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As one of America's closest allies, Israel has remained heavily dependent on the US —politically, economically, and militarily—since its creation in 1948.US arms supplies, mostly provided gratis, are channeled via US Foreign Military Financing (FMF), Military Assistance Program (MAP) and Excess Defense Articles (EDA).According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the US has provided more foreign assistance to Israel since World War II than to any other country.The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) documented that the United States supplied 79 percent of all weapons transferred to Israel from 2018-2022.No one else was even close – the next closest suppliers were Germany with 20 percent and Italy with just 0.2 percent.A Fact Sheet released October 2023, by the US State Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, provides a detailed official breakdown on the unrestrained American security assistance to Israel.Steadfast support for Israel's security has been a cornerstone of American foreign policy for every U.S. Administration since the presidency of Harry S. Truman.Since Israel's founding in 1948, the State Department said, the United States has provided Israel with over $130 billion in bilateral assistance focused on addressing new and complex security threats, bridging Israel's capability gaps through security assistance and cooperation, increasing interoperability through joint exercises, and helping Israel maintain its Qualitative Military Edge (QME).This assistance, says the State Department, has helped transform the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) into "one of the world's most capable, effective militaries and turned the Israeli military industry and technology sector into one of the largest exporters of military capabilities worldwide."In the current war, Israel's overwhelming fire power has resulted in the killings of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the destruction of entire cities—mostly with US supplied weapons.Dr. Natalie J. Goldring, a Visiting Professor of the Practice in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, told IPS the October 7 Hamas attacks were horrendous acts and should be condemned as such."Even so, the Israeli responses to those attacks have been indiscriminate – intentionally so," she said.Two days after the Hamas attacks, Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant declared that Israel would carry out a "complete siege" of Gaza, including blocking the supply of water, food, and fuel, while also stopping the supply of electricity. And Israeli forces have done so, she pointed out."The US government bears a special responsibility for the continuing Israeli attacks. It has supplied Israel with massive quantities of military aid and weaponry, and Israel has ignored US restrictions on the use of those weapons".This supply of weapons and ammunition allows the Israeli military to continue its indiscriminate attacks in Gaza," said Dr Goldring, who also represents the Acronym Institute at the United Nations, on conventional weapons and arms trade issues."A key first step in reducing the human cost of this war is for the US government to call for an immediate ceasefire. The US government should also halt supplies of weapons and ammunition to Israel, whether from the US itself or from prepositioned stocks elsewhere."Since 1983, the United States and Israel have met regularly via the Joint Political-Military Group (JPMG) to promote shared policies, address common threats and concerns, and identify new areas for security cooperation.According to the State Department, Israel is the leading global recipient of Title 22 U.S. security assistance under the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program. This has been formalized by a 10-year (2019-2028) Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).Consistent with the MOU, the United States annually provides $3.3 billion in FMF and $500 million for cooperative programs for missile defense. Since FY 2009, the United States has provided Israel with $3.4 billion in funding for missile defense, including $1.3 billion for Iron Dome support starting in FY 2011.Through FMF, the United States provides Israel with access to some of the most advanced military equipment in the world, including the F-35 Stealth fighter aircraft.Israel is eligible for Cash Flow Financing and is authorized to use its annual FMF allocation to procure defense articles, services, and training through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) system, Direct Commercial Contract agreements – which are FMF-funded Direct Commercial Sales procurements – and through Off Shore Procurement (OSP).Via OSP the current MOU allows Israel to spend a portion of its FMF on Israeli-origin rather than U.S.-origin defense articles. This was 25 percent in FY 2019 but is set to phase-out and decrease to zero in FY 2028.Elaborating further Dr Goldring said: "Unfortunately, the situation in Gaza bears similarities to the documented uses of US weapons by the Saudi-led coalition in attacks on civilians in Yemen"She said: "Our response should be the same in both cases. These countries have failed to honor the conditions of US weapons transfers, and should be ineligible for further transfers until they are in compliance.""US arms transfer decision-making gives too much weight to the judgment of government officials and politicians who frequently fail to consider the full human costs of these transfers," she argued."Earlier this year, the Biden Administration released a new Conventional Arms Transfer policy. They claimed that arms transfers would not be approved when their analysis concluded that "it is more likely than not" that the arms transferred would be used to commit or facilitate the commission of serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law."The actions of the Israeli and Saudi militaries are examples of ways in which this standard is not being met, declared Dr Goldring.As of October 2023, the United States has 599 active Foreign Military Sales (FMS) cases, valued at $23.8 billion, with Israel. FMS cases notified to Congress are listed here; priority initiatives include: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Aircraft; CH-53K Heavy Lift Helicopters; KC-46A Aerial Refueling Tankers; and precision-guided munitions.From FY 2018 through FY 2022, the U.S. has also authorized the permanent export of over $5.7billion in defense articles to Israel via the Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) process.The top categories of DCS to Israel were XIX-Toxicological Agents, including Chemical Agents, Biological Agents, and Associated Equipment (this includes detection equipment ((f)), vaccines ((g)-(h)) and modeling software ((i)); IV- Launch Vehicles, Guided Missiles, Ballistic Missiles, Rockets, Torpedoes, Bombs, and Mines; and VII- Aircraft.Since 1992, the United States has provided Israel with $6.6 billion worth of equipment under the Excess Defense Articles program, including weapons, spare parts, weapons, and simulators.U.S. European Command also maintains in Israel the U.S. War Reserve Stockpile, which can be used to boost Israeli defenses in the case of a significant military emergency.In addition to security assistance and arms sales, the United States participates in a variety of exchanges with Israel, including military exercises like Juniper Oak and Juniper Falcon, as well as joint research, and weapons development.The United States and Israel have signed multiple bilateral defense cooperation agreements, to include: a Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement (1952); a General Security of Information Agreement (1982); a Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (1991); and a Status of Forces Agreement (1994), according to the State Department.Since 2011, the United States has also invested more than $8 million in Conventional Weapons Destruction programs in the West Bank to improve regional and human security through the survey and clearance of undisputed minefields.Following years of negotiations with the Palestinians and Israelis, humanitarian mine action activities began in April 2014 – this represents the first humanitarian clearance of landmine contamination in nearly five decades.Israel has also been designated as a U.S. Major Non-NATO Ally under U.S. law. This status provides foreign partners with certain benefits in the areas of defense trade and security cooperation and is a powerful symbol of their close relationship with the United States.This piece has been republished with permission from Inter Press Service.

China and the United States, like sports captains picking sides, have been engaged in a considered effort to enlist partners. In the recruitment rush, the Biden administration has given short shrift to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its much vaunted balancing, or "centrality" in the Asia Pacific. Washington, like Beijing, has favored certain ASEAN members over others, frustrated no doubt by the group's lack of cohesion and effectiveness. But in the new multipolar world, these hinge countries and their groupings can be as important as power poles. There has been a lot of coalition building lately. In August, the BRICS bloc — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — invited six new members to join at the start of 2024. In March, Iran and Saudi Arabia reestablished ties after years of antagonism in a deal brokered by Beijing. In July, China signed an accord on law enforcement and security with the Solomon Islands and announced a strategic partnership with Georgia. This month, China upgraded its relationship with American bugaboo Venezuela to an "all-weather" partnership.The U.S. has been similarly busy — perhaps more so to make up for Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) bridge-building over the past decade. In August, President Joe Biden and his Japanese and South Korean counterparts launched a trilateral grouping at Camp David. The U.S. and the Philippines in February revived an agreement giving increased American access to Filipino military facilities. In May, the U.S. and Papua New Guinea concluded a defense pact. At the G20 summit in New Delhi this month, the leaders of the U.S., the European Union, India, Saudi Arabia and other countries committed to developing an India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor for cooperation on clean energy, power grids and telecommunications. After the G20, Biden traveled to Hanoi where the U.S. and Vietnam announced that they were elevating relations to a "comprehensive strategic partnership," deepening cooperation in cloud computing, semiconductors and artificial intelligence — all areas of contention between Washington and Beijing. In a 2021 lecture, Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan described how the administration was assembling a "latticework of alliances and partnerships globally." This was "not just about refurbishing the old bilateral alliances," he explained, "but modernizing those elements of the latticework and adding new components." Sullivan cited as examples the upgrading of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, known as the Quad (Australia, India, Japan, and the U.S.), to leader level and the creation of AUKUS, the partnership among Australia, the United Kingdom and the U.S. to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Canberra and collaborate on advanced technologies.Both Washington and Beijing say they are not forcing countries to pick sides, though the impression that they do just that is unavoidable. Beijing has applied economic pressure on states for actions that it perceives to hew too closely to American positions — Canada, Australia, South Korea and Japan have had to deal with such coercion. In network building, the U.S. has offered more carrots than sticks, particularly when it comes to courting pivotal states that Washington deems to have distinct geostrategic importance and — more to the point — the capacity to contribute to countering or containing China. In the Indo-Pacific, India, the Philippines and Vietnam have been the chief recipients of American courtship. But what about ASEAN? Washington insists that it values ASEAN centrality, but the proof of its perspective is in its actions. Biden skipped ASEAN's annual leaders' jamboree with dialogue partners, leaving it to his vice president to go to Jakarta, but squeezed in a visit to Hanoi just days later. The president's participation in the G20 was a not-to-be-missed opportunity to butter up Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who only in June had been feted at the White House. India is the most-prized pivot country in the Indo-Pacific (that status so obvious in the term). Under Modi, it sees itself as a power pole in its own right. New Delhi has proven its multi-alignment credentials, with its participation in the Quad, the BRICS and the China/Russia-conceived Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and its refusal to turn against traditional ally Moscow since the Ukraine war broke out. Biden is oiling the Indian hinge so it swings more Washington's way — and may be succeeding, given India's border clashes with China and its participation in joint military activities in the Pacific, Quad initiatives and Biden's Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF).ASEAN should be as critical a hinge player if not to win over, at least to keep "central" as the region's balancer — a crucial section of the lattice that would act as a security blanket for peace and stability. Some member states, worried that the China-U.S. rivalry undermines their agency, have warned the two great powers against forcing them to choose sides. ASEAN has not bought into the American Indo-Pacific construct, merely articulating an "outlook" on the concept. Southeast Asian nations will profit more not by putting on any one team's jersey, but instead playing the field as something of a referee or honest broker in good stead with both sides, however heated the competition.U.S. administrations have never taken the centrality of ASEAN seriously, largely because member states themselves have failed to show what it means to be the region's ballast. It is a systemic problem — ASEAN is no EU in either form or practice. Even though it has launched an "economic community" and has sought to address thorny problems, such as Myanmar and the South China Sea, as a group, it remains a politically divided, economically diverse collection of states, with a reputation for glacial progress and ineffectiveness. It was born this way, though it was successful in its founding mission to be a bulwark against communism's spread.But ASEAN has strengths beyond being the world's fifth largest economy. Its convening power is unmatched, reaching across economic and strategic spheres. Its ASEAN Regional Forum and ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting-Plus are as evolved and inclusive a strategic framework for the region as is possible. ASEAN-led platforms offer a neutral space for the great powers to interact on a wide range of issues. By lavishing attention on certain ASEAN members — the Philippines, Vietnam and Singapore (host of a U.S. military facility) — Washington is mimicking the Chinese divide-and-conquer approach (Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar are reckoned to be on Team Beijing). But even small gaps weaken a lattice. The ASEAN way may be slow and plodding — negotiations with Beijing on a code of conduct in the South China Sea have dragged on for years — but this tortoise cannot be written off.In a speech on September 13 outlining "the power and purpose of American diplomacy," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken tellingly never mentioned ASEAN. Yet, the Biden administration may be smartening up. Seven of the ASEAN 10 are part of the IPEF, the American answer to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), from which the U.S. withdrew, and the ASEAN-China concocted Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade accord. And guess who's coming to the White House for a bilateral with Biden in November? Indonesian President Joko Widodo, the very leader whom Biden "snubbed" in favor of one night in Vietnam. With its sizable population, strategic geographical position, participation in China's BRI, a maritime dispute of its own with Beijing, a growing strategic relationship with Washington, and a critical presidential election next year, Indonesia is the key hinge power in Southeast Asia. Like India, it has proven its agency and pragmatism, particularly in vital areas such as data security standards and infrastructure development. Giving Jakarta more attention would bolster ASEAN's position in the American Indo-Pacific latticework, especially with Laos, a country that tilts towards Beijing and is taking over from Indonesia as ASEAN chair next year.

