Country: Israel & Occupied Palestinian Territories

Donald Trump Launches War of Choice

June 22, 2025 – In response to President Donald Trump’s initiation of U.S. armed hostilities against Iran, Center for International Policy Executive Vice President Matt Duss issued the following statement:

“Donald Trump has now secured his legacy as the president who launched yet another war of choice in the Middle East.

“In ordering strikes against Iran at the Israeli government’s urging, he has broken U.S. law, put our servicemembers and diplomats throughout the region and the world in harm’s way, and potentially opened the door to a prolonged, costly conflict. The cause of nuclear nonproliferation was not strengthened by this action, it was dramatically weakened. 

“Congress should urgently exercise its Constitutional authority to end the involvement of U.S. armed forces in this unnecessary war and rein in this lawless president.”

CIP Logo Wordless Transparent

The Perils of a Victory over Iran

Nicholas Noe is the director of the Beirut Exchange Foundation and co-founder of Mideastwire.com. 

Even if Israel and its allies achieve a decisive military defeat of  the Islamic Republic of Iran in the coming period—crushing its armed forces, scattering its leadership, and dismantling its nuclear program—the long-term consequences of such a triumph will be deeply corrosive and dangerous. Of course, the short-term gains of such a campaign against the last significant regional opposition to U.S.-Israeli power will be delicious for many in Washington and Tel Aviv who have spent 35 years agitating for war against the Islamic Republic. It will be hailed as definitive proof that brute strength and technological superiority are indeed adequate tools for reshaping global politics. 

But this is exactly where the chief danger lies: this kind of victory, rather than securing lasting peace or stability, will usher in a far more dangerous world order defined overwhelmingly by “might makes right” and the wholesale abandonment of international norms.

Might Makes Right: From Exception to Rule

A successful campaign against Iran would be taken as final vindication by the interventionist camp in the United States and Israel. Their long-standing argument—that problems in the Middle East can and should be solved through overwhelming military force (with or without nation-building)—would gain tremendous credibility. Any blowback, if it did not materialize quickly or dramatically, would be dismissed as irrelevant. Predictions about the dangers of failed states would be parried by calls to just wall off or “Golden Dome” oneself and allies, with further brutality exercised at the gates as needed. 

The lesson would be clear: force works, and those with unmatched capabilities should not hesitate to use them.

This shift is not likely to remain limited to the Middle East. A perceived success in Iran would become a century-defining precedent, eliminating what little remains of the post-WWII consensus that outlawed wars of aggression and emphasized collective security. International norms would be seen as entirely optional—quaint relics rather than guardrails essential for preventing suffering and chaos.

The U.S., already prone to bypassing multilateral mechanisms when convenient well before Donald Trump, would feel even less bound by diplomatic process or the logic of compromise. Israel, too, would be further empowered in its belief that its security lies not in negotiation or compromise, but only in permanent technological superiority and deterrence through mass or targeted destruction.

Blowback Deferred, Restraint Discredited

One of the central claims of those who advocate for greater restraint in foreign policy—a camp I have long belonged to—is that wars of choice tend to carry hidden, long-term costs that ultimately outweigh the short-term gains. These include insurgency, regional destabilization, terrorism, and the erosion of democratic institutions at home. The Iraq War was, and remains, the centerpiece of our argument. Initially declared a success following “Shock and Awe,” it led to multiple dimensions of disaster over time. Yet interventionists continue to claim that the war was lost not because it was illegitimate or ill-conceived, but because the U.S. lacked the will to see it through – especially “all the way” to Tehran. A similar narrative will likely develop post-Iran, should “Mission Accomplished” be declared: overwhelming force finally proved its utility, and past failures were merely a matter of poor execution and lack of will.

This narrative would empower a new era of interventionism. With restraint seemingly discredited and its often vague warnings relegated to the long term, the threshold for uses of force would drop even further. The appetite for war would grow until the interventionist machine finally encounters an adversary, or a combination of adversaries, capable of catastrophic retaliation. This capacity for catastrophe would most likely come in the form of a nuclear arsenal, which in every country that maintains such weapons would be paired with hard limits beyond which conventional war risks thermonuclear devastation.

