Us politics

‘Trump Make Israel Great’ reads the banner on the deserted hotel next to the new American embassy in Jerusalem. Unlike most of the world population, Israelis regard the US President as a big improvement on Barack Obama. In government, his decision to move the embassy here from Tel Aviv has elevated him to near godlike status. ‘We are very lucky that the strongest kid in the classroom is on our side in this crazy school,’ is how Yoav Galant, Israel’s housing minister, puts it. There is evidence for Trumpophilia all over the place. Signs proclaiming the US President a ‘friend of Zion’ are dotted around the Holy City and ‘God Bless

The International Studies Association (ISA) meeting in San Francisco is a chance for academics the world over to come together. A few years back, I was voted ISA “distinguished scholar of the year.” But I’ll remember this year’s meeting for a different reason. Heading back to my hotel room in a crowded lift one day, the male attendant asked people to shout out their floors so he could press the relevant buttons; in response, I said: “ladies lingerie.” Several days later, I learned that a fellow member of the ISA had filed a complaint against me and that I had been referred to its ethics committee. In an attempt to resolve matters, I

The point behind the argument about the Iran nuclear deal goes beyond precise nuclear facts. It is like the row over SALT II when Ronald Reagan succeeded Jimmy Carter as US President in 1981. SALT (the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) was not formally junked, but it did not operate because, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan at the end of 1979, the Americans felt the necessary trust was absent. Better times, including the coming of Mikhail Gorbachev, allowed Reagan to pursue negotiations which culminated (under his successor, the first George Bush) in START I (the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) being signed in 1991. By then, the United States and its

For the past year or so, in speaking to groups, I’ve ventured to suggest that Donald Trump will ultimately rank among the least consequential presidents in U.S. history. I did not intend that to be a laugh line. Trump, I argued, was likely to end up being to the 21st century what James Buchanan was to the 19th and Warren G. Harding to the 20th – someone who, after occupying the White House for a time, departed and left nary a trace. In the end, Trump’s defining traits — vulgarity, meanness, self-absorption, and apparently compulsive dishonesty — would count for little in the scales of history. So I believed. Let

Donald Trump’s critics waste little time in condemning him. Whether it’s an ill-judged gaffe or a spelling mistake in a tweet, pointing the finger at a president some love to hate is a popular exercise in virtue signalling. But those who shout the loudest about Trump’s misdemeanours seem to be curiously quiet when The Donald does actually get things right – not least when it comes to North Korea. After all, it’s no coincidence that today’s historic summit on the Korean peninsula has happened on Trump’s watch. While Barack Obama prevaricated over what to do about North Korea, making little headway in dealing with Pyongyang – and arguably making things worse

People are expressing bemusement that Presidents Trump and Macron should get on well, since they seem such different people. Surely a clue lies in their shared title. They are the only important executive presidents in the western world, so they have that particular combination of real power and ceremonial pomp which is rightly denied to prime ministers. They love it. Besides, they are not so different, though M.Macron is Gallicly suave and Mr Trump is Yankee brash, and the former is small and thin, the latter neither. Both seem to be egomaniacs who believe in and embody führerprinzip (though luckily neither leads a country which gives it anything like full

Twenty-one years ago the sun finally set on the British Empire with the handover of Hong Kong. Now, the sun is setting on what is known as the special relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States. It would be easy to blame Brexit for London’s increasing irrelevance in Washington. After all, the U.S. foreign policy establishment has been rapidly pro-European Union since Henry Kissinger supposedly said that Americans needed to know who to call if they wanted to call Europe. Since then, when a president wanted something from the Old World the British prime minister was their helpmate. There is no question that France has manoeuvred to fill

‘The whole of the Balkans,’ Otto von Bismarck said, ‘is not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier.’ He was right, until he was wrong. Times changed, and so did the map. In 1914, with Bismarck gone and no one to restrain the Kaiser, terrorism in the Balkans sparked a world war. How much of Iraq was worth the bones of the thousands of Americans who died in Iraq? Only in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq did the United States turn an enemy state into an ally. How much of Syria is worth the bones of a single US Marine? None of it, because time and the map

In his inimitable fashion, President Trump has put Russia on notice that the era of playing kissy-face with the Kremlin has come to an abrupt halt. “Get ready Russia,” he announced. It’s bombs away for the Trump administration. The Bolton doctrine has now become the Trump doctrine. Trump’s tweet is being decried as taunting Vladimir Putin but that is what he does best. Trump is turning foreign policy into a game show, complete with real warfare. Maybe he will conduct Twitter polls asking where he should bomb next. Putin, you could say, has run into his doppelgänger and then some. None of this should really come as a surprise. Trump

Donald Trump has promised Syria’s bloody regime that it will pay a ‘big price’ for the chemical weapons attack in eastern Ghouta, which left dozens dead. And many agree Bashar al-Assad should face the consequences of his appalling actions. But the United States – and the West – would do well to stop and ask themselves a question before they rush in: what are they actually hoping to achieve? After all, the United States’ approach to Syria and its pattern of failed strategies does not inspire much confidence. The US has pursued three distinct policies in the country over the last five years: its diplomatic process was designed to lead to a post-Assad