Three and a half years ago, the ASI published a position paper and draft law proposing a "UK Free Speech Act" which would, if enacted, forever remove the regulation of nonviolent political discussion from the remit of law enforcement in the United Kingdom.The censorship provisions of the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 (the "Hate Crime Act"), entering into force this week, are deeply offensive to freedom of expression, and the only way to stop them is to implicitly repeal these new rules with UK-wide protection for freedom of speech.The Hate Crime Act contains three provisions in particular – "aggravation of offences by prejudice," "racially aggravated harassment" and "stirring up hatred" – which are, at least as-described, descriptions of the sort of speech that most members of polite society would rightly oppose as a personal, moral matter. However, if we look at the substance of the language employed by the new laws and its derivation from similar, viewpoint-neutral English rules – in the case of the stirring-up offence and the "racially aggravated harassment" offences,  the "alarm or distress" language from the English Public Order Act 1986, and in the case of the stirring-up offence only, the historic "threatening, abusive, or insulting" language from that same law – we know that these rules have proven capable of extremely overbroad application in England, and these new rules will prove just as terrible, if not more so, if allowed to stand in Scotland.The position, outlined in a 2020 paper for the ASI, and the applicable English legal rules, remains entirely unchanged. It suffices for present purposes to note that existing English laws, which are nowhere near as intrusive as the new Scottish ones, have already been used in England to, variously: ·      threaten a schoolboy with prosecution for nonviolently holding up a sign calling the Church of Scientology a dangerous cult;·      arrest republican protestors in the vicinity of King Charles' coronation for nonviolent picketing;·      convict a protestor for nonviolently saying David Cameron had "blood on his hands" for cutting disability benefit at an event where the then-PM was speaking;·      convict protestors against the war in Iraq for nonviolently expressing their points of view in front of soldiers of the British Army returning home from that war;·      arrest students for nonviolently saying "woof" to a dog;·      arrest a woman for nonviolently praying silently; and·      arrest a preacher for nonviolently reading from the Bible, in public, verbatim.The existing rules should have been repealed years ago, but few UK lawyers, being unaccustomed to an American perspective on free speech jurisprudence and thus unable to see that the frog was starting to boil, seemed to notice very much as the English judiciary lost its way after issuing its landmark, pro-free speech decision of Redmond-Bate [1999] EWHC Admin 733. In a few short years, the English courts went from protecting controversial speech to routinely acquiescing to the criminalization of what, pre-1999 at least, would have been entirely lawful, if somewhat controversial, expression (see: Norwood v DPP [2003] EWHC 1564, and Abdul v. DPP  [2011] EWHC 247). The provisions of Article 10 of the European Convention concerning freedom of expression, enshrined in domestic law by the UK Human Rights Act, are little better than window-dressing. They have been of no assistance whatsoever in protecting English speakers of controversial ideas since that law's enactment; indeed, the Human Rights Act may have harmed the cause of free speech in the country by formalising the broad derogations from that right permitted under Article 10(2) which have been abused, time and again, to stifle discourse. Put another way, our experience with the English rules, in particular the Public Order Act 1986 but also the Malicious Communications Act 1988, and Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003, is that their application, especially in the last 25 years, has been subjective, unpredictable, inconsistent, politically-motivated, sometimes capricious, and thoroughly chilling to speech.The Scottish law turbocharges all of these problems by abandoning viewpoint-neutrality and expressly targeting "culture war" issues around questions of identity within the four corners of the statute. This is particularly the case when we look at the "aggravation of offences by prejudice" law, which states that age, disability, national or ethnic origin, sexual orientation, and transgender identity are all to be considered when sentencing people in Scotland for criminal offences. The problem with this, of course, is that merely talking about these issues and causing offence is already capable of constituting a public order offence, both in England and substantially equivalent legislation in Scotland, and these provisions were used in both England and Scotland to suppress speech even before the Hate Crime Act entered into force.Only last month transgender activists sought to have J.K. Rowling arrested there after English prosecutors declined to prosecute her for prior "gender critical" remarks. The Hate Crime Act now requires Scottish judges to take into account Rowling's motivations when judging her speech, which we think would be fairly described as emanating from the identitarian, and therefore definitionally "prejudicial," ideology known as second-wave feminism, and would require, in a public order or malicious communications-based prosecution for those feminist remarks, for a Scottish judge to consider a sentencing enhancement.It makes no sense to criminalise these conversations. Indeed it makes sense to expressly legalise them, given that national politics seems, increasingly, to cluster around identity issues and, in a democratic society, require their open discussion in order for these disputes around the proper ordering of society to be satisfactorily resolved. On the gender theory question, in particular, the debate seems to be between, on one side, critical theory-informed intersectional activists who seek to view all power relationships through the lens of what they call immutable characteristics, and on the other, we see a coalition of classical liberals and religiously-minded traditionalists from the usual suspects like the Catholic Church but also newly aggrieved groups such as traditionalist Muslim parents of schoolchildren. As the fact that the Prime Minister himself felt the need to chime in on these matters this week plainly evidences, identity issues, whether we like it or not, now sit squarely at the centre of contemporary UK political discourse. We take no view on the merits of either "side" here, because taking a viewpoint does not matter and, in any case, is inadvisable, to the extent anyone here at the Institute plans on ever setting foot in Scotland again. This is because it is now quite unsafe, legally speaking, to take a vigorously-defended public position on these questions in Scotland from any perspective, as long as there is a hearer who is offended enough to file a police report against the hearer's perceived political enemies, or calculating enough to pretend to be so offended. To see how the Hate Crime Act potentially cuts in all directions, we need look no further than criminal complaints which have already been made under the new law. See, for example, the fact that Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf, the law's primary advocate and promoter, was immediately reported by the Indian Council of Scotland to the police for thoughtcrime contained in a speech he himself delivered in Scottish Parliament in 2023 as soon as the Hate Crime Act entered into force. Under the new regime, even the First Minister will need to take care not to express those same thoughts in the same manner again.There are not many reasonable people who wish to live in a country where the first response to any political disagreement is to call for a speaker's arrest. Nonviolent speech should never warrant a violent response. Yet, as was proven on day 1 of this new law, we already see that the Scottish law will be used, and is being used, to call down state-sanctioned violence, namely arrests and imprisonment, to suppress broad swathes of viewpoints from all political quarters. To the few back-benchers who are engaged by this pertinent issue: This is the hill to die on. Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, has said he opposes the Scottish law. Push the Prime Minister to back up that opposition with decisive action. Permanently abolish political censorship enforced at gunpoint. Enact the UK Free Speech Act.

The latest Houthi strike in the Red Sea has for the first time killed civilians — three workers on a Barbados-flagged cargo ship — underscoring the ineffectiveness of the Biden military response after five long months of militant attacks there. It also shows how elusive the goal is for ending the nearly decade-long war in Yemen.Just two weeks after assuming the presidency in January 2021, Joe Biden took three key steps in hopes of ending the war in Yemen. First, he removed the Houthis from the Foreign Terrorist Organization designation that was announced in the last days of Donald Trump's tenure. Second, he appointed Tim Lenderking as Special Envoy to Yemen. Finally, he announced that Washington would stop supporting Saudi offensive operations in Yemen, and declared that the war in Yemen had to end. Ending the war in Yemen has remained a major policy objective of his administration.By the time of these announcements, the Saudi regime, under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS, had begun extracting itself from the Yemeni quagmire, so the new U.S. position was not received with the hostility from Riyadh it might have expected; indeed, it was formally "'welcomed" in the hope that Washington's diplomatic involvement might assist this process. Since then, Lenderking has actively joined UN Special Envoy Hans Grundberg in his efforts to bring about an end to the war in Yemen, although the impact of his involvement remains unclear. Major developments took place in April 2022 with the announcement by Grundberg of a truce between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition. (While that truce officially expired the following October, fighting since then has been small scale, and neither the Saudis nor the Emiratis have conducted air strikes against the Houthis.) A few days after Grundberg's announcement, the president of Yemen's internationally recognized government (IRG), Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, who had clung to that post since 2012, was unceremoniously replaced by a Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) at a meeting in Riyadh hosted by MBS. Much like the resignation statement announced by Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri in Riyadh in 2017, Hadi's renunciation was read in circumstances that suggested duress.The PLC consists of eight men -- Rashad al Alimi, the former Interior Minister who ascended to the presidency, and leaders of the various anti-Houthi military factions as vice presidents, some of them aligned with the Saudis and others with the Emiratis. When handing over his authority, Hadi gave them the mandate to negotiate "with (Ansar Allah) the Houthis for a permanent ceasefire throughout the republic and sit at the negotiating table to reach a final and comprehensive political solution that includes a transitional phase that will move Yemen from a state of war to a state of peace." Predictably, given the composition of the council, its members have since spent more energy disagreeing with each other than fighting the Houthis. Another major development later in 2022 was the start of direct and publicly acknowledged negotiations between the Saudis and the Houthis, resulting in the effective marginalization of both the UN-sponsored process and the PLC, but opening space for Omani mediation. During most of 2023, those talks progressed with two major markers: in April, an official trip to Sana'a, the Houthi-controlled capital, by a senior Saudi delegation, followed in September by a return visit to the Kingdom by senior Houthis. On both occasions there were widespread rumors that an agreement was on the verge of being reached. Indeed, PLC members were summoned to Riyadh on both occasions to be informed of the situation, rather than consulted. Similarly, the UN Special Envoy was, at best, informed of developments. The draft agreement involved a six-month cease-fire, to be followed by three months of intra-Yemeni discussions in preparation for a two-year transition phase. The Houthis' main concession was that the Saudis would sign as "mediators" rather than "participants" thus reducing the possibility of war crimes charges against Riyadh stemming from its highly destructive bombing campaign during earlier years in the conflict. In return, the Saudis agreed to pay the salaries of all government staff, including the Houthis' military and security personnel, for at least six months. The expected culmination would have been an event where the Houthis and the IRG, which had a great deal to lose by such an agreement, including generous Saudi subsidization, would sign as participants a document witnessed by the Saudis and likely the Omanis as mediators. It would have formalized Saudi Arabia's exit from the Yemen conflict while leaving to UN mediation the more difficult task of addressing the intra-Yemeni struggles.More recent developments in the Red Sea, however, have made it increasingly difficult to continue negotiations, let alone conclude the pending agreement. The Houthi seizure of the Galaxy Leader on November 19 was followed by a series of attacks on Israeli-connected shipping out of what Houthis said was solidarity with the Palestinian civilians in Gaza. The initial U.S. response was timid, largely because of the Biden administration's remaining hope that a public event formalizing the "end" of the Yemen war, would enable it to claim a major foreign policy success in an election year. While this hope explains Washington's restraint, it doesn't explain why the administration failed to consult with its major allies in Europe. As a result, when the U.S. established the ineffective Prosperity Guardian operation on December 18, it gained meager international support and a rapid disavowal by major European countries who announced their own operation in mid-February 2024.In the absence of a formal agreement, UN Special Envoy Grundberg, on December 23, announced a roadmap towards peace which includes "the parties' commitment to implement a nationwide ceasefire, pay all public sector salaries, resume oil exports, open roads in Taiz and other parts of Yemen, and further ease restrictions on Sana'a airport and the Hudaydah port…. and prepare for a Yemeni-owned political process under UN auspices." The IRG's welcoming of the announcement was, to say the least, muted. Regional states, particularly Saudi Arabia, were more positive, and both the UAE and the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council expressed support. Grundberg has tried to move his road map forward, but the escalations that have taken place in the Red Sea increasingly threaten those efforts. On January 11, the U.S. and UK initiated Operation Poseidon Archer against targets on the Yemeni mainland for the first time, intending to downgrade the Houthis' capability to launch missiles and drones. Initially presented as a "one-off," the strikes have become almost daily, and, by the end of February, had hit 230 sites throughout the country. The number of Houthi attacks, however, has not diminished. While few ships are hit, and those that have been have suffered only minor damage, the Rubymar, a British-owned ship struck on February 18 sank two weeks later, polluting the sea with fertilizer and a massive oil slick. There is no sign of an end to Houthi attacks: despite weeks of strikes, the U.S. officials remain unclear about their impact due to lack of information about Houthi stocks of projectiles. Meanwhile, the majority of Yemenis support Houthi actions in support of Palestine, even if they are unhappy with Houthi governance. The only explicit support for U.S. and UK strikes within Yemen comes from the IRG, a number of whose leaders have asked for the strikes to be complemented by materiel, training and other military support to fight and somehow defeat the Houthis. Widely seen as acting in defense of the Palestinians, however, the Houthis' popularity appears to have risen sharply both domestically and abroad, especially in Arab and predominantly Muslim countries. Should the U.S. and UK escalate their involvement in the Yemen conflict — a possibility made more likely by Wednesday's fatal Houthi strike— prospects for a worsening of the situation loom, increasingly reminiscent of Iraq or Afghanistan decades ago. While the Saudi involvement in the Yemen war appears to have ended, however informally, Yemenis are now facing the prospect of a new form of international intervention in their crisis, alongside the already worsening economic situation and humanitarian crisis which, between 2015 and until recently was considered the "world's worst" by the United Nations. Unfortunately, in the absence of any immediate likelihood of an end to Israel's catastrophic destruction of Gaza, prospects for peace in Yemen appear increasingly remote.