Accelerating a Global Arms Race

Perhaps the most predictable consequence of an Iran defeat is the acceleration of a global arms race, particularly around nuclear weapons. Iran, a relatively large and sophisticated regional actor, has attempted to deter attack by developing nuclear capabilities, apparently below the threshold of actual weapons for now. If that deterrent fails and Iran’s nuclear program is dismantled, the signal to other regimes will be unmistakable: the only way to ensure your sovereignty in a U.S.-Israeli-dominated world is through acquiring nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

This logic has already played out, but to a far lesser extent. Libya gave up its WMD programs in 2003 only to see its regime violently overthrown. North Korea took the opposite path, developing a credible nuclear deterrent, and as a result has remained largely immune from foreign intervention. After Iran, more states will very likely pursue this path, viewing international treaties and inspections as traps rather than protections.

The risk is not just nuclear proliferation, but the normalization of preventive military action against non-nuclear states. The incentive structure becomes perverse: develop nuclear weapons quickly or risk regime change. The end result is a world more dangerous, more armed, and more unstable.

Authoritarianism at Home

The idea that success abroad through overwhelming force won’t impact the home front is a dangerous illusion. When a nation continually uses brute power to achieve its aims internationally, that logic inevitably seeps into domestic politics. The militarization of policing, the expansion of executive power, the erosion of civil liberties—all of these have already been seen in the U.S. after almost two and a half decades of the Global War on Terror we launched following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The past few months in the U.S. have only underscored the point with greater clarity.

A deconstruction of Iran’s ability and desire to exercise violence outside the framework of international law would further erode democratic norms. Presidents who view themselves as uniquely empowered to act without accountability abroad often bring that mindset home. We see this in the growing embrace of authoritarian rhetoric, the normalization of surveillance, and the dismissal of dissent as weakness or treason, both at home and abroad.

In Israel, the same dynamic could accelerate ongoing efforts to limit judicial oversight, marginalize minority voices, entrench ethnonationalism and, at the same time, move more decisively forward with plans to forcibly displace millions of Palestinians. The culture of military supremacy abroad will only embolden illiberal, illegal and immoral tendencies within.

Unresolved Grievances, New Enemies

The Iranian government’s behavior, however malign one views it, is largely anchored on a long history of regional dynamics, injustice and security concerns. Crushing the Iranian regime will not eliminate some of the key reasons why it acted aggressively in the first place. On the contrary, it will embitter many and make reconciliation far more difficult than the path of mutual compromise, addressing underlying grievances and diplomacy. It will also very likely create new, more determined and capable enemies in the process.

We’ve seen this before. As close as Israel or the U.S. believes it is to vanquishing enemies, new ones are created over time as long as the main factors driving opposition and anger remain.

In 2000, Israel missed a historic opportunity to strike a deal with Syria that would have returned the Golan Heights in exchange for peace and the disarmament of Hezbollah. After negotiations collapsed when Israel refused to return the Golan in its entirety, Hezbollah claimed victory for Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon. In doing so, Israel strengthened the logic of armed resistance and perpetuated conflict. Twenty-four years later, Israel applied massive force to momentarily cow Hezbollah, which had grown to become the most powerful non-state actor in the world. Here, too, restrainers seem to have lost the argument in the short term. But the organization is, by most accounts, rebuilding. It won recent local elections and has only increased its motivating grievances vis-à-vis Israel. It is learning from its military and security mistakes and lies in wait for an opportune moment to exacerbate U.S. and Israeli moments of weakness, whenever or however they come to pass.  

Perhaps most importantly, Israel vanquished the PLO only to give rise to Hamas. Throughout, it has rejected the Arab Peace Initiative, which offers full normalization in exchange for a just resolution to the Palestinian issue. Rather than accept compromise and concede occupied territory for a Palestinian state, Israeli leaders have bet on massive force and technological superiority. But as long as core grievances remain unaddressed—the occupation of Palestinian territories, the displacement of refugees, the lack of political rights—no amount of bombing campaigns will bring lasting peace. New, more capable enemies in Palestine, as in Lebanon and the wider Middle East, are very likely being created every day in the rubble of what many observers now consider to be outright genocide.        

  

The Challenge to Restraint

But all of this lies in the longer term and is difficult to prove right now. If Iran falls with minimal immediate blowback, the interventionist camp will have immediate proof of concept that the real problem with past wars was that they were too limited, too cautious, too concerned about failed states or too respectful of international law.

This will not just be a tactical shift. It will represent a fundamental change nearly impossible to put back in the proverbial bottle. Adherence to international law will be cast as outdated, ineffective, even dangerous. The pro-diplomacy worldview—that peace and stability come from mutual respect, compromise, and adherence to rules—will be sidelined by a new consensus that sees raw power as its own justification.

