

I feel like we’re not far off from a fairly simple story, which is that we’re going to get back to the business of actually building things again and do a lot of the things that are necessary to that task

There are two problems that keep economists up at night. There’s those of us who worried about secular stagnation in ways that predated the pandemic, and then those of us who worry about supply chain kinks. The right answer for both of those is to push the productive muscle of the economy rightward, and that’s exactly what these investments are doing. 

RF: So now that you’ve left government, what are you up to, and what’s next?

JH: I’m keeping busy really with two projects right now. I’ve just launched a philanthropic fund called BuildUS. I’ve been incubating it since I left the administration. That is a purely domestically focused effort, on green implementation, and we’re getting quite deep into some states, like South Carolina, Louisiana, Tennessee, where the private investment’s going, where the jobs are going. And we need to make sure that they’re good jobs and that we get things like direct pay right. I think direct pay is a great example of a tool that will allow for public ownership, community wealth building. But people have to know about it. They have to know how to use it, so that’s what this fund is really focused on doing. And then thinking a lot about this basic question of how you take the logic of the IRA global and create more IRAs in more places, from Brazil to Europe to east Asia and right now, these are just informal conversations I’m having with some old friends in philanthropy.

Source : Financial Times

The post Jennifer Harris: ‘Everything Costs Something in Foreign Policy Terms. There Are No Free Lunches Here Either’ appeared first on Policy Print.

His pathway to the presidency looks more forbidding than ever, but tanking poll numbers and a stalled campaign have not dissuaded Ron DeSantis from running foreign policy as if he was the incumbent in the White House.

Florida’s Republican governor has raised eyebrows and hackles by using state resources for a series of actions and operations since the Israel-Hamas war began that come under the purview of the federal government.

They include “evacuating” hundreds of US citizens from Israel on charter flights; exporting humanitarian aid and claiming to have procured weapons; as well as activating Florida’s militarized state guard “as needed, to respond” to an overseas conflict.

Additionally, he has summoned Florida’s legislature for an emergency session next week that will, among other issues, seek to impose more state sanctions on Iran, a key ally of Hamas, replicating measures already in place at federal level for decades.

Democrats in Florida, who have become used to their absentee governor campaigning in other states as he pursues his flailing White House run, say DeSantis has crossed a line.

“President Biden is the commander in chief of our military, not Ron DeSantis,” Nikki Fried, chair of the state’s Democratic party, said in a statement to the Miami Herald, commenting on the governor’s claim that he helped source weapons, ammunition and other military equipment for Israel, an assertion that later unraveled.

“This is a gross breach of norms and a potential violation of federal laws governing the shipment of weapons.”

In a statement to the Guardian, a state department spokesperson confirmed it “did not collaborate with the state of Florida on humanitarian and evacuation flights to and from Israel [and] the department was not notified in advance of these flights”.

Independent analysts see the behavior of DeSantis, a staunch supporter of Israel, as troublesome.

“Any time a governor tries to push a foreign policy agenda, or an agenda related to international affairs, including immigration policy, on their own, it typically infringes on the powers of the executive of the federal government,” said Matthew Dallek, professor of political management at George Washington University.

“We’ve seen this with [Governor Greg] Abbott in Texas. If the DeSantis flights to Israel were coordinated with the state department and US military, that’s one thing. If they were not, that’s much more problematic, much more of a line crossing.

“He’s a guy who gets off on crossing boundaries, being pugnacious and in your face, and in that sense there’s kind of an ugly streak to him and Trump. They both enjoy, and their political identities are wrapped up in crossing boundaries.”

DeSantis employed a familiar argument to justify Florida wading into the Middle East conflict, insisting that the administration of Joe Biden was “not doing what it takes to stand by Israel”. It echoed his citing of the president’s perceived “failures” over immigration to rationalize his sending of state law enforcement personnel to the US southern border, the preserve of the Department of Homeland Security.

Contrary to DeSantis’s statement, the federal government has been heavily involved in humanitarian operations in Israel and has run a continuous charter flight operation to repatriate US citizens since the conflict began.

The state department spokesperson said more than 6,700 seats on US government chartered transportation were made available to augment commercial flight capacity, and more than 13,500 US citizens had safely departed Israel and the West Bank.

The state department flights, which ended on Tuesday through decreased demand, have also run more smoothly than the DeSantis operation, which left 23 Americans stranded in Cyprus for several days at the start of the war.

Dallek sees some rationale for DeSantis’s stance.

“By virtue of his position as governor he has been involved in some pretty weighty issues, issues that matter to a lot of voters and a lot of Republican primary voters, in particular immigration and the Middle East,” he said.

“But this doesn’t seem like an argument that has legs for DeSantis. The many months of his campaign flailing is going to outweigh whatever he says on Israel, and most of the other GOP candidates are vying for that same space of being tough on terrorism, anti-Hamas, pro-Israel. I just don’t think there’s all that much oxygen left for him to take up on this issue.”

Transparency advocates in Florida are also critical of DeSantis over the Israel flights, questioning how $50m of taxpayers’ money reportedly handed to a contractor for open-ended charter flights has been used.

The recipient is the same contractor that ran the governor’s infamous migrant flights of mostly Venezuelan asylum seekers around the US last year, which led to a criminal investigation in Texas and was criticized by opponents as an inhumane political stunt.

The DeSantis administration withheld public records about the migrant flights for months before a judge ordered it to hand them over. The state budgeted more than $1.5m in attorneys’ fees to defend the lawsuit and Bobby Block, executive director of the Florida First Amendment Foundation, fears a similar lack of transparency will cloak the Israel flights.

“They talked about $50m, it’s not based on actual records from the state where we know exactly what’s playing out. It’s based on a budget item in emergency management,” he said.

“We don’t have absolute clarity on it because of the secrecy of the DeSantis administration. There’s a lot of people, not just journalists, who want to know what it is costing taxpayers in Florida.”

DeSantis’s press team and the Florida emergency management department point to a press release issued last week that said more than 700 Americans arrived in Florida on four flights from Israel and received resources from “several state agencies and volunteer organizations”.

Block said there seemed to be little interest is ensuring value for taxpayer dollars, noting that uncoordinated state and federal government entities competing for the same limited resources, including chartered flights, tended to push up prices.

“The way it’s being managed and promoted, it seems more political and geared towards the governor’s political aspirations than it does to a real emergency response with a state and governor working with the federal government,” he said.

Source : The Guardian

The post DeSantis Plays at Being President With His Own Israel-Hamas Foreign Policy appeared first on Policy Print.