On Sunday, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva criticized Israel's actions in Gaza in the strongest possible terms. "What is happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people has no parallel in any other historical moment," Lula said to a gathering of reporters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. After a beat, the head of Latin America's largest nation added that, actually, there was a similar episode worth recalling: "when Hitler decided to kill the Jews." Lula's comments in Ethiopia came after a brief visit to Egypt, where he addressed the Arab League. Both African nations are new members of the BRICS — a growing geopolitical grouping originally composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. While Lula's visit emphasized past ties and future opportunities, his comments on Hitler eclipsed whatever other message he may have hoped to convey. The fallout opened a new line of attack against him at home, undermining his administration's domestic policy goals at least temporarily. The practical result abroad, however, is unlikely to add up to very much. If anything, the newly pronounced enmity between the Lula and Netanyahu governments is clarifying. The differences between this historical moment and World War II so vastly outweigh the similarities that it is hardly worth debating the merits of the comparison that Lula drew. The more intriguing question is whether Lula's comment signaled any kind of shift in Brazil's position on the issue of Israel-Palestine. There are multiple ways of reading his intentions. Many foreign critics pilloried him for invoking the Holocaust to make a political point. Netanyahu called Lula's remarks "shameful and serious," suggesting the Brazilian president aimed to "harm the Jewish people and Israel's right to defend itself." For Netanyahu, who has faced mounting legal troubles and popular opposition at home while overseeing a military campaign plausibly accused of acts of genocide, Lula's words "cross[ed] a red line."Standing alongside Brazil's ambassador to Israel at Yad Vashem, Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Monday declared: "We will not forget nor forgive. It is a serious antisemitic attack. In my name, and in the name of all Israeli citizens, tell President Lula that he is persona non grata in Israel until he retracts his statements."At home, opposition forces have mounted a quixotic impeachment effort that has nevertheless garnered significant support, including from some members of Lula's governing coalition. Lula was hammered in several of Brazil's mainstream press outlets for purportedly isolating his country on the world stage, supporting Hamas, or trivializing the murder of 6 million Jews between 1941 and 1945.A more charitable interpretation of what happened is that Lula simply spoke off the cuff and made a bad historical analogy. After all, nothing had fundamentally changed up to that point in his government's position, which was to work with the Israeli government even as it strongly criticizes what it sees as unconscionable excesses in its war against Hamas. Before this weekend, Brazil had not gone as far as other countries in Latin America in reconsidering its ties with Israel.Moreover, it's unclear why Lula would make a calculated decision to stake so much on an extemporized comparison between the Netanyahu government and the Third Reich. He surely would have known that the fallout, entirely predictable as it has been, would be extremely inconvenient in political terms. For example, the week ahead promises even more troubling legal news for former president Jair Bolsonaro, the leading counterweight to Lula in terms of Brazil's national politics. Rather than allowing the media narrative this week to focus on Bolsonaro, the Lula government has had to expend time and energy on addressing criticisms of the president's remarks. In so doing, it has established the contours of a new, much more openly hostile relationship with the Netanyahu government.On Monday, Lula recalled the Brazilian ambassador to Israel for consultations. Celso Amorim, Lula's former foreign minister and close current adviser, said the president would not apologize for his comments. "Israel is the one placing itself in a condition of increasing isolation," he insisted. According to journalist Eliane Oliveira, the Lula government is annoyed with what it sees as Netanyahu's eagerness to make hay of the Brazilian president's remarks and use them to his own political benefit. In that regard, it is worth noting that Bolsonaro was a close Netanyahu ally. The prime minister even endorsed Bolsonaro in his 2022 race against Lula, indicating that there was already a vast political divide between Lula and his Israeli counterpart. On Monday night, Alexandre Padilha, Brazil's Minister of Institutional Relations, spoke at length about Lula's comments during a televised interview, asserting that the president's critique constituted a passionate reaction against the Netanyahu government, not a criticism of Israel per se and certainly not of Jews worldwide.Since last year, Lula has strongly criticized Israel's assault on Gaza, calling it "as grave" as the Hamas attack on October 7. Before that, Brazil secured overwhelming support within the United Nations Security Council for a resolution that called for "humanitarian pauses" in Israel's bombing to allow for aid and supplies to enter Gaza, but the measure was vetoed by the United States. The implosion of Brazil's relationship with the Netanyahu government is unsurprising given the politics of the Brazilian left that makes up Lula's base and the broader landscape of Latin America. Countries like Colombia, Bolivia, and Chile, which has the largest Palestinian refugee population outside the Arab world, have been more strident and willing to act on their criticism of Israel's military campaign in Gaza, so the continued degradation of the Brazil-Israel relationship should surprise no one.On Tuesday morning, Amorim doubled down on the argument that Lula's comparison, attributed to a sense of visceral outrage, might push the international community to take firmer action on the matter: "Lula's speech shook the world and triggered a swirl of emotions that could help resolve an issue that the coldness of political interests has been unable to resolve." The fact that the Lula administration has closed the door on any public apology to the Netanyahu government is telling and is, in fact, what seems to have changed the nature of the bilateral relationship. It signals that the Brazilians have decided they are comfortable, if not entirely pleased, with where they've landed vis-à-vis Israel after the weekend. Since returning to the world stage for a third term in January of last year, Lula has rekindled his country's independent streak, steadfastly refusing to embrace the U.S. line on a host of key geopolitical issues even while working assiduously with Washington on matters of mutual interest. As I have argued previously in these pages, Lula insists on cultivating ties across ideological and political lines in pursuit of greater Brazilian influence over a shifting world order.It is not entirely clear whether a firm break with Israel is actually in the offing. As far as Brasilia is concerned, a meeting between Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira and Israel's ambassador on Monday constituted the end point of current tensions. No more escalation is expected from the Lula government, which now sees the ball as being in Netanyahu's court, according to journalist Guilherme Amado.The Israeli government, however, seems unlikely to tone down its criticisms of Lula. On Tuesday afternoon, the country's official X account accused Lula of Holocaust denialism and, in a post written in Portuguese on the same platform, Israel's foreign minister reiterated that Lula was persona non grata until he issued an apology, something the Brazilian government has said it will not do. So will Brazil break with Israel over its sustained bombardment of the Gaza Strip? A great deal of other Global South players have been there for some time. Brazil may well arrive there now, too.Either way, Lula is unlikely to garner any political benefit at home from this row, especially considering that those likely to welcome escalating tensions with Netanyahu already saw Lula as a staunch ally of the Palestinian cause. Given the challenges facing his political agenda, the last thing Lula needs is a muddled diplomatic crisis like this to galvanize opposition forces. The Israeli prime minister, on the other hand, may well benefit from having the Brazilian as a foil — which, from a Brazilian perspective, is precisely why Lula should have been more careful on that stage in Addis Ababa.

Since Joe Biden described Israel as "starting to lose support" due to "indiscriminate bombing" in Gaza, news media around the world have described the United States as pushing, unsuccessfully, for Israel to change both its tactics in Gaza and its preferred political arrangements for when the fighting ends. To date, that supposed pressure does not appear to have had much effect, which has led to "tail wags dog" arguments about how the U.S. is either unable, or unwilling, to force a shift in Israeli policy.Of course, it is impossible to know what, if any, threats are being made behind the scenes by the parade of U.S. officials who have been shuttling to Jerusalem over the past few weeks. However, given the nature of Prime Minister Netanyahu's governing coalition, one might imagine that any such threats might have been leaked to the media. Moreover, if one looks at what the two sides are disagreeing over — when precisely the bombing campaign should end, or how, down the road, some hypothetical third party would temporarily administer Gaza — there is, as a practical matter, precious little daylight between the U.S. and Israel. This is abundantly clear from the various news conferences given in recent days at the White House, the State Department, and the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, notably on the issue of how a Security Council resolution had to be worded to avoid yet another American veto.But the strongest reason to doubt that very much pressure is being applied is the Holmesian dog that did not bark: Put simply, the people who run U.S. foreign policy show no indication of viewing a shift in Israeli policy as a matter of national interest for the United States. For the fact of the matter is that when U.S. officials perceive the national interest as being at stake, they are more than willing to change policy, including overriding close allies. The classic example is the 1956 Suez crisis when President Eisenhower threatened the United Kingdom financially and humiliated his old companion in arms, Anthony Eden. Other examples include President Kennedy's withdrawal of Jupiter missiles from its NATO allies Turkey and Italy as part of the Cuban Missile Crisis deal; President Nixon's squeezing of South Vietnamese President Thieu over the Paris Peace Accords; President George W. Bush's bypassing of Thatcher and Mitterrand regarding German reunification; and, most recently, President Trump's sanctioning of Turkey over its offensive in northern Syria.If, therefore, there are no signs of the U.S. threatening Israel over Gaza, it is unlikely due to White House qualms about facing down Netanyahu and company; rather, it is because the Administration sees little U.S. cost in slow-walking a modest policy change. Put simply, there is just not enough at stake to warrant the use of pressure. Both in terms of international relations and of domestic politics, the status quo is not significantly unsatisfactory. To see this, consider each of these factors.The "humanitarian situation" in Gaza, as a so-called "senior administration official" put it, is not perceived by Biden and his advisers as putting the United States in a position that requires a notable change in policy. I refer here not to the private views of these individuals, but to how they see the international status of the U.S. as affected by its support of what Israel is doing in Gaza. The answer is, not much. For example, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, after characterizing the plight of the people in Gaza as "gut-wrenching," added immediately that this was why Israel's "operations" should be seen "through to completion quickly, effectively, and doing everything possible to minimize the harm to those caught in a crossfire of Hamas's making." Another unnamed official described the diplomatic "cost" as "intangible" and making it "harder to win support on issues we care about." And when journalists ask about the U.S. being isolated because of its Gaza policy, the questions are blandly dismissed.One might imagine that this downplaying of discontent from other countries' governments or public opinion is due to a realpolitik sense that human rights and humanitarian concerns, even during genocides, are secondary. Evidence for this claim would cite President Clinton's maneuvers to prevent UN intervention in Rwanda, continue with President Reagan's support of Gen. Rios Montt in Guatemala and Presidents Ford and Carter's de facto backing of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and stretch back as far as President Roosevelt's refusal to bomb the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. However, the point has to do with perceived pressure from outside the U.S.: Viewed from Washington, neither massive killings nor most other situations give rise to pressure significant enough to change U.S. policy. In part, this is because the United States is in a unique position: Most of its adversaries are economically too weak to threaten the U.S., whereas those with economic weight are for the most part its allies or clients.But it is also due to a more fundamental feature of American foreign policy. When policy makers choose a course of action, they tend to discount longer-term negative consequences. A classic case in point is the July 1965 decision to send 200,000 ground troops to South Vietnam. When Under Secretary of State George Ball argued that the U.S. would end up like the French, his points were dismissed with Micawber-like platitudes. So too it was with Truman's decision to send troops north of the 38th parallel, and with Bush's decisions to invade Iraq and dissolve Saddam Hussein's military. Given this tendency, claims about future diplomatic damage for failure to crack down hard enough on Israel are no doubt met with reactions akin to Keynes's famous line about the long run.In this regard, it is significant that the cases cited above in which the U.S. cracked down on its allies involved reactions to current events, not a long-term calculation. Thus, U.S. policy over Suez was spurred by a sense of being in a life-or-death battle with the Soviet Union for the favors of countries in Africa and Asia; to side with the colonial powers and Israel who had occupied the canal was an immediate threat to U.S. interests (this is also why the Eisenhower White House supported civil rights at home). Similarly, the pressure on Thieu to go along with the Paris accords was, as Henry Kissinger infamously put it, in pursuit of a "decent interval." For U.S. policy makers, the response to discontent from abroad over their Gaza policy is akin to Scarlett O'Hara's views in "Gone With the Wind:" Tomorrow is another day.What of domestic U.S. politics? Here, multiple strands of argument lead to the same conclusion: For Biden and his advisers, there are no clear political reasons to switch U.S. policy on Gaza. To start with, it is very likely that within the policy-making group, there are strong norms against bringing up domestic politics, the assumption being that Biden, as a long-time professional, is capable of making such judgments on his own. Those judgments, second, are likely to be that current policy already is triangulated correctly between hawks and doves; that the latter, if faced in the end with a choice between Trump and Biden, will swallow hard and vote Democratic; and that in any case, elections are almost never won or lost on foreign policy issues. These calculations, of course, leave little room for error: Even a small increase in abstention rates among core Democratic constituencies could prove fatal in various swing states. For that reason, a non-veto in the Security Council, repeated emphasis on "targeted operations," humanitarian issues, and a two-state solution, and, most importantly, well-publicized criticisms of Netanyahu by close Biden allies are attempts to reframe U.S. policy as less anti-Palestinian. As the war drags on, it is possible that the White House will agree to modest conditions on the use of military aid, albeit with waiver language included so that push never comes to shove.These kabuki-like moves show clearly that U.S. policy makers feel little pressure, whether domestic or foreign, to change their policy on Gaza. Absent additional, immediate moves, such as organized abstention in presidential primaries, the most likely scenario is continued death for thousands and despair for millions.