But history teaches that such a worldview cannot endure. Sooner or later, even the most powerful actors face adversaries they cannot crush. The more one relies on force alone, the more brittle one’s position becomes. A temporary triumph over Iran may feel like vindication for hawks, but it is likely to be the beginning of a far more dangerous period.

It is not too late to choose another path. Instead of war, the U.S. and Israel could return to diplomacy. Instead of domination, they could pursue mutual concessions that address root grievances. This includes accepting a viable Palestinian state, negotiating regional security arrangements, and ending the reliance on force as the first resort.

The lesson of the last two decades is not that force doesn’t matter—but that it is insufficient. Real security comes not from domination, but from legitimacy. And legitimacy cannot be won on the battlefield alone.

Trump Threatens to Drag US Into Another War of Choice

June 17, 2025 – In response to President Donald Trump’s threats of the use of U.S. military force against Iran and other belligerent comments–including posting the message “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” and discussing the possibility of assassinating Iran’s Supreme Leader on social media – Center for International Policy President and CEO Nancy Okail issued the following statement:

“War fever is once again descending on Washington, DC. As always, it will not be the U.S. foreign policy elites who end up paying the terrible price of another war of choice, but American service members and families along with countless civilians thousands of miles away.

“Israel’s initiation of major hostilities with Iran was an unnecessary and reckless act of war that is rapidly escalating. U.S. entry into and expansion of this conflict would transform it into a regional conflagration that could become yet another quagmire of American military overreach.

“American troops should not be put in harm’s way and US taxpayers should not be on the hook to subsidize an unnecessary and avoidable war, particularly one foisted on us by a client state government acting against peace and stability throughout the Middle East. Across the U.S. political spectrum, voters are overwhelmingly opposed to sacrificing American blood and treasure in Iran. Ordering our armed forces into a costly conflict with Iran would be a betrayal of Trump’s promises to avoid needless wars and a decision which could potentially surpass the U.S. invasion of Iraq as a strategic error.

“We commend lawmakers of both major political parties who have introduced or indicated support for Congressional legislation to make clear that President Trump does not have the Constitutionally required authorization for the use of military force in Iran. This is potentially a once-in-a-generation moment that could impact our country’s trajectory as the American wars in Vietnam and Iraq did. Politicians and other decision-makers should remember the lessons of those fateful conflicts, stand firmly against militarism, and press for a diplomatic resolution to this crisis.”

CIP Logo Wordless Transparent

Americans Must Not be Called Upon to Sacrifice for Netanyahu’s War of Choice

June 13, 2025: In response to Israel’s June 13 strikes on Iran, Center for International Policy Executive Vice President Matt Duss released the following statement:

“Israel’s initiation of new hostilities with Iran should be condemned as an unnecessary and reckless act of war that threatens to ignite another deadly conflict in the Middle East. 

“The Netanyahu government’s decision to bomb several sites across Iran is clearly intended to sabotage diplomacy with Iran. Having played a key role in convincing President Trump to make the terrible mistake of withdrawing the United States from the successful 2015 agreement in his first term–unleashing Iran’s nuclear program and allowing Iran to get closer than ever to being able to build a nuclear weapon–Netanyahu has now outmaneuvered him to the severe detriment of U.S. interests and put American military and diplomatic personnel in harm’s way.

“American soldiers and families must not be called upon to sacrifice for Netanyahu’s war of choice. No U.S. military personnel should be involved in Israel’s assault on Iran, nor should American taxpayer dollars be used to subsidize the weapons used in it.

“Responsible lawmakers who prioritize American safety and security are rightly speaking out against Netanyahu’s irresponsible provocation, reflecting the views of an overwhelming majority  of Americans who favor diplomacy over war to restrain Iran’s nuclear activities. Immediately ending this violence and finding a path back to viable negotiations should be the guiding priority for the U.S. Government, rather than belligerent rhetoric and the continued supply of offensive weapons that enables yet another horrific conflict endangering millions.”

CIP Logo Wordless Transparent

Enforcing The Leahy Laws Can Help Find Justice for Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi

Abdelhalim Abdelrahman is a Palestinian-American political analyst and Marcellus Policy Fellow at the John Quincy Adams Society advocating for a restrained U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East centered around American laws and respect for Palestinian human rights.

