Tag: Trump foreign policy

White House memo on Soleimani strike makes no mention of imminent threat

Washington Post logoA White House memo justifying the U.S. strike that killed Iranian military leader Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani in January makes no mention of an imminent threat, which was President Trump’s rationale for the attack.

The two-page memo made public by the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Friday instead says the Soleimani strike was carried out in response to previous attacks and to deter Iran from conducting or supporting attacks in the future.

“Although the threat of further attack existed, recourse to the inherent right of self-defense was justified sufficiently by the series of attacks that preceded the January 2 strike,” the memo reads. Continue reading.

U.S. reportedly reaches Afghanistan truce with Taliban

Axios logoThe U.S. reached an initial deal with the Taliban on Friday that could begin a drawdown of American troops from Afghanistan, AP reports, citing a senior U.S. official.

The big picture: Top administration officials, including President Trump, had signaled that an agreement could be reached soon, allowing America’s 18-year war in Afghanistan to end after thousands of lives lost and billions of dollars spent. But previous attempts to leave Afghanistan have not panned out.

What we know: The “very specific” deal calls for a seven-day “reduction of violence” covering the entire country, to act as the precursor to all-Afghan peace talks within 10 days, a U.S. official said on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

  • Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Thursday that the U.S. and Taliban had “negotiated a proposal for a seven-day reduction in violence.”
  • The full conditions remain unclear. If the administration deems they’ve been met, it would then withdraw some troops and the Taliban would enter negotiations with the Afghan government about the country’s political future.
  • A U.S. exit likely wouldn’t mean an end to the fighting. The Taliban have been unwilling to lay down their arms, rebuffing calls for a ceasefire during negotiations. Continue reading.

E.U. to Trump: ‘We are not foes’

Washington Post logoThe past three years have placed heavy strains on the transatlantic relationship. President Trump has cheered the European Union’s dismemberment, called into question American participation in the West’s most important military alliance and used the threat of punitive tariffs to bend traditional allies to his will.

Beleaguered politicians on the continent looked on as Trump scrapped America’s commitments to the Iran nuclear deal — the product of years of multilateral diplomacy and multiple high-wire summits hosted by the Europeans. They watched in dismay as Trump abdicated American leadership on climate action. And their objections were ignored as the White House rolled out a new road map for Middle East peace that contradicted the long-standing approach of both Washington and Brussels.

In this trying time, the E.U.’s top diplomat is putting on a brave face. “The list is long of things” that could be read as signs that the United States is “not very friendly,” said Josep Borrell, high representative of the European Union, in an exclusive interview with Today’s WorldView on Friday. But those differences, Borrell added, still can’t supersede a sense of transatlantic solidarity that endures.

The State of U.S. National Security Is Not Strong Under Trump

Center for American Progress logoPresident Donald Trump is set to deliver his third State of the Union address on February 4, 2020. At a recent speech in Davos, Switzerland, he claimed, “America is winning again like never before.” But on foreign policy, Trump’s record is straight losses.

In his 2019 State of the Union, Trump promised “to pursue a foreign policy that puts America’s interests first.” But rather than advance American interests, he has put his own political priorities and ego above traditional U.S. foreign policy goals. Trump is being impeached for putting national security in jeopardy for his own personal gain, but he has endangered national security in myriad other ways, too: He has alienated allies and cozied up to friendly dictators, started distracting trade wars, and appears to have backtracked on U.S. commitments simply because his predecessor pursued them. Trump may claim the state of the union is strong, but his administration’s actions and policies tell a different story.

Escalated conflict in the Middle East

In last year’s address, President Trump declared, “Great nations do not fight endless wars.” But rather than ending forever wars, Trump is sending more U.S. soldiers into conflict. A few weeks ago, he recklessly escalated tensions in the Middle East by ordering a strike on Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps General Qassem Soleimani, after which a significant majority of Americans reported feeling “less safe.” In response to the escalating tensions with Iran, Trump has ordered more than 20,000 additional troops to the region; a U.S. commander said the soldiers could remain there for “quite a while.” Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, despite last year’s pledge to hold “constructive talks” and “accelerated” negotiations, the United States dropped more bombs and munitions in 2019 than in any other year since the U.S. Air Force began tracking them in 2006. And according to the United Nations, civilian casualties reached the highest level in the Afghanistan war’s history, in part due to U.S. strikes. Continue reading.