Since the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin on August 23, much ink has been spilled on the future of his private military company (PMC), Wagner Group, and its affiliated companies. Most attention remains on Ukraine, where the PMC has not been formally active since Prigozhin declared victory in Bakhmut on May 20. Meanwhile, Wagner continues to conduct military operations in both Mali and the Central African Republic (CAR).On November 14, the Malian Armed Forces (FAMA), backed by Wagner, took the separatist stronghold of Kidal. Despite entering a town nearly abandoned, the capture was undeniably a symbolic victory for Mali's Interim President, Colonel Assimi Goïta, and his military regime. There is a significant risk that FAMA's March on Kidal will further exacerbate humanitarian crises in the region, all at a time when the international community is stepping back from the Sahel. This is a mistake. The Sahel has become the epicenter of the West's, including the United States', two great threat narratives: jihadist terrorism and the expansion of Russian influence. Their accompanying containment narratives almost ensure counterproductive, knee-jerk reactions to future events on the ground.To avoid these pitfalls, the international community must focus today on creative solutions that account for Russia's presence in Africa.BackgroundThe past five years have seen a popular backlash against peacekeeping and humanitarian-military operations in central Africa and the Sahel. While politicized, the criticism has not been without merit. Peacekeeping missions have undoubtedly improved the lives of many. They have also often empowered the most violent and produced more, not less, armed groups. Yet it was Wagner Group's interventions in Sudan and CAR that turbocharged the criticism.
The structure of Wagner's 2017 intervention in Sudan initially followed standard practices for Africa's private security sector: training and security provision in exchange for mineral concessions. (A notable exception was the political consulting and media operations Prigozhin's team also offered.) In Sudan, the structure stayed consistent. In CAR, events on the ground shaped the nature of Wagner's intervention. In 2018, Prigozhin's men became diplomats.Wagner's diplomacy in CARIn February 2019, the CAR government and 14 major armed groups signed the Khartoum Agreement — a peace deal hailed by the United Nations. A considerable contribution to this process belonged to Prigozhin's working group, although experts from various Russian government entities also participated.
For Prigozhin, the prospect of peace would translate into increased access to mining concessions. It would also deliver a win to Moscow and increase the chances for Kremlin subsidies to fund his Africa gambit. For armed group leaders, the Agreement was a chance to obtain lucrative ministerial positions, while President Faustin-Archange Touadéra could shore up his vulnerable position vis-à-vis the armed groups.
The significance of the Agreement was immense, but unfortunately most walked away with the wrong conclusions. The international community felt it could finally distance itself from CAR's seemingly endless problems. The CAR government and Prigozhin, victims of their own success, felt they could abandon notions of an inclusive government. All seemed unable to account for the return of the largest potential spoiler of the peace, former president François Bozizé, and his decision to run in the 2020 presidential elections.
Despite rising tension between Touadéra and Bozizé, the CAR government, Wagner, and the international community pushed elections at all costs, even as a new coalition of armed groups — nominally led by Bozizé and including six of the fourteen Khartoum Agreement signatories — advanced on Bangui, the capital.
As a result of the rebellion, Wagner's mandate changed from that of a training mission to a military operation. The resulting counteroffensive brought nearly all major towns under government control.
The partial victory — armed groups are down but not out — led to overconfidence within Wagner's ranks: Military solutions were possible. The PMC came to view the Khartoum Agreement through a cynical lens as insiders reframed it as a clever way to weaken and divide the armed opposition, rather than the genuine effort at conflict resolution it was at the time.Wagner began to fashion itself as Russia's "security solution," Moscow's most successful export to Africa. Back then, Prigozhin had the ear of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Taking advantage of Moscow's light footprint on the continent, Wagner's boss could define what Moscow's interests in Africa were.Wagner's military solution in the SahelBy 2020, all actors recognized the value of the "Wagner threat" to Africa; not least African governments which leveraged narratives of "cooperating with" or "countering" Wagner to extract concessions or support from both Russia and the West.
Cold War containment narratives became a self-fulfilling prophecy in 2021 when, after a second coup, tensions between Colonel Goïta and France resulted in French military withdrawal from Mali and Wagner's arrival. Goïta's grievances with Paris were first political: He wanted France to recognize his government. Second, anti-French rhetoric helped build political legitimacy for the military regime.
The rhetoric tapped into genuine grievances with France's Operation Barkhane, especially among Mali's military class. At the top of the list was France's quiet cooperation with Tuareg separatists to oust the jihadists in northern Mali. Bamako saw that cooperation as a violation of sovereignty. Intervenors and those intervened upon could not agree on who the terrorists were.
Wagner's arrival in Mali further revealed the conflict's separate realities. Western analysts focused on human rights abuses and the territorial expansion of Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) and the Islamic State of the Greater Sahara (ISIS-GS) to prove Wagner's intervention a failure.
Goïta's circle was far less focused than western analysts on controlling territory outside the capital. The potential for another coup in Bamako was more important, and the government relied on internet influencers and political entrepreneurs to shore up its popularity. In turn, it became a prisoner of its own jingoistic claims to return Kidal to the fold.The resulting Wagner-backed operation has enjoyed more success than predicted. The Malian army has demonstrated increased combat capability and coordination between branches of the armed forces. Wagner's operations in Mali also reflect a new level of cooperation with the Russian Ministry of Defense. Russian officers are involved in planning military operations and acting as advisors. Wagner mercenaries participate in ground operations, but, unlike in CAR, they are always embedded within FAMA.A return to diplomacyFAMA does not have the ability or capacity to fight both separatists and jihadists. Indeed, FAMA and Wagner are on the path to an unwinnable counterinsurgency in the north. Interaction between Tuareg separatists and JNIM suggest the jihadi group is not quite neutral in the conflict, and its role could grow.Despite the current success of Wagner's military solution, it is evident that only peace talks, a process of reconciliation, and the equitable distribution of power and resources between Bamako and the provinces can end the conflict.The victory in Kidal puts the government in Bamako in a stronger position to negotiate with separatists. But given the prospect of an unwinnable war in the north, the continued threat of jihadist groups, and a host of economic woes, the window for "cashing in" on victory will be short.Of course, the Malian government has demonstrated little interest in serious negotiation to date. Few outside powers have leverage over its decision-making. Russia, and the Wagner Group in Mali, have more influence than most. For Russian diplomats, efforts to bring peace to Mali would reinforce Moscow's growing prominence in the Sahel. Wagner Group, too, has consistently engaged in diplomacy when it sees greater potential for profit in peace than open warfare.The international community has leveraged the presence of Wagner Group in Mali as a pretext to step away from the conflict. Yet the crisis in Mali, and the Sahel more generally, cannot be ignored. Efforts should be made to create at least conditions for a negotiating process.The West's exceptional concentration on the war in Ukraine and its support for Israeli operations in Gaza have damaged its credibility in the Global South. Competing with or trying to contain Russia (or China, for that matter) in Africa only does further damage to that credibility. Limited, compartmentalized work with all partners in the Sahel will show that the U.S. can view issues in the Global South outside these prisms.Russia is here to stay in Africa. Mali, and the Sahel more generally, should be an opportunity to engage in geopolitical deconfliction rather than competition.

U.S. President Joe Biden's brief trip to the Middle East, comprising just a few hours in Tel Aviv, will be remembered in this tragic chapter in the recent history of the Middle East for two main reasons. Firstly, because of the almost exaggerated reaffirmation of the alliance with Israel, and secondly, because of the metaphorical slap he received for the abrupt cancellation of a summit in Amman that was organized and canceled within just a few hours, due to the heightened tension after the Ahli Hospital massacre in Gaza. (A rearranged conference was held in Cairo last Saturday; 31 countries were represented, as was the UN.) The cancellation was a humiliation for the president and American diplomacy, but also a sign of a change of direction, and the beginning of a new order in the power equation in the Middle East.Let's start with the reasons behind the American request to meet at short notice with Jordanian King Abdullah, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The purpose of the summit revolved around the idea of getting as many Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip as possible. This idea — which, in short, involves emptying the enclave to aid the military goal of eliminating Hamas and its infrastructure — came from Israel, but won the Biden administration's support in Washington. To begin carrying this out, Israeli authorities ordered more than a million Palestinians from Gaza's north to move to the south — primarily toward the cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, Gaza's gateway to Egypt, which the authorities in Cairo have kept shut.Danny Ayalon, a former Israeli deputy foreign minister, made the following remarks in an interview with Marc Lamont Hill on Al Jazeera in English on Oct. 15: "[We're not telling Gazans to] go to the beaches, go drown yourselves, God forbid … There is a huge expanse, almost endless space in the Sinai desert, just on the other side of Gaza. The idea is … for them to leave over to [sic] the open areas where we, and the international community, will prepare the infrastructure … Tent cities, with food and with water … just like for the refugees of Syria that fled the butchering of [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad a few years ago to Turkey." To be refugees or fugitives: that is what Ayalon, and indeed Israel, is offering to 2 million Palestinians.The majority of Gaza's population is, in fact, composed of descendants of Palestinians who took refuge on the southern coast of Mandate Palestine, in the area of Gaza's commercial port, forced out of their homes in places like Jaffa, Majdal, and present-day Ashkelon. Even then, waiting for them — like nearly all the refugees of 1948 — were tents and tent cities. Anyone familiar with the name given to the Nakba's refugees, the "people of the tents," knows that to propose a tent city in Sinai is to remind them, as if necessary, of what they were forced to become."This proposal cannot be accepted, and not only by the Palestinians. It dives into the most significant change in the Middle East in the last century, the birth of the State of Israel and the Nakba. This change is etched in the history of neighboring countries, first and foremost Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. The uprooting of Palestinians to Sinai would be a burden on the Arab countries' shoulders — a burden they cannot bear, as was declared loud and clear in the statements issued by all the Arab leaders after Blinken's visit. They all focused on the Palestinian refugee issue, rejecting any possibility of a new population transfer from Palestine.Hypothetically, even if Blinken had received suggestions from Israel to propose, during his diplomatic tour of the region, a transfer of the Palestinian population to Sinai, the firm stance of all Arab interlocutors would have convinced the U.S. administration that it could go no further. Blinken made clear in an interview with Randa Abul Azm of Al-Arabiya that the United States would not support a transfer. "We've heard, and I've heard directly from Palestinian Authority President Abbas and from virtually every other leader that I've talked to in the region, that that idea is a nonstarter, and so we do not support it. We believe that people should be able to stay in Gaza, their home." King Abdullah expounded on the reason for the refusal on Tuesday at a press conference in Berlin with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, where he referred to refugees as "a red line." The next day, the Egyptian president said the same to Scholz at a journalists' gathering in Cairo. Finally, after his quick return from Amman to Ramallah after the attack on Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza, Abbas clarified that Palestinians will not leave their country. Abbas, a veteran refugee from Safed, has all the experience to determine that, for the Palestinians, Nakba 2.0 is the fear that has been hovering over them in recent months and years, and is a chapter in their history that they refuse to live again at all costs.Blinken's diplomatic whirlwind tour of major Arab capitals, from Cairo to Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Amman, in which he attempted to formulate an exit strategy for the Israelis from Gaza, effectively failed even before the mass killings at Al-Ahli Hospital. From the very moment Al Jazeera began broadcasting the horrific images of the dead in the hospital compound, another element entered the game: the emotional and political reaction of the Arab street, of the people and societies looking at a story that is already etched in their personal biographies and national history.There were immediate, spontaneous demonstrations in the streets of Amman, Tunisia, Beirut, and Cairo. Governments were careful not to prohibit the protests, instead settling for restricting them, because they know very well that everything is different since the Arab Spring of 2011. Through the history of rebellions and revolutions, anyone who has gone out into the streets has internalized the following: a regime can fall. Everyone knows this, including the rulers.The surprising momentum of the events following the hospital bombing led to the hasty cancellation of the summit. For the Arab players, it was impossible to meet with the United States about the issue of refugees while the Americans are increasingly perceived as clinging to their alliance with Israel. On the other hand, the events shifted the discussion from the refugee question to an immediate demand for a ceasefire — not humanitarian corridors, but an immediate cessation of hostilities. The Arab states are demanding an end to the war, as is the UN.As has already happened in the region's history, the wind rising from Gaza blows beyond the narrow boundaries of the enclave, with all the dangers involved. For example, Sisi does not want to go down as the first president in the history of the Egyptian republic to allow Nakba 2.0, and certainly not before the Egyptian elections this December, which are supposed to consolidate his rule. King Abdullah heads a state with a significant Palestinian presence, not only numerically but also in terms of economic weight. And above all, relations between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Hashemite Kingdom have always been chilly and at times very complicated. The question of preserving the holy sites of Islam and Christianity in the Old City of Jerusalem is, among other things, at the heart of a fierce diplomatic clash between Jordan and the Netanyahu-led extreme right-wing coalition that has unfolded in recent years.Even Saudi Arabia, although it has begun the process of normalizing its relations with Israel, is no longer the same country that offered a peace plan 20 years ago in exchange for security, out of sensitivity to its alliance with the United States. The deepening presence of China in the Middle East, which during the COVID-19 pandemic consolidated its economic ties with many of the Persian Gulf coastal countries, is one of the main factors in the game today, first and foremost because China has managed to mediate a surprising reconciliation between the two biggest competitors in the region, Saudi Arabia and Iran.In other words, the United States' leeway for action is shrinking. The role of Washington, which clings so closely to Israel, is in danger of being tested at a critical moment when the Middle East will no longer be what it was. It seems that the United States does not have a sufficient understanding of the region, just as the $100 million offered by Biden as aid to the Palestinians at the end of his visit to Israel certainly does not suffice: each of Gaza's reconstruction plans, after five Israeli military operations in the past 15 years, is estimated at billions of dollars.This article was republished with permission from +972 Magazine..

