Category Archives: United States

Britain, Government, Politics, Society, United States

Vilifying Trump will backfire

TRUMP’S SECOND PRESIDENCY

IT is truly amazing that with a population of 335million, the United States could not find two better presidential candidates than Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

How dispiriting it must have been to choose between a narcissistic 78-year-old convicted criminal and a deeply unconvincing vice president.

But that was the choice in the run-off for the White House and the voters have spoken. In the final reckoning, they elected Mr Trump as their 47th President – perhaps the most dramatic comeback in the nation’s political history – who romped him with a landslide victory. Both the Senate and House of Representatives will now be controlled by the Republicans.

After he was removed from office in 2020 his supporters attacked the Capitol and he has since been found guilty of multiple felonies.

Mr Trump’s reputation seemed to lie in tatters, yet the majority of Americans have given him a second chance. He has confounded his enemies, who desperately hoped his previous term had been an aberration from which the American people would awake.

Democrats will be feeling lost and bewildered at how their nation could have put such a man in power again. Practically every major institution – from Hollywood to the achingly liberal media – denigrated him.

Yet the voters defied them, showing once again just how far out of touch these powerful elites have become with ordinary people. 

Instead of asking themselves how on earth America could have voted for Trump, they should be asking why the masses didn’t back Ms Harris.

Her campaign was a clinical study in negativity. Preposterously, she described her opponent as a fascist – and by implication tarred his supporters with the same brush. Nor could she separate herself from the unpopular President Joe Biden. His handling of the economy has been hopeless, with inflation and rising prices hammering family budgets.

The Democrats failed to listen to anger at mass immigration. And it is in thrall to the radical race-based progressive policies that alienate so much of Middle America.

Yes, Donald Trump threw his fair share of brickbats and derisory comments, but he also offered optimism and is a known quantity. In his first term, he oversaw impressive economic growth, started no wars, and stood up to Iran and China.

So, in the end, the election wasn’t the tighthead finish all of the pollsters had predicted. It was a resounding and thumping victory, giving Mr Trump huge power to push through his policy agenda. Particularly now that the Republicans have control of both Houses on Capitol Hill.

In many ways, Britain ought to be well positioned after his victory. With a Scottish heritage and investments here, he has far more affection for these islands than Kamala Harris does.

Labour’s student politics will soon put paid to any goodwill. Mr Trump was angered by the party sending staff to campaign for the Democrats, and he will be aware that Labour politicians have hurled gross insults at him. Most notable was David Lammy, now British Foreign Secretary, who, as a backbencher, described Mr Trump as “a woman-hating, neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath”.

In opposition, these remarks were ill-advised. Now he is holding one of the most important Office’ of State, they look indefensible and deeply damaging.

The UK-US “Special Relationship” has always ebbed and flowed, but if Labour doesn’t mature it will wither on the vine.

Sir Keir Starmer’s statist tax rises, failure to properly fund defence, and the headlong dash for Net Zero are already misaligned with US policy. If the PM doesn’t tread carefully, the rift with Mr Trump could damage Britain’s economy and security. The President-Elect has already said that Labour is “too Left”.

The UK and the world need to show restraint and generosity towards the next president – vilifying him out of hand will surely backfire.

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Britain, Gaza, Government, Israel, Middle East, Politics, Society, United States

A region in flames

MIDDLE EAST

Intro: One year on from the 7 October attacks, the region is slipping deeper into war. The conflict continues to destroy countless lives. The scenes from Gaza since that fateful day have haunted millions around the world and the crisis is being felt with increasing intensity in Lebanon and the West Bank

THE last twelve months has been a period of slaughter and destruction for the Middle East. Far from any awakening from this nightmare, the region is slipping deeper into war. Israel is planning a “significant and serious” retaliation against Iran for its missile attack. The cycle of retribution is spinning faster, with the conflagration feared growing closer. Once more, civilians are paying the price.

On 7 October 2023, more than 1,200 men, women, and children were killed at a family festival in Israel by Hamas fighters who had crossed from Gaza: the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, in the country built to guarantee their safety. Another 250 – the youngest nine months old – were taken hostage. Though around half were subsequently released, many have yet to return home. Others never will.

The ensuing Israeli onslaught on Gaza has killed almost 43,000 Palestinians; most were women and children, including hundreds of infants. The chilling abbreviation WCNSF – wounded child, no surviving family – has become commonplace. The survivors are displaced, hungry, and desperate, and the humanitarian catastrophe grows as Israel pursues its war in the wasteland. The last year has also been the deadliest for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Already 2,000 people are dead in Lebanon.

Israel was embraced with sympathy in the wake of the Hamas attacks. Its right to defend itself does not permit it to trample the laws of war. Ministers and politicians have openly expressed – in the words of prominent Israelis – “the discourse of annihilation, expulsion, and revenge”. That speaks of the impact of permanent occupation; this story did not begin twelve months ago. Benjamin Netanyahu’s determination to remain prime minister, and the zealotry of his political partners, have prevailed over the lives of Israeli hostages as well as Palestinians.