New U.S. Travel Ban Shuts Door on Africa’s Biggest Economy, Nigeria

New York Times logoThe visa rules will affect nearly a quarter of the people on the African continent, including many hoping to join loved ones already in the U.S.

The newlyweds had already been apart for half their yearlong marriage. Miriam Nwegbe was in Nigeria. Her husband was in Baltimore, and until she could join him, everything was on hold: finding a home together, trying for their first baby, becoming an American family.

Then, on Friday, their lives were thrown into disarray by the expansion of President Trump’s ban on immigration to include six new countries, including four in Africa. Nigeria, the continent’s most populous nation, was one of them.

“America has killed me,” Ms. Nwegbe’s husband, Ikenna, an optometrist, texted her when he heard. “We are finished.” Continue reading.

Palestinian Authority cuts security ties with US, Israel following Trump peace plan announcement

The Hill logoThe Palestinian Authority on Saturday severed security ties with the United States and Israel following the introduction of President Trump‘s Middle East peace plan earlier in the week.

“We’ve informed the Israeli side…that there will be no relations at all with them and the United States including security ties,” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told a group of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo, Reuters reports.

The Palestinian president was in Cairo to address the Arab league, a group that has backed the Palestinians’ rejection of President Trump’s peace plan. Abbas has described the plan as “nonsense.” Continue reading.

Pentagon Now Says 50 Troops Suffered Brain Injuries After Iran’s Missile Strike

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon on Tuesday raised to 50 the number of U.S. service members who suffered traumatic brain injuries in Iran’s missile strike earlier this month on an Iraqi air base, the third time the number of injuries has been increased.

The new casualty total belies President Donald Trump’s initial claim that no Americans were harmed. Days after the attack, the military said 11 service members were injured. Last week, the Pentagon said that 34 U.S. service members were hurt.

Lt. Col. Thomas Campbell, a Pentagon spokesman, said Tuesday that 16 additional service members were diagnosed with traumatic brain injury. Of the 50, Campbell said, 31 service members had returned to duty. Continue reading.

Trump now claims four embassies were under threat from Iran, raising fresh questions about intelligence reports

Washington Post logoPresident Trump said on Friday that a senior Iranian general killed by a U.S. drone strike had been planning attacks on four U.S. embassies, a claim made to justify the decision but that was at odds with intelligence assessments from senior officials in Trump’s administration.

Trump and his top advisers have been under intensifying pressure from lawmakers in both parties to share more details about the intelligence they say showed Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, was planning imminent attacks against U.S. personnel in the Middle East. On Trump’s orders, Soleimani was killed last week in a drone strike, prompting Iran to fire a volley of ballistic missiles this week at bases in Iraq housing U.S. soldiers.

In an interview with Fox News’s Laura Ingraham, excerpts of which were released Friday afternoon, Trump expanded on comments from a day earlier, when he initially told reporters that Soleimani’s forces “were looking to blow up our embassy” in Baghdad. He later said at a rally in Toledo that “Soleimani was actively planning new attacks, and he was looking very seriously at our embassies, and not just the embassy in Baghdad.” Continue reading.

On the day U.S. forces killed Soleimani, they targeted a senior Iranian official in Yemen

Washington Post logoOn the day the U.S. military killed a top Iranian commander in Baghdad, U.S. forces carried out another top-secret mission against a senior Iranian military official in Yemen, according to U.S. officials.

The strike targeting Abdul Reza Shahlai, a financier and key commander in Iran’s elite Quds Force who has been active in Yemen, did not result in his death, according to four U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

The unsuccessful operation may indicate that the Trump administration’s killing of Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani last week was part of a broader operation than previously explained, raising questions about whether the mission was designed to cripple the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or solely to prevent an imminent attack on Americans as originally stated.

Pompeo walks back comments that appeared to contradict Trump on embassy attacks

After Trump told rally about multiple embassies targeted, secretary of State says targets weren’t known

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tried Friday to clean up comments from the night before  that appeared to contradict President Trump’s claim that the Iranian general he had killed was targeting multiple U.S. embassies.

Pompeo told reporters U.S. officials acted on “specific information on an imminent threat,” and that the “threat stream included attacks on U.S. embassies. … Full stop.”

American officials did not know “exactly which minute,” but he claimed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani was planning “broad, large-scale attacks” on American targets. Continue reading.