Nine months have passed without any justice and accountability for the killing of 26-year-old Turkish-American activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Before the Trump administration took office, U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D) along with seven other Democratic lawmakers pressed the Biden-led State Department and then-Secretary of State Anthony Blinken for answers regarding which IDF unit was responsible for Eygi’s murder and why the IDF deemed her to be a threat. While an investigation into Egyi’s murder may prove even more elusive under a Trump presidency, the quest for answers is a small step in what thus far has been an elusive process for justice, even without the current administration. 

As a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), Eygi was shot and killed by the IDF in the occupied Palestinian village of Beita, located just south of the city of Nablus. Eygi was protesting with ISM against recent settler violence and ongoing expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian village of Beita. Since 2021, Israeli forces have killed at least 17 people in Beita by using disproportionate and lethal force against civilians who dare speak out against Israel’s occupation of Palestinians. Since her killing, the United States government has failed both to hold Eygi’s killer accountable and to impose consequences onto the military force responsible for the cold-blooded murder of an American citizen. The IDF claimed that Eygi was “hit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire which was not aimed at her, but aimed at the key instigator of the riot,” which is false given that Eygi was standing 200 meters away from the original protest site that had already subsided by the time IDF forced open fired.

Eygi preceded in death the recently slain Amir Rabee, who like Eygi joined Rachel Corrie, Shireen Abu Akleh, Omar Assad, Mohammad Khdour, and Tawfic Abdel Jabbar on a long list of Americans whose murder Israel labels “an accident.” Eyewitness reports have contradicted the IDF claim that Eygi’s killing was inadvertent, saying it appears that she was targeted by the IDF. 

Launch an independent investigation to obtain pertinent information into Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi’s murder Publicly affirm that Eygi’s death was an extrajudicial killing, offering credible evidence of gross violations of human rights. Demand charges be brought against the officers responsible and withhold all U.S. security assistance to all implicated units. Investigate other units recently credibly accused of gross violations of human rights, including the Givati Brigade, Metzada Unit, and Force 100.

Based on eyewitness testimonies, along with the history and genesis of IDF forces killing of American citizens, the U.S. State Department should investigate the murder of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi as an extrajudicial killing, which constitutes a gross violation of human rights (GVHR)under the Leahy Law. Under this legal process, the United States government would withhold foreign assistance to the IDF unit responsible and conduct an investigation into the unit’s history to ensure they have a clean human rights record. If not, then the United States would be legally able to withhold all military assistance to that said unit until they are back into compliance with U.S law.

On September 6, 2024, Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier in Beita while protesting the illegal Evaytar outpost in Nablus that had been taken over by hilltop settlers in 2021. Since the creation of the outpost in Beita, 17 Palestinians have been killed by IDF forces while protesting settlement expansion in this village. According to independent analyses by the Washington Post and CNN, Eygi’s killing occurred within the vicinity that these Palestinian civilians were killed. Furthermore, the IDF soldier who shot and killed Ms. Eygi was located behind a concrete wall roughly 230 meters from her location. The eyewitness testimonies reported by the Washington Post verified that during the time of Eygi’s killing, the protest was over and that Eygi posed no threat to Israeli forces, and corroborated the accounts as told to The Intercept. With all of this put together, it is reasonable to suspect that the IDF soldiers committed an unlawful, deliberate killing of an American civilian.

Policy Prescriptions: An Independent Investigation and Enforcement of The Leahy Laws

Firstly, the U.S. Department of State should heed the September 2024 call of Democratic lawmaker Adam Smith and 102 of his colleagues to launch an independent investigation to obtain pertinent information into Aysenur Eygi’s murder. That investigation should include which IDF unit was responsible for her killing, if that unit received U.S. security assistance in the form of training or equipping, the identity of the Israeli soldier and what accountability measures they may have faced. Secondly, the U.S. State Department should investigate whether or not Ms. Eygi’s death was an extrajudicial killing which would constitute gross violation of human rights (GVHR) under the 1997 Leahy Law.

While the State Department and Department of Defense’s respective Leahy Laws do not explicitly spell out what constitutes a “gross violation of human rights” the State Department utilizes the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act for guidance on the meaning and application of GVHR’s when applying the Leahy vetting process, defining an extrajudicial killing as a “deliberate killing of an individual, carried out under color of law,… and not authorized by a previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court after a trial affording all requisite fair trial and appeal guarantees.” The color of law clause is important because it explicitly states in order to operate under the color of law, a soldier or member of an armed force must be “acting or appear to be acting, in their capacity as a security unit.” 

