Friday News Roundup — January 18, 2019: Four Americans Killed in Syria; Brexit “Mecha-Farce” & Stories You May Have Missed
Greetings from a cold and wintry Washington, where the weather matches the temperature of negotiations between the White House and Congress on addressing the government shutdown — now the longest in U.S. history. Little progress has been made, and fellow citizens working to protect and serve the American people remain unpaid. Events overseas have also been overshadowed by domestic politics and a tit-for-tat between President Trump and Speaker Pelosi. Between the State of the Union, important Congressional travel, and participation in international events, the shutdown back-and-forth has demonstrated the deadlock of American politics at its worse—both within the Beltway, in our communities, and on the global stage.
Given the lack of progress on the domestic front, this week’s roundup goes where our leaders can’t—abroad… We cover two important arenas: Syria policy following the death of four Americans in an ISIS attack and the latest political turmoil in London as the Brexit clock keeps ticking down. As always, we wrap this week’s roundup with a series of important stories that you may have missed.
Attack in Manbij Raises Further Questions about the White House’s Syria Strategy
Dan Mahaffee
On Wednesday, an attack in Manbij, Syria, killed nineteen people, including four Americans. Two were American servicemembers, and the other two were a Department of Defense intelligence expert and a civilian contractor. The blast took place at a popular restaurant in Manbij that was frequented by American forces and local allies. Reports indicated that the Americans who were killed were on patrol and meeting with local and Kurdish forces allied in the counter-ISIS campaign.
The attack threw into stark contrast the repeated statements from the Trump administration that ISIS is defeat, which justifies the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria. The dust had barely settled following the attack when Vice President Pence spoke to U.S. diplomats and said that “the caliphate has crumbled, and ISIS has been defeated.”
The decision to withdraw from Syria had already drawn criticism from Congressional leaders and national security experts, and the following weeks have seen a strange back-and-forth — both in Washington and the region — as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton sought to reassure allies. Already, the Kurds are sensing a pending American betrayal and have sought to strengthen ties with Russia, as the pending American withdrawal leaves the Russians and the Assad regime ready to fill any vacuum. At the same time, Turkish leadership — whipsawed by President Trump’s rapid decision to withdraw American forces — has been hesitant to take on the remnants of ISIS.
For the Erdogan government, the focus has long been the perceived threat of Kurdish-controlled territory, and when National Security Advisor Bolton suggested that the United States would protect the Kurds, he received a cold shoulder in his visit to Ankara. In the meantime, President Trump tried to reassure Kurdish allies by turning, as his wont is, to Twitter, as he promised that he would “devastate Turkey economically” if they attacked Kurdish forces. Meanwhile, it was just another development on the geopolitical stage that probably led to toasts in the Kremlin.
Beyond the drama and confusion with a range of allies in the region, the broader question remains — what is the state of ISIS and the current threat? While the geographic territory controlled by the terrorist caliphate has been pushed into small pockets in Syria, the group has turned to sleeper cells, stay-behind units, and online recruiting to continue to spread its apocalyptic message and prompt attacks throughout the region and overseas.
Having grown from the embers of one U.S. withdrawal — when President Obama withdrew U.S. forces from Iraq — ISIS is likely biding its time to take advantage of the instability and devastation in both Syria and Iraq. In Syria, the nation is still rent upon the divisions from a bloody civil war, while Iraq is still split along the sectarian lines that initially fueled the conflict. Absent engagement and reconstruction, the ground is fertile for the reconstitution of ISIS and the growth of other radical groups. They may no longer control the same territorial scope, but the danger of their message will continue to spread far beyond the region.
Fundamentally, the American people have grown disinterested and tired of the conflicts in the region — from Yemen to Afghanistan. Yet, at the same time, as we hope to hand the conflict off to regional allies, their main concern still remains the spread of Iranian influence in the region. Even if U.S. ground forces are withdrawn, the United States will still have to play a significant role in providing airpower, logistical, and intelligence support. The Trump administration risks the same short-sighted decisions of the Obama administration when it comes to removing the “boots on the ground” — when in fact many Special Forces and intelligence operators will likely remain.
In such shadowy counter-terrorist and counter-insurgent conflicts, there are not the clear definitions of “victory” and “defeat” that can drive public support for a conflict. At the same time, the Trump administration may soon learn that a strategy of engagement, yet withdrawal — ”one boot in; one boot out” — provides no leverage in tackling the region’s instability.
