Tag Archives: foreign policy

Wrong Answer

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William Galston is correct, and he’s dangerously wrong, in his Tuesday op-ed in The Wall Street Journal.

He acknowledges that Hamas will never surrender. This is where he’s correct. He then concluded that Israel should

declare victory and accept a cease-fire that returns all the remaining hostages and withdraws the IDF from Gaza.

He based that on the risible thesis that Israel has ended Hamas’s ability to threaten its security.

Hamas will never release all of its remaining hostages. That would eliminate far too much non-shooting leverage that Hamas has. The IDF is going to have to go get them, and that requires the complete destruction of Hamas.

Regarding Hamas’ threat to Israel’s security, formal cease fire or not, Hamas’ firing at Israel, Hamas’ terroristic assaults on Israel, will never cease until Hamas is utterly destroyed and cannot (not chooses not to) keep up its terrorism. Israel is absolutely correct on this, and its existence as a nation, as a society, depends on it. Leaving Gaza before that’s done would only let Hamas re-expand into the areas currently held by the IDF, refit, regrow, and carry on with its anti-Israeli terrorism.

Galston goes on at length, too, about how long it would take Israel to destroy Hamas. However, he shies away from the other side of this: that the destruction of Israel, were Hamas left extant and so potentially to succeed, would be forever.

That’s the long and the short of it.

Tacit Hamas Apologia

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United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said his nation would join France in recognizing a Palestinian state by the end of summer. Never mind that there is no state to recognize; the far larger problem and UK failure is this:

So today [Starmer said], as part of this process towards peace, I can confirm the UK will recognise the state of Palestine by the United Nations general assembly in September unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, agree to a ceasefire and commit to a long-term, sustainable peace, reviving the prospect of a two-state solution.
This includes allowing the UN to restart the supply of aid and making clear there will be no annexations in the West Bank. Meanwhile, our message to the terrorists of Hamas is unchanged and unequivocal.
The Palestinian people have endured terrible suffering. Now, in Gaza, because of a catastrophic failure of aid we see starving babies, children too weak to stand—images that will stay with us for a lifetime.
The suffering must end. Yesterday I discussed this with President Trump and we are mounting a major effort to get humanitarian supplies back in, by air—and UK aid has been air-dropped into Gaza today—and, crucially, by land. We need to see at least 500 trucks entering Gaza every day.

The trouble with Starmer’s position is that it entirely mischaracterizes the source of the problem. It is Hamas that opposes peace and refuses any sort of ceasefire short of Israel’s abject surrender; it is Hamas that is actively interfering with delivery of humanitarian aid, actively interfering as it does with Gazans’ efforts to get to aid deliveries unless they come through Hamas, diverting UN-sourced aid from deliveries to Gazans toward itself, stealing delivered aid from Gazans; it is Hamas causing the Gazans’ suffering, especially that of children for the sake of the optics—which is rewarded by their effects on the naïve and those like Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, who should know better.

This is Starmer sub rosa (not sotto voce because he really does know better) supporting the terrorists. That’s the unequivocal message he has for Hamas. How far the UK has fallen.

There’s a Fix for This

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It’s a straightforward fix, too, even if perhaps politically difficult. “This” is the retention of security clearances by those who leave Federal employ, and the problem that would be fixed by this “this” is this:

The chairman of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board says he believes crimes were committed by intelligence and law enforcement officials who relentlessly pursued President Donald Trump over the last decade, and he also wants to make sure that spies who abused their powers are stripped of their security clearances and their jobs.

Devin Nunes, the PIAB chairman in question, added this:

I just continue to be fascinated by the people who are still carrying a security clearance. It’s amazing who are still in these agencies. And I’m just shaking my head like every time I turn around, like, wait, wait, wait, wasn’t that person in that position a Russia hoax person.