For the United States to commit itself in advance to take the side of some other country that becomes involved in an international conflict is an extraordinary step that is justified only under extraordinary circumstances. There needs to be a credible external threat to the country being protected. And there must be enough commonality of interests and values between the United States and the protected state that the difference between that state falling or not falling to external aggression is highly significant for U.S. interests.A possible standard for measuring the appropriateness of security commitments is the grandest such U.S. commitment, under the North Atlantic Treaty. Whatever one may think of NATO's later expansion and out-of-area activities, the circumstances justifying a U.S. security commitment were present when the alliance was created in the late 1940s. The Soviet Union's military had overrun Eastern Europe and converted its states into satellite communist dictatorships. If the then-fragile democracies of Western Europe experienced the same fate, the result would have been disastrous for U.S. interests.Nothing remotely resembling those circumstances exists today in the Persian Gulf region. No Red Army is poised to take over the region. No would-be regional hegemon exists. Certainly not Iran, weakened by sanctions, preoccupied with internal divisions, and facing the disadvantage of being an ethnic and religious minority in a region that is largely Arab and Sunni.Saudi Arabia is the state that has had the most recent go at something approaching regional hegemony. It has employed military force outside its borders to prop up an unpopular regime in Bahrain and, on a much larger scale, to try to impose its will on Yemen through a highly destructive air war. That attempt failed, and Riyadh evidently has come to realize that its security is better served through accommodation rather than a quest for domination.Nor is there anything in the region like the difference, in terms of values and interests, that there was in 1940s Europe between Western democracies and Soviet satellite dictatorships. The Gulf Arab states are absolute monarchies. The only thing in those states that sounds close to democracy is a mostly elected National Assembly in Kuwait, but whenever that body gets too noisy and difficult to suit the ruling regime, the emir simply dissolves it.Despite these circumstances, the Biden administration is extending security guarantees to Gulf states, most recently by signing a Comprehensive Security Integration and Prosperity Agreement with Bahrain. The agreement commits the United States, "in the event of external aggression or the threat of external aggression" against Bahrain, to "immediately meet at the most senior levels to determine additional defense needs and to develop and implement appropriate defense and deterrent responses as decided upon by the Parties, including in the economic, military, and/or political realms."An anonymous administration official took pains to point out that the agreement is not a treaty and therefore does not need approval by the U.S. Senate. But apparently seeking to have it both ways, the official also stated that the agreement is "legally binding."No effort was made to identify what external aggression the parties have in mind. Iran, of course, is the state that automatically gets mentioned as a supposed threat. But the image of Iran mustering a D-Day-like invasion fleet and crossing the gulf to conduct an amphibious invasion of Bahrain is so fanciful as to be absurd (whether or not U.S. warships were in the gulf).Bahrain certainly has had its differences with Iran, probably at least as much as does any other member of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Historical baggage in the relationship includes an old Iranian claim to Bahrain as the "14th province" of Iran, but in recent decades Iran has not tried to act on any such claim. The situation is quite unlike, say, the one involving Taiwan, in which China constantly declares to the world that it considers the island a part of China and periodically uses military saber-rattling to advertise the possibility of an invasion.To the extent the regime in Bahrain faces a security threat, it involves not external aggression but instead internal strife stemming from an unpopular Sunni regime repressing a largely Shia population. The Saudi military intervention in Bahrain in 2011 was intended to help the Bahraini regime suppress an Arab Spring-era popular uprising.The regime oppression and popular discontent continue. This year, Bahraini prisoners conducted a months-long hunger strike to protest harsh conditions in the prison. The hunger strike was suspended when the regime, on the eve of crown prince's trip to Washington to sign the new security agreement, eased some of the conditions. But Bahrain remains a serious violator of human rights.The unlikelihood of any external aggression against Bahrain means the clause in the new agreement that dictates the response to such aggression probably will not be invoked. The disadvantages of the agreement lie principally in two other areas. One involves getting more deeply in bed with an oppressive regime, with everything that implies regarding the U.S. image among, and relations with, the Bahraini population and Shia generally, among others. Many external and internal critics of Bahrain are reportedly angered and disappointed by the agreement. The director of the Britain-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy said that Bahraini authorities would interpret the agreement as a "green light" to increase political repression.The other main ill consequence of the agreement is that it runs counter to and undercuts a beneficial trend toward reducing international tensions in the Persian Gulf region. Bahrain's fellow GCC members have all been moving in the direction of warmer, less confrontational, relations with Iran. Kuwait and Oman have long had businesslike relations with Tehran and have at times served as diplomatic intermediaries for others. Similarly with Qatar, which shares with Iran exploitation of a huge gas field. Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates has been improving its relations with Tehran, and this month Saudi Arabia and Iran exchanged ambassadors as implementation of their agreement earlier this year to restore diplomatic relations.The issue of confrontation versus rapprochement with Iran gets into the larger game that the Biden administration is playing and of which the Bahrain agreement is only a part. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during the signing ceremony, "We're looking forward to using this agreement as a framework for additional countries that may wish to join us in strengthening regional stability, economic cooperation and technological innovation."The additional country the administration clearly has most in mind is Saudi Arabia, which has identified a security pact with the United States as part of the price it is demanding in return for upgrading its already significant relationship with Israel to full diplomatic relations. The administration evidently hopes the agreement with Bahrain can be a model for the kind of pact that would satisfy the Saudi demand while bypassing likely opposition on Capitol Hill.Despite the effort the administration is putting into brokering an agreement to upgrade relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, it still has not explained how any such agreement would serve either U.S. interests or the cause of peace and stability in the Middle East. In fact, it would do neither, and instead would only prolong and even increase confrontation and instability in the region. To understand why, note the principal Israeli objectives in seeking exchanges of embassies and ambassadors with the Persian Gulf Arab states, with which it is not at war.One objective is to intensify and institutionalize confrontation with, and fear and loathing of, Iran, thereby keeping it as a bête noire that can be blamed for all problems in the region and divert international attention from any problems that involve Israel's conduct. This means more, not less, tension and risk of escalation in the Persian Gulf region. And that is even before considering more of the Saudi regime's price for upgrading relations with the Israelis, including more unrestricted arms sales and help with a Saudi nuclear program.The other Israeli objective is to demonstrate that Israel can enjoy normal relations with regional states while continuing its occupation of Palestinian-inhabited territory. Far from being a "peace" agreement, an upgrading of relations with Saudi Arabia — like the earlier upgrading with Bahrain, Morocco, and the UAE — would be about Israel not making peace with the Palestinians.Given the extreme right-wing nature of the Israeli government, led by a prime minister determined to keep his coalition intact and keep himself away from prosecution for corruption, any gesture toward the Palestinians that Riyadh and Washington could wring out of Israel would be little more than that — a gesture. It is inconceivable that the current Israeli government would do anything substantial that would bring closer a Palestinian state or any other resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.In short, the administration's project of buying an upgrade of Arab relations with Israel is not justified. And thus, neither is the agreement with Bahrain that is one part of that project.

Romina Boccia and Dominik Lett


Congress is in the midst of debating the annual defense spending bill and chances for completion before the August recess look bleak. The multitrillion‐​dollar increase in the debt limit, which Congress passed in early June following months of negotiations, established budget levels for defense and nondefense appropriations for the next two years. The parties remain divided on the details.
Spending debates that are contentious now will likely get worse in future years, as the current fiscal trajectory will place inevitable constraints on America's military. Without reforms to health care and retirement benefits, other domestic and defense priorities will be increasingly squeezed. As debt levels and associated interest costs rise, economic growth will suffer. And as the share of the budget dedicated to autopilot entitlement spending expands, reduced fiscal capacity will further increase budgetary conflict over the shrinking portion of discretionary spending that Congress allocates each year.
Congress only debates 28 cents of every dollar it spends; the vast majority of federal spending goes out without congressional deliberation, primarily funding programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, among other entitlements. A new mechanism is needed to reform entitlement spending and avoid a future fiscal crisis before it's too late.
Erosion of economic power
According to the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO's) latest long‐​term budget outlook, publicly held debt will grow from 98 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to 181 percent of GDP by 2053. Most economic research finds that excessive public debt reduces economic growth, with dampening effects kicking in around debt reaching 78 percent of GDP.
There are many benefits of a robust economy including a higher standard of living. A strong domestic economy is also critical for supporting national security. Prominent national security leaders, including former Secretaries of State, Defense, Treasury, and Homeland Security across eight Republican and Democratic administrations, were recently gathered by the Peterson Foundation's Coalition for Fiscal and National Security. They argue that:
"[L]ong-term debt is the single greatest threat to our national security…This debt burden would slow economic growth, reduce income levels, and harm our national security posture. It would inevitably constrain funding for a strong military and effective diplomacy, and draw resources away from the investments that are essential for our economic strength and leading role among nations."

Delaying responsible fiscal reforms in the face of growing federal debt invites economic and national decline. High and rising U.S. federal debt leads to suppressed private investment, reduced incomes, and increased risk of a sudden fiscal crisis. A weaker economy and growing concerns by international bondholders of U.S. treasuries about the government's ability and willingness to service its debt—without resorting to high inflation—will drive up interest costs and eventually impact America's international standing negatively.
While investors continue to gobble up U.S. debt, which now exceeds $25 trillion, the $114 trillion in additional deficits CBO projects over the next 30 years pose serious questions about whether there will be enough appetite for markets to absorb such high levels of government debt. Troubling too is how much productivity‐​enhancing private investments will suffer because of crowding out. The prudent choice is to restore fiscal sustainability during times of peace and economic strength, reversing America's unsustainable debt crisis while it's still possible.
National defense is a core responsibility of the federal government. To maximize Americans' safety and prosperity, prudence should guide both strategy and the budget. A dire fiscal crisis would erode the economic foundation of America's strength, limiting U.S. capacity to defend its vital interests at home and abroad.
Crowding out of defense spending as a budget priority
Entitlements are increasingly dominating the federal budget. Since 1962, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other income security programs such as food stamps have grown four times larger as a share of GDP and consume more than half of the federal budget. By comparison, defense spending declined by a factor of three as a share of GDP, from 9 percent of GDP in 1962 to 3 percent of GDP by 2022. Defense spending makes up less than one‐​fifth of the budget, despite growing in real, inflation‐​adjusted terms as entitlement spending has claimed an increasing share of the taxpayer burden. In real terms, annual defense spending has increased by nearly $200 billion between 1962 and 2022. Meanwhile, annual entitlement spending has grown by $3.3 trillion over the same timeframe. The graphic below shows how entitlements have grown to consume a greater share of total non‐​interest spending over time.











As entitlements consume a larger share of the budget, this exerts downward pressure on other budget priorities. Former Principal Research Scientist for Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Security Studies Program Cindy Williams explains,
"Absent significant reform or a major expansion of the total federal budget, the rising costs of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will continue to crowd out defense spending. In the extreme, if federal budgets are held near today's levels as a share of GDP, nondefense discretionary spending is not reduced significantly, and mandatory spending is not brought under control, there will soon be no money left for defense."
Defense has also been a prime target for cuts across several congressional efforts to reduce government spending. The Manhattan Institute's Brian Riedl examined 14 major deficit‐​reduction negotiations since 1980. More than any other category, legislators tend to reduce defense spending during fiscal consolidation periods. Cuts to defense discretionary spending produced the largest savings in four of six deficit‐​reduction deals. Despite entitlements primarily driving rising deficits, mandatory spending reforms in these deals were modest at best. It seems politically easier to keep targeting discretionary spending for cuts than to tackle the key driver of rising spending: entitlements.
For those in favor of restraining the scope of U.S. military engagement, a fiscally restrained government may have some upside. Cato's Justin Logan and former Cato research fellow Ben Friedman argue that depressed economic growth and rising interest rates driven by high debt could make the defense budget an increasingly likely target for cuts. Logan and Friedman write,
"The U.S. military of the 2010s and 2020s will likely have a moderately less ambitious strategy and smaller budget than that of last decade. But the ambitions will still be hegemonic and the budget massive, hardly those of a normal country concerned chiefly with its own affairs. Unfortunately, the old Bolshevik saying, ''the worse, the better'' may apply for those seeking to rein in American military ambition. Ironically, we are left to push for military restraint while rooting against the conditions liable to produce it."

In this way, a smaller U.S. defense budget would put real limits on unnecessary and self‐​defeating American military activities overseas by, constraining American legislators. Paradoxically, some level of defense budget constraints could improve U.S. national security by reducing our involvement in military conflicts that are not in America's national interest.
Apply a defense savings mechanism to the broader budget
The United States' unsustainable fiscal trajectory is almost entirely driven by rising interest expenses and entitlement spending. Legislators must work together to reform the major entitlement programs to avoid a potential debt crisis, massive tax increases, and lagging economic growth. One idea gaining traction is a debt commission to assist legislators with adopting budget reforms to stabilize the growth in the debt.
The 1988 Base Realignment and Closure Act (BRAC) successfully addressed the politically thorny issue of closing military bases and can serve as a model for Congress's debt commission. BRAC established an independent commission to select military bases for closures, with recommendations that were approved by the President being adopted by default in Congress unless legislators successfully passed a resolution of disapproval. BRAC successfully bypassed special interest politics and congressional gridlock to free up funding for more essential defense priorities. Congress should consider establishing a BRAC‐​like, independent fiscal commission to recommend changes to stabilize the debt at no more than 100 percent of GDP over the next 10 years.
A well‐​designed commission will be composed of a diverse group of experts, guided by clear goals established by Congress, and whose recommendations will be self‐​executing after Presidential approval; benefitting from so‐​called fast‐​track authority. Asking members of Congress to affirmatively vote for entitlement reforms recommended by such a commission will most likely undermine the debt commission's recommendations from becoming law. Few legislators are willing to stick their necks out in support of necessary and yet unpopular changes to Medicare and Social Security.
Unsustainable fiscal policy imperils American economic and military strength. By reforming entitlement programs and reducing spending, legislators can prevent high debt from undermining America's prosperity and security. A well‐​designed debt commission can help Congress to see this through.