Brexit Repeats Itself: First as Tragedy; Then as Farce; Now as Mecha-Farce
Michael Stecher
Five weeks ago, dear reader. I summarized the situation with the United Kingdom’s attempt to leave the European Union. UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan had just suffered an embarrassing defeat in the House of Commons and her adversaries in Parliament had tried to unseat her by introducing a vote of no-confidence, which she survived. In that piece, I referred to Brexit as a carousel of pain and a circular firing squad.
But this week(!), UK Prime Minister Theresa May suffered an embarrassing defeat in the House of Commons. Her Brexit plan was defeated by a colossal count of 230 votes. 118 members of the Conservative Party — which May leads — crossed party lines to vote against the measure. According to Prospect Magazine, it was the largest defeat on a major issue in the history of Westminster and the second-largest rebellion of pro-government MPs in history, trailing only the number of Labour members who voted against the UK’s participation in the Iraq War in 2003.
Following this epic rebuke, PM May’s adversaries in Parliament tried to unseat her by introducing a vote of no confidence, which she survived. In December, the vote was to remove her as leader of the Conservative Party, but this time it was Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, who called for a vote of no-confidence. If this measure had succeeded, it would have begun a process that could have led to new elections. This vote, however, was strictly along party lines. Every member of the Conservative Party and their coalition partners in the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party supported the government. Every member of the Labour Party, plus the Scottish National Party, the Liberal Democrats, and the Welsh Plaid Cymru Party voted against the government.
PM May, again chastened by Parliament, now has to do … something … to make the Brexit deal “better” and secure a majority of support. European leaders have met this news with skepticism, and they are right to do so. Brexit passed with a very narrow majority and there is no consensus among “Leave” voters about what they want from leaving the EU. Each faction within the Brexit camp has its own interests and red lines and any one of these groups defecting is probably sufficient to scuttle any approval vote (unless there is no majority agreement for any deal at all because the views of the electorate have changed). As a result, the government cannot afford to make concessions in one area to receive them in others. EU negotiators rightly believe that this means that they cannot offer any new concessions: anything they suggest will become part of the agreed framework, but will not be met by any progress from London.
Traditionally, a UK prime minister would try to fix this problem by receiving new democratic legitimacy in the form of a general election. The threat of new elections were an effective cudgel to enforce party solidarity. A PM used to be able to threaten to dissolve Parliament and call new elections if there is insufficient support for a central pillar of a party’s agenda. A backbench MP could still vote against the government, but it might result in being voted out of office or returned to the minority.
That changed in 2011 when Parliament passed the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, which eliminated the authority of the PM to dissolve government and go directly to the voters. It was designed to make coalition government easier because the PM could no longer compel members of the junior party to support the government on a divisive issue. By stripping the PM of this power, however, FTPA makes it possible for a government to be powerless but unable to try to win a new mandate, a zombie parliament.
May may now have to do something that is comparatively rare in UK politics: work with the opposition over her own party to win a majority. May and Corbyn both support Brexit, but they have very different visions of what Brexit ought to be — although Corbyn has always been a little cagey about what, exactly, he would do other than get a “better” Brexit deal. Many Conservatives, including the ones who would be most amenable to the kind of compromise that could appeal across the political center, fear the prospect of “Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn” more than any other outcome. The problem with this “compromise” vision for Labour members is that 4/5 of Labour voters now support remaining in the EU, up from 2/3 when the referendum took place. That is why a growing number of them are supporting a second referendum, even if it is difficult for your humble correspondent to think of how the democratic legitimacy of an “Oopsy Do-Over Referendum” would work.
Compared to the last time I wrote about this, the only thing that has really changed is that we are 35 days closer to the March 29 deadline, at which point Britain crashes out of the EU, so the stakes are going up. Continental governments are preparing to treat UK citizens as foreign nationals, who require visas to live or work in their countries, and trade in goods or services with the UK as subject to restrictions and tariffs that do not apply to EU members.
We are now entering the phase of this story in which everyone looks bad. The EU looks obstinate while the UK looks incoherent. May looks powerless, the government look too divided to govern, the opposition looks too weak to bring down the government, and Corbyn looks out of touch. This equilibrium has shown itself to be remarkably stable over the last two years, but there is growing recognition that it the stability masks the catastrophe that awaits. The process of unwinding this equilibrium will not be easy, but it is necessary. Every party is expecting another to blink to get them out of the crisis. Just as with the shutdown in the United States, that is a dangerous way to negotiate.