The IDF soldier responsible for Eygi’s death was acting as a member of a security unit of the IDF when he or she deemed Ms. Eygi as a threat.. Given that Ms. Eygi sustained a gunshot wound to her head, the precision with which she was killed means her death is plausibly a targeted killing. 

Should an independent inquiry identify the unit involved in Ms. Eygi’s murder, the U.S. State Department should enforce the Leahy Law and ban all foreign assistance to that unit, as well as naming that unit explicitly as ineligible for assistance under the Duty to Inform provision. Similar rulings could also be issued in the cases of Omar Assad and journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, both of whom were American citizens killed by the IDF. 

The notorious Netzah Yehuda unit handcuffed, blindfolded, and beat to death OmarAssad in an empty parking lot in January 2022.. Despite widespread evidence that the group had committed grave human violations against Palestinians in the past, without adequate remediation, former Secretary of State Anthony Blinken refused to enforce the Leahy Laws against the Netzah Yehuda.

On May 11, 2022, an unidentified Israeli soldier with the IDF’s Duvdevan Unit shot and killed Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. They later claimed her death as result of Palestinian gunfire, but an independent U.N. inquiry found this to be untrue. To this very day, the soldier that is responsible for Shireen’s death remains unburdened by consequences and Congress has resisted pleas from both lawmakers and Shireen’s family for an independent investigation into her killing. 

The failure in accountability around Israel’s devastating harm to civilians, whether within the borders of 1947 Israel, or in Palestine, Lebanon, or Syria, must end. The consistent funding and political support for Israel by the world’s largest military power, notwithstanding international and domestic legal requirements to the contrary, is among the most key enablers of impunity for Israel. 

Demanding the Trump administration to act in accordance with the Leahy Law should be the baseline policy position for any Member of Congress or political figure attempting to position themselves as a defender of U.S. and international law. Applying existing U.S. law to Israel, rather than continuing a long upheld unjust double standard, would be a valuable first step in the search for Eygi and the many other American citizens murdered by the Israeli armed forces. On May 8, 2025, Zeteo’s documentary “Who Killed Shireen?” named the alleged killer of Abu Akleh.

Secondly, once the investigation is completed, the U.S. government must publicly affirm that Eygi’s death was an act of extrajudicial killing, making public the evidence. This would provide Congress and other key actors with valuable information required to hold the suspects in Eygi’s murder accountable.

Lastly, if the Leahy Law was indeed violated in the case of Ms. Eygi, then the U.S. Department of State should use investigate other units recently credibly accused gross violations of human rights, including the Givati Brigade, Metzada Unit, and Force 100; all of whom, have been alleged to have participated in grave human rights violations against the Palestinian-Americans and other members of the diaspora visiting their homeland and Palestinians living under Israel’s military occupation.

The Israeli Government’s Plan for Gaza is Genocide

(WASHINGTON, DC) — In response to reports of the components of the Israeli Security Cabinet-approved plan for the full takeover of Gaza, Center for International Policy President & CEO Nancy Okail issued the following statement:


“The Israeli government’s reported plan to fully take over the Gaza Strip, destroy remaining structures, concentrate its entire population in a single zone, and facilitate their displacement from the territory would – together with other actions already taken – clearly cross the threshold into an act of genocide under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The Israeli Security Cabinet’s approval of the plan comes after six weeks of deadly Israeli assaults in Gaza following the Netanyahu government’s abrogation of the hostage release and ceasefire agreement with Hamas, and a year and a half of devastating war.

“Independent of whether or not one regards the legal threshold for genocide as having already been met by prior Israeli actions in Gaza, implementing the reported plan would violate the Genocide Convention’s prohibition on ‘deliberately inflicting on [a] group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part’. It would also be yet another breach of provisional orders by the International Court of Justice designed to protect the Palestinian people from a plausible risk of genocide. Additionally, persons who aid or abet the acts outlined in the plan, including through facilitating the transfer of arms to Israel that are used in connection with implementing it, may open themselves to liability for the crime of complicity in genocide set forth in the convention.

