Author: Daniel Larison

Trump threatened to steal another country’s land again:

Trump reiterated his intentions to take back the Panama Canal, after threatening he would in a Truth Social post on Saturday. Trump said that the United States is being “ripped off” at the Panama Canal and has insinuated that China is gaining influence over the waterway. “We’re being ripped off at the Panama Canal like we’re being ripped off everywhere else,” Trump said Sunday.

The fearmongering about China is a reminder of how pernicious defining U.S. foreign policy around great power rivalry can be. The threats against Panama show how Trump’s crude imperialism and the pursuit of rivalry with China reinforce each other. Trump assumes that the U.S. is always being “ripped off,” and he believes that the answer to this is to steal from other countries. If he thinks another country is getting too close to a rival, he wants the U.S. to “solve” that by threatening to steal some of their territory. Trump sees weaker countries in our hemisphere that he wants to dictate terms to, and rivalry with China provides him with the excuse for threatening them. He has probably been encouraged in this by his National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who has been inflating the Chinese “threat” in Panama for years.

Continue reading “Panama and Trump’s Throwback Imperialism”

Another State Department official quit in frustration over the Biden administration’s Gaza policy:

Casey resigned from the state department in July after four years at the job, discreetly leaving the post unlike other recent high-profile government departures. Now seated at his kitchen table in the quiet suburbs of northern Michigan, Casey reflected on how, as one of only two people in the entire US government explicitly focused on Gaza, he became an unwilling chronicler of a humanitarian catastrophe.

“I got so tired of writing about dead kids,” he said. “Just constantly having to prove to Washington that these children actually died and then watching nothing happen.”

Continue reading “The Ongoing Horrors in Gaza”

The end of Assad’s rule makes most U.S. sanctions on Syria obsolete, so naturally hawks in Congress want to keep them in place:

Republican and Democratic U.S. senators say it is too soon to consider lifting sanctions on Syria following the removal of President Bashar al-Assad, an indication that Washington is unlikely to change its policy any time soon.

U.S. sanctions on Syria are among the most harmful of any that Washington has imposed. They not only choke the Syrian economy directly and interfere with humanitarian assistance, but because of secondary sanctions they also discourage outside states and companies from investing in reconstruction efforts. Broad sanctions in Syria are an attack on the people just as they are an attack on the people in Venezuela, Iran, and elsewhere. The U.S. should have lifted these sanctions years ago, and now that Assad is out of power there is no excuse for continuing this policy. If a post-Assad Syria is to have any hope of rebuilding and recovering, the U.S. and its allies will have to stop inflicting collective punishment on the Syrian people.

Continue reading “Sanctions Relief for Syria Now”

According to The Wall Street Journal, Trump is considering military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities:

President-elect Donald Trump is weighing options for stopping Iran from being able to build a nuclear weapon, including the possibility of preventive airstrikes, a move that would break with the longstanding policy of containing Tehran with diplomacy and sanctions.

The surest way to convince the Iranian government to build nuclear weapons is to attack their nuclear facilities. In addition to being reckless and wrong, “preventive” military action would practically guarantee the outcome that hawks say they want to prevent. The only thing stupider than using force to eliminate a non-existent threat is using force to create a threat that wouldn’t have existed otherwise.

Continue reading “Attacking Iran Would Be Insane”

More than a week after Yoon’s attempted coup, the South Korean president is digging in his heels and refusing to quit. Yoon is now under investigation for insurrection, and he is under a travel ban so that he cannot leave the country. The disgraced president delivered another speech in which he repeated many of the same deranged claims he made when he declared martial law. He has vowed to “fight to the end.” Yoon’s party shielded him from impeachment last week, but that support has crumbled as more details about the coup have come to light and Yoon refuses to resign:

South Korea’s ruling party has thrown its support behind attempts to impeach embattled President Yoon Suk Yeol over his ill-fated decision to declare martial law that sparked a political crisis and widespread public anger in the country.

Continue reading “The Failure of Yoon’s Desperate Power Grab”

Amnesty International concluded in a new report this week that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza:

The report, ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, documents how, during its military offensive launched in the wake of the deadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel has unleashed hell and destruction on Palestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with total impunity.

“Amnesty International’s report demonstrates that Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These acts include killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International. 

Continue reading “Amnesty Report: Israel Is Committing Genocide in Gaza”