The fix is this: everyone leaving Federal employ should have his security clearance revoked automatically. Having left the government, that person no longer needs a security clearance; he no longer has any need to know, which is a Critical Item for having a clearance. Persons getting (not just seeking) civilian employment that requires a security clearance should be required to go through an entirely new and current—de novo—security background check. Persons changing jobs within the Federal government should have their clearances suspended pending successful completion of an entirely new and current—also de novo—background check, and any renewed clearance adjusted down (or up) commensurate with the new job.

None of this would prevent those who committed crimes from being prosecuted and, if convicted, jailed. They should be. Nor would any of this prevent the President from firing those who’ve failed to carry out their duty fully and enthusiastically, whether or not they’ve done anything illegal. He should fire them.

Their Plan, Our Necessary Response

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The headline and subheadline of the editorial lay it out succinctly:

China’s No-Exit Plan for Foreigners
Beijing is blocking two more Americans from leaving the country which is part of a pattern.

Then the lede:

Chinese President Xi Jinping has been eager to lure American companies to invest in China, but you wouldn’t know it from Beijing’s latest actions. China is preventing American citizens, including a Commerce Department employee and a Wells Fargo banker, from leaving the country.

This is naked hostage-taking, and the only way to stop it is to counter it decisively, deeply, and broadly. That doesn’t mean if the PRC takes an American hostage, we take 10, nor does it mean if the PRC brings a knife to the matter, we bring a gun and all our friends with guns. It may come to that—tit-for-tat is far worse and more expensive than drastic and rapid escalation—but it’s not useful in the present context.

What is necessary is for Americans to stop traveling to the PRC under any circumstance—not to visit, not for tourism, not on business. This would be made more effective, and safer for business employees, if American businesses stopped doing business inside the PRC completely. Along those lines, our State Department should issue a Level 4 Travel Advisory—Do Not Travel—on travel to the PRC. The specific risks to travel are included with this level of advisory, and SecState should be explicit: there is an unacceptable risk of the American traveler being kidnapped by the PRC government and barred from leaving. It may be true, and it seems to be so for the two kidnap victims above, that the victims are free to roam about the PRC, but that just means they’re in a shabbily gilded cage.

In addition to those steps, our government needs to make those hostages our hostages against PRC good behavior: do nothing diplomatically or economically with the PRC until all of our citizens are back on US soil, safe and healthy. Rescind the PRC’s Most Favored Nation status and impose tariffs of at least 500% on all goods and services originating from the PRC, regardless of the path those things take in getting to the US, again until all of our citizens are back on US soil, safe and healthy.

Accelerate arming the Republic of China, the Republic of Korea, and Japan. Actively and overtly—with the presence of US Navy and Air Force assets—assist the Philippines in its defense of its island possessions in the South China Sea, including physically blocking PLAN ships from impeding Philippine shipping. Deem PLAN ship refusal to give way, maintaining a collision course as an attack on our ship or the Philippine ship, and fire on and sink the PLAN attacker. Work defense arrangements with Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia.

The more Xi and his minions object, the more rapidly we should push these moves.

Hostage takers deserve no profit; they do deserve to lose drastically.

A Brief Thought on Trade Negotiations

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There’s this from a Wall Street Journal article centered on European Union and People’s Republic of China trade relations:

Chinese and European leaders must “make the right strategic choices” amid a fast-changing and tumultuous global environment, Chinese leader Xi Jinping told visiting EU leaders in Beijing on Thursday, according to Chinese state media.

The right strategic choices. This kind of rhetoric is all too typical of Xi’s and his minions’ demands on any subject, whether on trade or other nations’ decisions regarding their own national security. In the end, it’s Xi’s demand that other nations, here European, must make those choices comport with Xi’s positions.

Neither Xi nor his ministers are negotiating seriously or in good faith when they make such demands; this is emphasized by the PRC’s “rationing” of critical raw materials. It’s time the rest of us pushed back—hard. We need to respond by saying that as long as that’s the PRC position, there can be no negotiation, no discussion, since the PRC is not operating in good faith.

And then act on those words and walk away. Continue by moving on and elsewhere without the PRC, saying publicly that Xi knows how to contact them when he’s ready to be serious.