News You May Have Missed
Chris Condon
ICC Acquits Gbagbo in The Hague
On January 15th, the International Criminal Court handed down a verdict of not guilty on charges of crimes against humanity in the case of Laurent Gbagbo, the former President of Côte d’Ivoire. After a contentious presidential election in 2010, a refusal to accept the result by Gbagbo set off intense violence across the small West African nation, resulting in the death of over 3,000 people. Many throughout the international community condemned Gbagbo and accused him of stoking the violence, holding him responsible for the regrettable state of the country. The ICC ruled that the prosecution failed to demonstrate the former President’s culpability in plans to target civilians with violence.
Earlier this week, militants affiliated with the terrorist network al-Shabaab laid siege a luxury hotel complex in Nairobi. The perpetrators detonated suicide bombs and took hostages, leaving a total of fourteen dead in the attack. Although the East African state has been a key ally of the United States in the War on Terror, it has a porous border with neighboring Somalia, where al-Shabaab is a major player. Reports indicate that the price to buy the willful blindness of a Kenyan border guard is as little as twenty dollars.
Strike Cripples Los Angeles Schools
After two years of negotiations between the city government and the California teachers’ union stalled, the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) called a general strike on Monday. In place of teachers, schools are calling on current and former administrators, as well as using substitutes, educational computer programs, and movies to fill the school day. Although some families decided to keep children at home, many of the system’s poorer families cannot afford to miss work to care for students or to hire a babysitter. This is the latest example of the growing political salience of teacher pay disputers, which resulted in strikes in six states last year.
California Utility PG&E Faces Bankruptcy Following Wildfires
Pacific Gas & Electric Company, the nation’s largest utility company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week. This decision was driven by $30 billion in costs from last year’s wildfires, which appear to have been caused by aging grid infrastructure. Chapter 11 allows PG&E to remain operational (providing services to customers) while they restructure their debt and hold off on payments to creditors, which could the firm to stay afloat into the future. Newly inaugurated Governor Gavin Newsom has proposed blocking the move by the company, while California legislature is more concerned with shielding customers from rate hikes and associated costs.
Congress Reduces Sanctions on Russian Billionaire
Oleg Deripaska is the Russian oligarch to whom Paul Manafort famously owed tens of millions of dollars when he became the chairman of President Trump’s election campaign. For his close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, he was placed under U.S. financial sanctions related to Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. He is also a major player in the global aluminum market and negotiated an agreement with the U.S. Treasury Department to reduce his ownership stake in the Russian aluminum giant Rusal in exchange for sanctions relief. This week, 11 Republicans joined Democrats to try and block this deal, but it failed to get the 60 votes necessary to pass in the Senate.
Afghan Translator Released from ICE Detention following Mid-Flight Visa Cancelation
Mohammad Asif Motawakil served as a translator for U.S. troops in Afghanistan from 2012–2013. This made him a target for Taliban militants and entitled him to a special visa — after passing rigorous background checks — for immigration to the United States. However, after accidentally opening a sealed envelope containing medical records during his flight to Houston, his visa was revoked and he and his family were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents last Friday. While Motawakil’s family was quickly released from custody and received private assistance from refugees’ rights groups and the local Afghan-American community, he was detained and threatened with deportation. He was released late last night as attention from the media and Members of Congress grew more vociferous. His visa was reinstated, yet, according to his lawyers, ICE and DHS have yet to clarify whether they have reinstated the visas for his wife and five children.
Chris Christie Blames Kushner for White House Chaos
In 2004, then-US Attorney Chris Christie oversaw the prosecution of Charles Kushner for tax fraud, witness retaliation, and lying to the FEC. Then Charles Kushner’s son Jared married Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, Trump was elected president, and Kushner used his influence to push Christie away from his father-in-law. Now Christie says that the undisciplined nature of the Trump White House derives from the “amateurs, grifters, weaklings, [and] convicted and unconvicted felons” put in the president’s orbit by Kushner.
Turkey Requests Extradition of Knicks Center Kanter
Enes Kanter, the center for the New York Knicks, has been a frequent critic Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Kanter has the freedom to speak his mind in the United States and the platform afforded to a sports star. This makes him one of the few lucky Turks who have the ability to vocally criticize the government of his homeland, as Erdogan’s authoritarian regime has cracked down on dissent in the country. Now, Kanter has been targeted with an Interpol “Red Notice” — a tool of international law enforcement increasingly used by authoritarians to target dissidents — by Erdogan’s regime and is the subject of a request for extradition back to Turkey on charges of association with terrorists. Specifically, the government accuses him of ties to Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric who the government alleges is tied to a failed coup attempt in 2016. Kanter has vehemently denied these claims, but chose not to travel to the U.K. with the Knicks due to fears that he would be the target of violence from agents of the Turkish state.
The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of CSPC.