Hezbollah’s leaders too lie dead. The fear of another 7 October is understandably strengthened when Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, praises “a legitimate act”. But Israel’s tactical success to date against Hamas and Hezbollah is not the same as a strategic triumph. Military victory is a mirage. Israeli citizens are under immediate threat from an expanded war and the destruction of other homes and families is no foundation for their long-term, sustainable security.

Israel is now increasingly isolated, not because outsiders did not register the horror of 7 October, but because they cannot ignore the grave suffering of Palestinians. Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, stand accused of crimes against humanity at the international criminal court. The international court of justice has ruled that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories is illegal, calling for immediate withdrawal and reparations, and in January ordered it to ensure no genocidal acts are committed in Gaza. While the US continues to ship arms to an ally that ignores its warnings, others are recoiling.

The release of hostages and a ceasefire in Gaza – and now Lebanon too – become only more urgent as the months pass. Power-hungry men of hatred have pursued a war in which innocent men, women, and children across the region have died. Ending it requires diplomacy addressing not only the immediate crisis but long-term security needs, including a fair settlement for Palestinians.

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Britain, Europe, Government, Iran, Israel, Middle East, Politics, Society, United States

The stakes are high for any target Israel chooses

MIDDLE EAST

THE idiom that “revenge is best served cold” doesn’t apply in the Middle East, because retribution is delivered swift and white-hot.

For in this febrile part of the world, failure to respond to military aggression can be fatal. Enemies smell weaknesses and will readily strike again.

And so, following Iran’s unprecedented missile strike against Israel earlier this week in this rapidly unfolding conflict, it is no surprise that Israel is already planning revenge.

The fact that a seemingly large proportion of the 200 or so Iranian rockets fired were neutered by Israel’s famed “Iron Dome” is irrelevant. Israel will strike back. The question now is just what form that military response will take.  

There are three likely options for retaliation. First, and perhaps most dangerously, Israel may well seize this as an opportunity to strike at the heart of Iran’s nuclear bomb project. Although Iran does not yet have the Bomb, its nuclear programme is alarmingly well advanced. Israel has long believed Iran’s nuclear ambitions poses an existential threat to its security and existence.

Writing on social media, former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett called this “the greatest opportunity in 50 years” to “destroy Iran’s nuclear programme”.

The most likely target for such an attack is the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Centre in the centre of Iran, 300km from the capital Tehran. Earlier this year, Israel bombed a nearby military site, a symbolic warning to its Islamist foe that it has the Isfahan centre in its sights.

It houses research reactors, a uranium conversion plant, and a fuel production base. It’s essential to Iran’s nuclear programme. A knock-out blow against this, or a similar facility, would certainly appease the hardliners in Benyamin Netanyahu’s government whose support the leader relies.

However, this strategy would mark a grave escalation in the conflict and poses the ugly risk of significant collateral damage and unintended consequences.

Such a strike could blast radioactive material into the air, unleashing a Chernobyl-style cloud of atomic pollution across the region. In the worst case, a strike on a reactor could even trigger a nuclear “chain reaction” – leading to widespread destruction reminiscent of the 1945 atomic strike on Hiroshima.

Israel must also consider that Iran’s mullahs may retaliate by spiking its future warheads with radioactive waste, creating “dirty bombs” that could have ramifications far wider than a regular missile – because even shot down by the Iron Dome the radioactivity would still disperse.

Another of Netanyahu’s options is that he could try to disrupt Iran’s military arsenals with smaller, localised strikes using its fleet of American F35 and F16 fighter jets. However, considering Iran boasts thousands of missiles and drones across the country this would not nullify the threat of a further strike by the mullahs similar to that seen this week.

Realistically, the most effective method of reprisal would be to attack command-and-control centres, the only places from which Iran can fire its long-range weaponry. Although these are buried deep underground and are incredibly well fortified, they will now be vulnerable to Isreal’s so-called “bunker-buster” bombs such as those used to assassinate the Hezbollah leader last week in Beirut.

There is, however, one further option, though fraught with danger – not just for the cauldron of the Middle East but for the world. If Israel really does intend to shake the foundations of the Iranian regime, rather than just give it a bloodied nose, it could choose to attack Kharg Island, Iran’s only oil export terminal in the Persian Gulf and the foundation of the Iranian economy and the mullahs’ riches.

If Israel does this, the price of oil will sky-rocket far beyond anything we saw during the early days of the Russia/Ukraine conflict. Shia Iran will then likely retaliate – as it has vowed – by attacking oil infrastructure in Sunni Saudi Arabia, its enemy, with the goal of further disrupting the global oil supply. This would lead to a severe world shortage with inevitable energy rationing in Europe and the UK.

So far, Israel’s political allies – notably the US and the UK – have stood strong with Netanyahu. But if Israel upsets global energy supplies, international support could rapidly dissipate.

There’s a cruel irony to all this. Because if Israel does strike Iran’s oil industry, Europe could even face the ignominy of going cap in hand to purchase Russian oil – albeit through proxies and intermediaries.

Netanyahu and his war cabinet must choose their next move very carefully indeed.

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