This article was co-published with The New Arab.Close watchers of Israel's war in Gaza have faced a question in recent months: If the U.S. is rushing weapons to Israel, then why hasn't the public heard of any arms sales besides two relatively small transfers late last year?The Washington Post delivered an answer last week. Reporter John Hudson revealed that the Biden administration has approved over 100 smaller weapons packages for Israel since Oct. 7 that fell under the $25 million threshold for formally notifying Congress — and thus the public — about the transfers. In total, these mini sales could add up to more than $1 billion worth of U.S. military aid.The decision to deliver U.S. aid in smaller packages is far from unusual. The U.S. government has done so in the past for practical and nefarious purposes alike; only about 2% of weapons transfers occur above the threshold to notify Congress, according to former officials. But what is abnormal is the fact that many of those weapons were likely pre-positioned on Israeli territory before the war. Unlike other countries, Israel has a stockpile of American weapons on its soil to which it has privileged access. When a U.S.-made bomb slams into Gaza, there's a real chance that it started the day in an American facility, managed by American soldiers and governed by American law."It's clear that it's been a major source of arms for Israel," said Josh Paul, a former State Department official who resigned in protest of U.S. support for Israel's war. Unfortunately, Paul added, "it's an opaque process, so it's hard to say exactly what weapons they're getting" from the stockpile.This cache of arms is just a small piece of the puzzle. Taken as a whole, U.S. efforts to shield Israel from human rights restrictions and guarantee its access to continued military aid go further than for any other country, according to experts and former senior U.S. officials. These advantages include modified human rights vetting, special access to U.S. weapons, and a veto on American arms sales to Israel's neighbors. Up to this point, the State Department hasn't carried out a formal assessment of Israel's compliance with the law in its Gaza war.Experts claim these arms transfer cutouts have continued or, in some areas, been expanded since Israel launched its campaign in Gaza, which has left over 31,000 Palestinians dead and much of the strip's population in famine or famine-like conditions. Even last month, as war crime accusations mounted, the U.S. reportedly gave Israel at least 1,000 precision-guided munitions and artillery shells."The bottom line is that either you have human rights standards and legal standards or you don't," Paul said. When U.S. officials fail to hold Israel accountable for alleged abuses, "it not only creates an exception for Israel, but it also undermines your diplomacy with other countries," he told Responsible Statecraft/ The New Arab."I have serious concerns that the continued transfer of weapons to Israel is facilitating indiscriminate bombing that may violate international humanitarian law," Rep. Joaquin Castro told Responsible Statecraft/ The New Arab in a statement. "Congress needs to push the Biden administration to hold Benjamin Netanyahu accountable for any use of U.S. security assistance that violates international law."State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told Responsible Statecraft/ The New Arab that all transfers to Israel since Oct. 7 have followed U.S. law and policy, including notifications to Congress. "We have followed the procedures Congress itself has specified to keep members well-informed and regularly brief members even when formal notification is not a legal requirement," Miller said in a statement, adding that claims that the U.S. has cut up weapons packages in order to avoid public scrutiny are "unequivocally false."The White House did not respond to a request for comment.Exceptions make the rulesWhen a Middle Eastern country asks the U.S. for weapons, American officials' minds go straight to Israel. Would Tel Aviv approve of the transfer? Could new fighter jets give Egypt an edge over Israel on the battlefield if their peace deal fell apart? Would Israeli officials come around if we offer them better weapons to sweeten the pot?This line of reasoning doesn't have anything to do with the personal opinions of U.S. officials. In fact, U.S. law explicitly states that the U.S. must give Israel a "qualitative military edge" over its neighbors to counter a threat from "any individual state or possible coalition of states or [...] non-state actors."U.S. partners are starkly aware of — and unhappy about — this reality, according to a former senior U.S. military official in Cairo who requested anonymity to speak freely about his experience. Egyptian officials would sometimes request high-tech weapons just to "watch us squirm and come up with some way to say 'no' without saying the Israelis won't approve it," the former official recalled."This is another place where it's very explicit that Israel has a special status that no other country enjoys," said John Ramming-Chappell of the Center for Civilians in Conflict.This qualitative advantage is enforced by the quantitative side. Since World War II, Israel is far and away the largest recipient of U.S. military aid. Washington's funding for the Israeli military, which now totals $3.8 billion per year, makes up about 16% of its total budget, according to the Congressional Research Service. Israel, which can spend part of its U.S. aid on Israeli weapons, gets this cash in an interest-bearing account in New York, making it one of only two states that get a multimillion-dollar tip on top of baseline U.S. support.When it comes to human rights, Israel also gets special protections. Take the Leahy law, a statute that prevents specific units of foreign militaries from receiving U.S. aid if American officials have evidence they've committed "gross violations of human rights." For most countries, Leahy vetting happens before aid is disbursed. Israel gets the equipment first, and the ensuing vetting process looks different than for other countries. Lower-level State Department officials have found multiple cases in which Israeli units should lose access to American weapons under U.S. law, but those cases are consistently blocked by higher-ups in government who usually don't weigh in on such cases for other countries, according to Paul.The result is that, unlike Egypt and other U.S. partners in the Middle East, no Israeli unit has ever been sanctioned under the Leahy law despite numerous credible allegations of human rights abuses, a fact that the statute's namesake has loudly railed against. The State Department has previously justified this disparity by pointing to Israel's judicial system, which U.S. officials believe is capable of handling human rights violations internally.In recent weeks, congressional attention has focused on whether Israel is violating a U.S. law that prevents countries from receiving American weapons if they block U.S. humanitarian aid in whole or in part. While the statute has rarely been enforced, the Biden administration promised to hold states accountable to the law in a recent memorandum.At this point, many experts and lawmakers believe Israel is in clear violation of this law given how little aid now enters Gaza. Yet the White House has still not offered a reason — or a formal waiver — to justify its failure to enforce its own commitment."I really haven't heard a good response to the question of why we should not apply existing U.S. law [...] to ensure that U.S. military assistance is used in accordance with our values," said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md."Given the evidence that Israel is intentionally blocking the passage of humanitarian aid to Gaza, the Biden administration has an obligation to enforce Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act and move towards limitations on further offensive aid to Israel as long as the aid blockade continues," Rep. Castro said.'As supportive as possible'When the White House moved to expedite weapons transfers to Israel after Oct. 7, it faced an unusual problem. The president already had more than enough authority to make this happen, but officials wanted to signal that they were being "as supportive as possible." The solution was to further loosen laws around U.S. arms transfers, according to Paul, who still worked in government at the time.
"It's not that those were things that we'd been previously thinking about," Paul said. "The previous position within government had been [that] Israel already has more than you could possibly want in terms of authorities and funding."
Now, the Senate's supplemental spending package for Israel has provisions that would dramatically expand the secretive U.S. stockpile on Israeli soil while loosening public reporting requirements about transfers from it. A bill with similar changes passed the House as well, signaling broad support for the proposal in Congress.
Alongside already existing loopholes, these new restrictions weaken America's case that it is committed to protecting human rights on the world stage, according to Ramming-Chappell.
"The exceptional status that Israel enjoys in U.S. arms transfer policy and law, when taken in conjunction with the devastating effects of Israel's current campaign in Gaza, really undermines U.S. leadership and claims to moral authority in the international sphere," he said.

The Iraqi army captain who assassinated King Faisal II and his family in 1958 claimed, "All I did was remember Palestine, and the trigger on the machine-gun just set itself off." Although Iraqi historians refute this assertion and maintain the officer was a delusional madman, in the days leading up to the massacre of the royal family, the Iraqi opposition had been emboldened by growing anti-Israel sentiment and a perception that the Iraqi monarchy leaned too heavily toward Western nations which enabled Israeli aggression toward Arab states. Six decades later, the Palestinian question still enrages the "Arab Street." The war in Gaza raises concerns of violent regional spillover and Iraq would not be not immune from the consequences. Unlike the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon, however, it is unlikely that armed conflict will come to Iraq as sympathy for the Palestinians will not trump war fatigue. Yet, there are reasons to fear the indirect costs of war. Chief among those concerns revolve around neighboring Iran being involved in a wider conflict, but no less significant could be the effects on the internal politics of Iraq, its economy, and its international relations. Much will depend on the skills of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani to balance the pressure from his political opponents and the armed militias.Internal politicsAll politics are local, and in Iraq they are often armed. Unlike the dictatorships, dynasties, and monarchies surrounding it, Iraq remains a parliamentary democracy, generally responsive to public sentiment but also coercion from armed militias outside of government control.Iraq's recent history shows the best and worst of democracy, free speech, and the right to assemble. In October 2019, widespread street protests over corruption, unemployment, inadequate services, and poor living conditions brought down the government of Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi. The Tishreen ("October") protesters demanded the resignation of Abdul-Mahdi, commitments to reform, and early elections. While authorities responded with a relatively heavy hand, the government fell within two months. Abdul-Mahdi's replacement, Mustafa al Kadhimi, enjoyed a full term in office but the process of replacing him with the current prime minister, Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani came after Iraq went through the longest period without a formal government in its modern history. Among other factors, his appointment was fiercely opposed by the powerful rabble-rousing Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr when Sadr was unable to form a government. Sadr's party resigned en masse from Parliament but not before his followers stormed the Council of Representatives in July 2022 twice, and occupied the Presidential Palace the following month. The departure of the Sadrists from the palace led to a deadly firefight in the Green Zone which soon spread to Iraq's southern provinces. Against this backdrop of violence and turmoil, the Sudani government came to power in October 2022 fully understanding the need to remain sensitive to public opinion and well armed political opponents. The Sudani government also remains under pressure from militias, a delicate balancing act for a country beholden to the accomplishments of these groups in the fight against Daesh, or ISIS. These militias enjoy quasi-political influence on the Iraqi body politic and are closely tied to Iran. Sudani's political opponents have been closely watching for a misstep (common to all opposition parties worldwide), not least Sadr, who has already called on his supporters to join "peaceful" demonstrations in protest of Israel's war on Gaza. Rarely are Sadrist demonstrations peaceful as shown by the sit-ins in 2021 and the violent attacks into the protected Green Zone in 2022.Against this backdrop, Sudani maintains a careful reading of internal politics. While he may not be ousted by demonstrations like Abdul-Mahdi or fend off assassination attempts as did Khadimi, participating in internal politics remains a risky business in Iraq; so is international diplomacy.External relations While Prime Minister Sudani has demonstrated strong skills in managing Iraq's internal politics, external relations with Iran and the United States could provide the missteps his opponents seek. Despite strong condemnation of the attacks into Gaza, Iran-backed militias have significantly ramped up their drone and rocket attacks on U.S. military bases in Iraq and Syria.In response, a parade of U.S. officials from CIA Director William Burns to Secretary of State Antony Blinken (adorned in body armor) have visited Iraq since October 7 persuading, cajoling, and warning Sudani of the consequences of continued attacks on U.S. personnel. Sudani issued stern warnings that Iraqi territory should not be used as a proxy battlefield, and that continued attacks by these groups may provoke U.S. action against Iran even in the absence of proof that these attacks were "explicitly ordered" by Tehran. Arresting a small number of suspects in the attacks has, for the moment, kept the diplomatic situation somewhat calm. Sudani seems to have found a way to acquiesce to Washington's demands while placating Iran and the militias. Keen on maintaining positive relations with both Iran and the U.S., while remaining attentive and in tune to sentiments on the street, Sudani cannot risk being perceived as cowering to Western pressures at a time when public opinion is overwhelmingly in support of Gaza. But that balancing act will require continued statesmanship to uphold Iraq's sovereignty without being labeled by detractors as a puppet of any hegemon, whether Iran or the U.S. A tipping point, however, may be if the war in Gaza continues. The recent outcry against the December 25 airstrikes by the U.S. military in response to a rocket attack which seriously injured an American soldier is the most recent example. Not only did Sudani call the rocket attack an act of terrorism, but also condemned the American strike as a serious violation of Iraqi sovereignty and announced that "the Iraqi government is heading towards ending the presence of international coalition forces."Economic effectsWhile Iraq's economy has shown some signs of recovery in recent months — 25 percent of Iraqis reportedly live below the poverty line — unemployment is forecasted to reach 40 percent, and climate change has contributed to water scarcity. There is little appetite for yet another war in Iraq when average Iraqis are battling to get by.In the event the Gaza conflict expands, Iraqis could be affected by events such as the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. Blocking maritime traffic through the Suez Canal and rerouting traffic around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa could affect the relatively modest inflation rate in Iraq at a time when the Iraqi dinar has also gone through a significant depreciation. While the economic situation in Iraq is far better than regional neighbors such as Iran, Turkey, and Egypt, expectations from consumers used to relatively stable prices are high and even a small amount of economic turbulence on top of anger at the situation in Gaza could challenge the Sudani government. As former Iraqi Energy Minister Luay Al Khateeb puts it, "If the Gaza war engulfs Iran, this will lead to major consequences on Iraq's political and economic stability. The ramifications will force Iran to prioritize its needs to meet local demand on power sector and gas supplies and cut natural gas electricity exports to Iraq."Iraq currently imports electricity and gas from Iran that total close to 40 percent of its power supply. "Iran's force majeure cuts will compromise Iraq's national grid to disable 50 percent of Iraq's service sectors and investment projects, affecting the country's revenue; [it will have a] negative impact on GDP and will most certainly ignite unprecedented populous protests against the government and the political system at large," says Al Khateeb. "For Iraq to avoid such a situation, a quick short term resolution will come at a major cost to compensate for the losses by importing expensive diesel and securing more financial allocation for power generation maintenance that will eventually increase the budget deficit beyond control."Iraq's former Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Dr Ali Allawi concurs."A war certainly would lead to Iranian cutbacks of gas supplied to Iraq," he says, adding, "It would also be used to pressure Iraq to drop its public neutrality between the U.S. and Iran. The Iraqi public is decidedly in favor of Palestine, and the Gaza war has made the Iranian connection less contentious than before."While international actors seek to contain the violence inside of Israel and Gaza, regional actors seem intent on expanding the war well beyond those borders. Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and Iran-backed militias seem hell-bent on spreading the flames. The United States blames Iran as the source of regional provocations and even if inaccurate, the U.S. has put its forces on war footing, sending aircraft carriers and increased intelligence and other combat capabilities into the region, ostensibly to deter and contain the conflict — moves that inadvertently increase the dangers.of that very conflagration either by mistake, miscalculation, or misstep. The recent American-led maritime mission, Operation Prosperity Guardian, will increase the number of international warships in the Red Sea and should a Houthi missile sink a commercial tanker or a U.S. warship, the responses and counter-responses may make the war in Gaza seem minor.The Middle East has not seen this level of instability in decades and Iraq is not immune from that instability. Even if, to date, it has not been directly affected by the Gaza war or a wider regional conflict, Iraq it is already feeling its indirect effects through increased tensions between the U.S. and Iran, large scale street protests in support of Palestine, Iranian -backed militias attacking U.S. personnel, domestic political opponents, and impacts on the Iraqi economy. While Prime Minister Sudani has deftly managed those challenges to date, it remains problematic whether he, or Iraq, can weather the storms blowing in from Gaza for much longer.

Fifty years is a long enough time to dissipate the impact of war. In the United States, the Vietnam War is no longer much discussed. Scholars still plow the field, but the war that tore America apart, spurred a counterculture movement, killed 57,000 Americans (and vastly more Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians), led to a restructuring of the U.S. military and the all-volunteer force, and was an impetus to Desert Storm no longer shapes the discourse.My students were born in 2002 or 2003; they're voting age. Even those with living grandparents who served in Vietnam don't know much if anything about the conflict. Of course, there have been intervening failures that proved costly, although not on the same scale. But proximity bias — the hard-wired human tendency to accord greater importance to things that are closer than others in time or distance — ensured that the mayhem generated by the Iraq and Afghan Wars would eclipse the awfulness of Vietnam.The Yom Kippur War of 1973 has likewise receded in the Israeli imagination. But its specter is more complex. The 2,500 Israeli soldiers killed (a fraction of the 15,000 Arabs who perished) was three times the per capita human cost of the Vietnam War to the United States. I was in Israel during that time, and everyone knew someone who'd been killed. The war was also far shorter, about 10 days, so the casualty list had an outsized emotional impact. It was not the long slog of Vietnam, but rather an avalanche.Early in the war, Syrian armor destroyed the Israeli tank brigade deployed to the Golan Heights and reached Gesher B'not Yaakov (Jisr Banat Yaqub). Just beyond it was the Jezreel Valley. The prospect of a large Syrian armored formation penetrating the Israeli heartland was as ghastly for Israelis as it must have been thrilling for the Syrians. The United States has never experienced anything like this, including 9/11.In the space of this instant, violence burgeoned. The largest tank battle since World War II, when German and Soviet armored juggernauts collided at Kursk, unfolded on the Golan. Fierce battles developed in the Sinai and then on the left bank of Suez, where Israeli forces encircled an entire Egyptian army. A week into the war, the U.S. launched its largest-ever intra-war arms transfer. For days, U.S. C-5 cargo aircraft touched down at Israeli airfields every six minutes. The airlift, however, occurred after Israel had regained its balance and counterattacked, halting an hour outside of Damascus and holding Egyptian territory — in addition to the Sinai, where Israel stopped the main thrust of Egyptian armor toward the mountains passes and destroyed the advancing units.The war also included other dramatic moments. Apparently believing that the Soviets were preparing to intervene militarily on Syria's behalf, the Nixon administration raised the United States' nuclear readiness level, an extraordinary step. Saudi Arabia led an OPEC oil embargo against the United States that carried profound implications for its economic and political stability for the ensuing decade, bringing the so-called long summer of postwar economic growth to an end and guaranteeing an era of sluggish economic growth and high inflation.The long-term effects of the war on Israel were profound as well. The outcome, despite the phenomenal recovery of Israeli forces under the much maligned but in fact highly competent IDF chief of staff, was traumatically dislocating for an Israeli public accustomed to thinking that its victory in the 1967 war rendered the state immune to Arab military challenge.Within four years, the Labor Party that had dominated Israeli politics in one form or another since 1948 was dislodged. Trust in the old elites was shattered. The intelligence community failed to credit the Egyptian and Syrian commitment to waging war. Across the board there was a conviction that the conditions under which the Arabs would launch an offensive simply did not exist. And Military Intelligence disregarded Mossad's success in recruiting a senior member of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's entourage who underscored that a war was in the cards. Moreover, the Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir, who had presided over the disaster, had heeded stern guidance from Nixon and Kissinger not to preempt Arab war preparations when these were finally acknowledged 24 hours before the start of hostilities.Whether or not this was a wise call on Washington's part, it certainly increased the butcher's bill Israel was to pay and undermined the Labor government. Meir would come under attack later for having ignored Sadat's peace feelers following the 1969 War of Attrition along the Suez Canal. Sadat, however, tended to frame his overtures as demands for an upfront Israeli withdrawal from all of the Sinai Peninsula, which the Israeli government could not meet. There was plenty of blame to go around. In any case, combined with serious ethnic tensions generated by the political mobilization of Mizrahim — Jews who had immigrated from the Arab states of the Middle East and North Africa — the cratering of Labor credibility enabled the ascendance of the Likud Party.Half a century later, what lingering significance does the war have? Israel and Saudi Arabia are negotiating normalization, which will entail a civilian Saudi nuclear capability that is inherently dual-purpose. The Abraham Accords have already normalized Israel's relations with Bahrain, the UAE, Sudan, and Morocco. Egypt and Jordan have longstanding peace treaties with Israel. Syria has been neutered by a long, destructive civil war. Lebanon has ceased to exist as a functioning state and has not engaged Israel in hostilities since 2006. Two eviscerating wars with the United States removed Iraq as a potential combatant of the old rejectionist front.A cataclysmic ground war between Israel and its neighbors has been inconceivable during this veritable Age of Aquarius. But if the Yom Kippur War is no longer relevant, the present irenic reality — excluding the West Bank and Gaza — is largely due to the instrumentalization of that conflict by the Nixon administration for the purpose of peacemaking. One really can't contemplate these developments without implicitly thinking about the 1973 war.Another potent outcome of the war was the diplomatic process that surrounded the ceasefire and the years that followed. Kissinger gets credit for this, not unfairly. He was not one to waste a crisis. He seized the opportunity the war presented to use Sadat's evident interest in joining the Western camp and Israel's reliance on American support to bind each closer to Washington while crowding out the Soviet Union. Although his diplomatic strategy yielded disengagement agreements on both fronts, the fact remains that Egypt and Israel had embarked on a quiet bilateral process even as the guns were still cooling.Sadat had waged the war to shatter the status quo by drawing Israeli blood and bringing the U.S. into the conflict. His goal was the negotiated return of Sinai to Egyptian control. The war, for him, had a clear and well-defined political purpose. Although the seven years that preceded the Camp David Accords were at times touch and go — down to the climactic talks themselves — the so-called peace process would be difficult to imagine without the bloody impetus of 1973. Kissinger's key insight, regrettably abandoned by his successors but seemingly grasped now by Beijing, is that it pays to maintain ties with both sides in a conflict.As the Arab-Israeli conflict has devolved to Israel and the Palestinians, this lesson of the 1973 war has faded for Israel as well. Israel's use of force now has no political objective. Its purpose is solely conflict management and deterrence. To borrow from Lord Carrington's verdict on NATO, it is to keep the Palestinians down, the U.S. out, and wealthy Persian Gulf states in.Yet, perversely, the possibility of change is in the air. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right coalition partners are less interested in managing the level of violence on the West Bank than in informally annexing it. Their commitment to Israeli settlement of the West Bank is greater than their interest in grand geopolitical deals that might boost the Tel Aviv stock exchange but defer redemption of biblical lands. One could construe the hard right's agenda as restoring a true political objective to Israel's fight with the Palestinians.The 1973 war also altered Israeli military doctrine. Planners have recognized that — beginning with that war — Israel has not won any major ones. (Neither has the United States.) The reasons for this are legion, but one stands out: the losers do not concede defeat. They take a licking but keep on ticking. Hence the most recent development in Israel's military doctrine, accorded the acronym Mabam, meaning "the battles between the wars."The idea is that major wars are no longer decisive and will therefore recur periodically. The best course is to delay these wars and weaken adversaries' ability to wage them by fighting draining low-level battles in the interim. This makes some sense, naturally, but militates against any attempt to leverage the fighting to achieve durable peace. This applies to the Palestinians as well. Their violence is expressive, perhaps reflecting their view that there is no conceivable political objective.There's a larger theme here, though. The international system was vastly different in 1973. The Cold War framework in which the United States and Soviet Union conducted their foreign policies and made it possible for Sadat to conduct a war with such a bold but cogent purpose is long gone. We will see whether the U.S.-China in the Middle East recreates it.The leftist post-colonial Arab states that fought Israel are scarcely even remembered. The Israeli state and society that fought the Yom Kippur War, like the America that waged war in Vietnam, no longer exists. The values that animated it no longer shape the nation's thoughts and actions.Fifty years after the war, this should come as no surprise. In the ongoing demonstrations against judicial reform in Israel, one can see veterans of 1973 claiming that their wartime sacrifice would be betrayed by the triumph of the hard right. They are correct, but they're old duffers and out of touch with young Israeli mainstream voters, who, if they dwell on the 1973 war at all, likely see the left as the guilty party. Thus, policy makers, mostly in the West, can noodle about the war's lessons for diplomacy and statecraft, but for Israel — and the Arabs — it's ancient history.

A sharp divide has emerged within the Democratic foreign policy community as Israel enters the third week of its bombing campaign in Gaza. While most politicians have held to the Biden administration line — namely, that a decisive response is necessary to eliminate Hamas and prevent further atrocities against Israelis — a growing number of staffers in the State Department and Congress have questioned what they view as blanket support for human rights violations in Gaza.
Josh Paul stepped into the center of this debate last week when he resigned from the State Department in protest of the administration's policy.
"I cannot work in support of a set of major policy decisions, including rushing more arms to one side of the conflict, that I believe to be shortsighted, destructive, unjust, and contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse," Paul, who was a director in the office overseeing U.S. weapons sales, wrote in a widely shared LinkedIn post.
In subsequent statements, Paul claimed that senior officials have consistently ignored internal concerns about Israel's use of American weapons in alleged human rights violations. His comments suggest that the White House has fallen short in implementing its own arms transfer policy, which said the State Department should block weapons sales if it is "more likely than not" that they will be used to commit atrocities.
A spokesperson for the State Department denied Paul's allegations and said the U.S. complies "with all applicable statutory requirements and regulatory requirements in our provision of military assistance to Israel, as we do to every other country in the world."
RS spoke with Paul about why he resigned and how political pressures can override concerns that American weapons will be used to carry out atrocities abroad. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
RS: What response have you gotten from your former colleagues about your decision to resign? Do you expect more of them to express their concerns internally as well within the State Department?
Paul: I've had an astonishing response from former colleagues, well beyond what I expected. I thought that barely anyone would actually want to communicate with me after I resigned because of the sensitivity of debates about Israel. But on the contrary, I've heard from so many — both within the State Department and across the U.S. government — sharing their own experiences of wanting to talk out about this issue and not being able to. It's been very moving and eye-opening. I think there are more people now talking out about this within the system. I don't know that anyone else is going to take the step that I took in resigning, but I respect that everyone has their own personal circumstances.RS: In your op-ed for the Washington Post, you wrote that "Israeli requests for ammunition started arriving immediately, including for a variety of weapons that have no applicability to the current conflict." Can you expand on that?
Paul: I'll expand on it in a limited form, because these remain, in some cases, pre-decisional, and I do want to give the process time to work through these issues. But I will say that there are two things here. First of all, the sorts of things that Israel was requesting had applicability not only in Gaza, but also in the West Bank. There are videos out there now on Instagram, for example, of Israeli officials handing out M4 firearms to settlers. I think that is very concerning. It should be concerning to us because there is a track record of settler violence against Palestinian civilians.
I also think that [Israel sees this as] an opportunity. There has been more significant pushback against the blind provision of military equipment to Israel in the last few years than we've seen in decades, and this is a moment in which that pushback has been sidelined. Therefore it is — frankly, in at least the way they see it — in Israel's interest to get what it can now because who knows how long this moment of opportunity, to put it quite cynically, is open for.
RS: Do you oppose all U.S. arms transfers to Israel at this time?
Paul: No, not at all. My opposition is to lethal arms transfers. That means items that kill people. I have no problem whatsoever with defensive items such as Iron Dome. I don't think civilians should have to live under rocket fire, and I absolutely support the provision of defensive equipment like that. Even when it comes to the lethal, I'm not saying that Israel does not have a right to defend itself and does not have a right to go after the Hamas terrorists who attacked it so brutally on October 7. Of course it does. The question is how many Palestinian civilians have to die in that process? And how does this actually lead us to real security for Israel?
RS: Have State Department officials flagged specific Israeli units for human rights violations and have those flags ever led to a change in policy?
Paul: What you're talking about here is Leahy vetting. Under U.S. law, any military unit that receives U.S. military grants assistance must be vetted to ensure that it has not committed gross violations of human rights. In the context of Israel, which receives more than half of all U.S. military grant assistance in the base budget, there is a special process unlike that followed by other countries. For most countries, we vet the units that are receiving the systems before they receive the assistance. In the context of Israel, we provide the assistance, and then if certain allegations come to light of potential gross violations of human rights, we investigate those and decide if such things have actually happened. There have been a number of units and individuals that have been flagged through the process that have very credible allegations of gross violations of human rights against them — allegations that are supported by significant and senior bureaus within the Department — but the process has never been able to come to a conclusion that such gross violations of human rights have occurred. There's always been a political pressure and a policy pressure to not come to that conclusion.
RS: What does that look like in practice?
Paul: First, a violation is flagged. Typically, it's something we see in the press, or an NGO will reach out to say, "Hey, are you aware of XYZ?" And there is a process where the bureaus with equities come together to review those allegations to determine if they are credible. If they are credible, the next step is actually to reach out to the government of Israel and see what they have to say about it, which in itself is a problem. But then once Israel comes back, there is further discussion of whether this was a gross violation of human rights. It's at that point, typically, that the process grinds to a halt, whether it is from the leadership of a bureau involved in the process or sort of a higher level guidance that, "Hey, this isn't gonna go anywhere. Let's move on to the next thing."
RS: Have other states gotten arms sales approved due to political pressure despite credible allegations of human rights violations?
Paul: Yes, absolutely, particularly under the previous administration, but prior to that under the Obama administration too. If you look at sales that are publicly known to other countries with dubious human rights records in the region, you will see that there have been instances in which there are clear concerns about human rights, for example, in the context of the conflict in Yemen, where despite knowledge of those concerns, sales have gone forward. There is a difference, however, and this is quite technical, but it comes back to this question of 'grant military assistance.' If a country is buying from the U.S. with its own money, Leahy does not apply, and that is a problem in itself. The law that says you cannot provide military equipment to units involved in gross violations of human rights does not apply if that country is spending its own money.
RS: You've mentioned the Biden administration's new Conventional Arms Transfer policy, which says the US shall not transfer weapons to countries more likely than not to use them in workarounds. Is it your view that the Biden administration has held to this policy in all cases besides Israel?
Paul: Now, remember, a policy is a policy. It is not legally binding. The way the Conventional Arms Transfer policy is written, by and large, is as a framework for policymakers to make decisions rather than a directive or a checklist. But the CAT policy has always guided decisions on transfers under the Biden administration. Even before it was writ, we followed the spirit of it. And so I would say this is a unique instance.
RS: So you wouldn't say that arms transfers to other countries accused of human rights abuses fell afoul of that, especially ones in the Middle East?
Paul: I think we have to look at a case by case basis about what you're talking about, a lot of these sales are public. In each of those, there has been consideration of what the item is and what unit is receiving it, and those are the discussions that have played out over the course of months and years. That is what is lacking here.
However, while they have all been made in accordance with the CAT policy, that doesn't mean I agree with the outcomes or the decisions, including some sales to Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
RS: During your time with the State Department, did you or your colleagues at any point succeed in stopping an arms sale completely due to human rights concerns?
Paul: Yes. In fact, the first step that the administration took upon taking office was to suspend two arms sales to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.
RS: And those never went through in the end?
Paul: Those have not yet gone through. They are suspended.
RS: Are there any cases besides that one that you can recall?
Paul: Yes, there are certainly other arms transfers to other countries that either have been under policy discussion and debate, including with Congress, for years, or which just did not go anywhere. To point you to a very public example of the constructive role Congress can play here, it's well known that Congress has played a critical role in delaying potential arms transfers to Turkey.
RS: What is your advice to your former colleagues and government people that are working on this issue on how they should make the case that you're making and how they should seek to affect policy?Paul: The Civil Service does provide some unique and really important protections in terms of the ability to push back against policy internally. You cannot be fired for disagreeing with a policy decision. You can only be fired for real malfeasance, which is right, and that gives them the ability to take a stand and to push back on things where they believe that there are mistakes being made or where there are policies being pursued that are unhelpful both to American national security and to human rights. So I would encourage them, to the extent they can feel comfortable, to take advantage of those protections and to keep fighting the good fight.

The New York Times headline said it all: "Middle East War Adds to Surge in International Arms Sales." The conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, and beyond may be causing immense and unconscionable human suffering, but they are also boosting the bottom lines of the world's arms manufacturers. There was a time when such weapons sales at least sparked talk of "the merchants of death" or of "war profiteers." Now, however, is distinctly not that time, given the treatment of the industry by the mainstream media and the Washington establishment, as well as the nature of current conflicts. Mind you, the American arms industry already dominates the international market in a staggering fashion, controlling 45% of all such sales globally, a gap only likely to grow more extreme in the rush to further arm allies in Europe and the Middle East in the context of the ongoing wars in those regions.In his nationally televised address about the Israel-Hamas and Russia-Ukraine wars, President Biden described the American arms industry in remarkably glowing terms, noting that, "just as in World War II, today patriotic American workers are building the arsenal of democracy and serving the cause of freedom." From a political and messaging perspective, the president cleverly focused on the workers involved in producing such weaponry rather than the giant corporations that profit from arming Israel, Ukraine, and other nations at war. But profit they do and, even more strikingly, much of the revenues that flow to those firms is pocketed as staggering executive salaries and stock buybacks that only boost shareholder earnings further.President Biden also used that speech as an opportunity to tout the benefits of military aid and weapons sales to the U.S. economy:"We send Ukraine equipment sitting in our stockpiles. And when we use the money allocated by Congress, we use it to replenish our own stores, our own stockpiles, with new equipment. Equipment that defends America and is made in America. Patriot missiles for air defense batteries, made in Arizona. Artillery shells manufactured in 12 states across the country, in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas. And so much more."In short, the military-industrial complex is riding high, with revenues pouring in and accolades emanating from the top political levels in Washington. But is it, in fact, an arsenal of democracy? Or is it an amoral enterprise, willing to sell to any nation, whether a democracy, an autocracy, or anything in between?Arming Current ConflictsThe U.S. should certainly provide Ukraine with what it needs to defend itself from Russia's invasion. Sending arms alone, however, without an accompanying diplomatic strategy is a recipe for an endless, grinding war (and endless profits for those arms makers) that could always escalate into a far more direct and devastating conflict between the U.S., NATO, and Russia. Nevertheless, given the current urgent need to keep supplying Ukraine, the sources of the relevant weapons systems are bound to be corporate giants like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. No surprise there, but keep in mind that they're not doing any of this out of charity.Raytheon CEO Gregory Hayes acknowledged as much, however modestly, in an interview with the Harvard Business Review early in the Ukraine War:"[W]e don't apologize for making these systems, making these weapons… the fact is eventually we will see some benefit in the business over time. Everything that's being shipped into Ukraine today, of course, is coming out of stockpiles, either at DoD [the Department of Defense] or from our NATO allies, and that's all great news. Eventually we'll have to replenish it and we will see a benefit to the business over the next coming years."Hayes made a similar point recently in response to a question from a researcher at Morgan Stanley on a call with Wall Street analysts. The researcher noted that President Biden's proposed multi-billion-dollar package of military aid for Israel and Ukraine "seems to fit quite nicely with Raytheon's defense portfolio." Hayes responded that "across the entire Raytheon portfolio you're going to see a benefit of this restocking on top of what we think will be an increase in the DoD topline as we continue to replenish these stocks." Supplying Ukraine alone, he suggested, would yield billions in revenues over the coming few years with profit margins of 10% to 12%.Beyond such direct profits, there's a larger issue here: the way this country's arms lobby is using the war to argue for a variety of favorable actions that go well beyond anything needed to support Ukraine. Those include less restrictive, multi-year contracts; reductions in protections against price gouging; faster approval of foreign sales; and the construction of new weapons plants. And keep in mind that all of this is happening as a soaring Pentagon budget threatens to hit an astonishing $1 trillion within the next few years.As for arming Israel, including $14 billion in emergency military aid recently proposed by President Biden, the horrific attacks perpetrated by Hamas simply don't justify the all-out war President Benjamin Netanyahu's government has launched against more than two million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, with so many thousands of lives already lost and untold additional casualties to come. That devastating approach to Gaza in no way fits the category of defending democracy, which means that weapons companies profiting from it will be complicit in the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe.Repression Enabled, Democracy DeniedOver the years, far from being a reliable arsenal of democracy, American arms manufacturers have often helped undermine democracy globally, while enabling ever greater repression and conflict — a fact largely ignored in recent mainstream coverage of the industry. For example, in a 2022 report for the Quincy Institute, I noted that, of the 46 then-active conflicts globally, 34 involved one or more parties armed by the United States. In some cases, American arms supplies were modest, but in many other conflicts such weaponry was central to the military capabilities of one or more of the warring parties.Nor do such weapons sales promote democracy over autocracy, a watchword of the Biden administration's approach to foreign policy. In 2021, the most recent year for which full statistics are available, the U.S. armed 31 nations that Freedom House, a non-profit that tracks global trends in democracy, political freedom, and human rights, designated as "not free."The most egregious recent example in which the American arms industry is distinctly culpable when it comes to staggering numbers of civilian deaths would be the Saudi Arabian/United Arab Emirates (UAE)-led coalition's intervention in Yemen, which began in March 2015 and has yet to truly end. Although the active military part of the conflict is now in relative abeyance, a partial blockade of that country continues to cause needless suffering for millions of Yemenis. Between bombing, fighting on the ground, and the impact of that blockade, there have been nearly 400,000 casualties. Saudi air strikes, using American-produced planes and weaponry, caused the bulk of civilian deaths from direct military action.Congress did make unprecedented efforts to block specific arms sales to Saudi Arabia and rein in the American role in the conflict via a War Powers Resolution, only to see legislation vetoed by President Donald Trump. Meanwhile, bombs provided by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin were routinely used to target civilians, destroying residential neighborhoods, factories, hospitals, a wedding, and even a school bus.When questioned about whether they feel any responsibility for how their weapons have been used, arms companies generally pose as passive bystanders, arguing that all they're doing is following policies made in Washington. At the height of the Yemen war, Amnesty International asked firms that were supplying military equipment and services to the Saudi/UAE coalition whether they were ensuring that their weaponry wouldn't be used for egregious human rights abuses. Lockheed Martin typically offered a robotic response, asserting that "defense exports are regulated by the U.S. government and approved by both the Executive Branch and Congress to ensure that they support U.S. national security and foreign policy objectives." Raytheon simply stated that its sales "of precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia have been and remain in compliance with U.S. law."How the Arms Industry Shapes PolicyOf course, weapons firms are not merely subject to U.S. laws, but actively seek to shape them, including exerting considerable effort to block legislative efforts to limit arms sales. Raytheon typically put major behind-the-scenes effort into keeping a significant sale of precision-guided bombs to Saudi Arabia on track. In May 2018, then-CEO Thomas Kennedy even personally visited the office of Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Robert Menendez (D-NJ) to (unsuccessfully) press him to drop a hold on that deal. That firm also cultivated close ties with the Trump administration, including presidential trade adviser Peter Navarro, to ensure its support for continuing sales to the Saudi regime even after the murder of prominent Saudi journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi.The list of major human rights abusers that receive U.S.-supplied weaponry is long and includes (but isn't faintly limited to) Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Turkey, Nigeria, and the Philippines. Such sales can have devastating human consequences. They also support regimes that all too often destabilize their regions and risk embroiling the United States directly in conflicts.U.S.-supplied arms also far too regularly fall into the hands of Washington's adversaries. As an example consider the way the UAE transferred small arms and armored vehicles produced by American weapons makers to extremist militias in Yemen, with no apparent consequences, even though such acts clearly violated American arms export laws. Sometimes, recipients of such weaponry even end up fighting each other, as when Turkey used U.S.-supplied F-16s in 2019 to bomb U.S.-backed Syrian forces involved in the fight against Islamic State terrorists.Such examples underscore the need to scrutinize U.S. arms exports far more carefully. Instead, the arms industry has promoted an increasingly "streamlined" process of approval of such weapons sales, campaigning for numerous measures that would make it even easier to arm foreign regimes regardless of their human-rights records or support for the interests Washington theoretically promotes. These have included an "Export Control Reform Initiative" heavily promoted by the industry during the Obama and Trump administrations that ended up ensuring a further relaxation of scrutiny over firearms exports. It has, in fact, eased the way for sales that, in the future, could put U.S.-produced weaponry in the hands of tyrants, terrorists, and criminal organizations.Now, the industry is promoting efforts to get weapons out the door ever more quickly through "reforms" to the Foreign Military Sales program in which the Pentagon essentially serves as an arms broker between those weapons corporations and foreign governments.Reining in the MICThe impetus to move ever more quickly on arms exports and so further supersize this country's already staggering weapons manufacturing base will only lead to yet more price gouging by arms corporations. It should be a government imperative to guard against such a future, rather than fuel it. Alleged security concerns, whether in Ukraine, Israel, or elsewhere, shouldn't stand in the way of vigorous congressional oversight. Even at the height of World War II, a time of daunting challenges to American security, then-Senator Harry Truman established a committee to root out war profiteering.Yes, your tax dollars are being squandered in the rush to build and sell ever more weaponry abroad. Worse yet, for every arms transfer that serves a legitimate defensive purpose, there is another — not to say others — that fuels conflict and repression, while only increasing the risk that, as the giant weapons corporations and their executives make fortunes, this country will become embroiled in more costly foreign conflicts.One possible way to at least slow that rush to sell would be to "flip the script" on how Congress reviews weapons exports. Current law requires a veto-proof majority of both houses of Congress to block a questionable sale. That standard — perhaps you won't be surprised to learn — has never (yes, never!) been met, thanks to the millions of dollars in annual election financial support that the weapons companies offer our congressional representatives. Flipping the script would mean requiring affirmative congressional approval of any major sales to key nations, greatly increasing the chances of stopping dangerous deals before they reach completion.Praising the U.S. arms industry as the "arsenal of democracy" obscures the numerous ways it undermines our security and wastes our tax dollars. Rather than romanticizing the military-industrial complex, isn't it time to place it under greater democratic control? After all, so many lives depend on it.This piece has been republished with permission from TomDispatch.