“The open planning of such a crime against humanity has been made possible by the near-total failure of the international community, and the United States and other major suppliers of arms to Israel in particular, to uphold international law created to prevent such horrors from taking place ever again. The very countries that led codification of the the law of war have utterly abdicated their duty to enforce it in the face of avoidable mass civilian casualties, the targeting of protected sites like shelters and hospitals, the killing of protected persons like aid workers and medics, and massive restrictions on the delivery of humanitarian aid including a now total siege on all food, medicine and other necessities of life – all as Israeli officials repeatedly and publicly call for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

“Countries that aspire to uphold the rule of law and basic humanity must finally draw a line and take actions to prevent implementation of this plan. First and foremost, the United States and other arms suppliers should comply with domestic and international law, as others have, and halt their shipments of offensive weapons to Israel. States Parties to the Rome Statute, regardless of past positions, should recommit to enforcing the orders of the International Criminal Court, including all outstanding arrest warrants. Individual countries and multilateral organizations should also consider and make clear that implementation of the Israeli government’s plan may result in further legal action against Israeli officials and sanctions against Israel itself.

“In the coming days, world leaders face a choice by which they will be judged for generations – whether they did what they could to stop a genocide. Those who decline to do so, or even call this crime against humanity what it is, will be regarded by history as having failed that most basic test.”

CIP Logo Wordless Transparent

Trump’s Predatory Capitalism Does Nothing for America’s Workers 

Executive Vice President Matt Duss and Senior Non Resident Fellow Trevor Sutton analyze America’s economic policy, emphasizing that Neoliberalism might have failed—but Trumpism is no alternative.

It has become accepted wisdom that U.S. President Donald Trump’s populist message has been effective because it has criticized a failed economic ideology of neoliberalism. In both administrations, Trump has rejected some long-standing bipartisan orthodoxies about the relationship between the state and markets, such as the belief that economic integration and lowering of trade barriers are unquestionably in the national interest, or that the government should exercise restraint in addressing trade imbalances and managing currency exchange rates.

It is not hard to understand why such economic heresies resonate. Globalization has been a major factor in industrial decline, loss of livelihoods, and downward pressure on wages in the United States. But we should not mistake Trump’s rejection of orthodoxies for any concern for ordinary Americans. He aspires to personal control, not economic justice.

The impacts of globalization were not hard to foresee: The multilateral trade system built during and expanded in the wake of the Cold War was designed primarily to reduce barriers to trade. Other concerns that might be significantly influenced or aggravated by economic integration—for example, inequality, labor rights, and environmental protection—were viewed as matters that national governments could address through their domestic systems or on an ad hoc basis through free trade agreements.

The belief that the deregulatory pressures and labor dislocation produced by globalization could be offset through domestic policies and free trade agreements looks naive in hindsight. In practice, the rules of the trade system constrained national governments’ ability to slow deindustrialization and offshoring of jobs and provided inadequate tools to respond to weak enforcement of labor and environmental standards by trading partners.

These shortcomings enabled a shift in manufacturing activity away from advanced economies into emerging markets, which amplified the disruptive effects of automation on industrial workforces. For many workers, especially those in countries that lack a strong commitment to redistribution like the United States, the shift to a service economy has meant lower wages and increased precarity.

Trump’s fondness for tariffs and bold promises to revive manufacturing may tap into legitimate grievances about globalization but should not be mistaken for genuine economic populism. Trade liberalization has not been the only driver of inequality and insecurity in the United States. Deregulation of financial markets, regressive changes to the tax code, spiraling health care costs, and reductions in pension benefits have also played an important role in bringing Americans to their current plight.

Far from seeking to reverse these trends, Trump is accelerating them by dismantling the administrative state, privatizing or outright eliminating core state functions, pushing tax cuts that favor the rich, and attacking labor rights.

What Trump is actually doing is not fighting for ordinary Americans but asserting personalized rule over markets for political showmanship and performative retribution, producing disruption but not progress. His announcement earlier this month of massively increased tariffs, followed by a suspension of those tariffs, after which he claimed credit for a “historic” market rally after it partially recovered from the dip, is a perfect example. As Rep. Ryan Zinke, who served as secretary of the interior during Trump’s first term, observed succinctly, “Tariffs are a tool the president enjoys because it’s personal power.”

This is not a return to the regulated capitalism that drove middle-class growth, innovation, and industrial expansion in the mid-20th century. Instead, it’s a regression to a much older form of government, one in which the head of state surrounds himself with cronies and abuses his powers to tax, spend, and tariff to dole out favors. In other words, a spoils system.

Far from offering a “post-neoliberal” agenda, Trump is reproducing the worst aspects of that order and combining it with the worst aspects of an older one. We must reject and prevent a recurrence of Trump’s predatory capitalism, but the answer is not a reversion to market fundamentalism. The goal should be a system that empowers ordinary citizens and serves the common good, not the whims of one man or a handful of oligarchs and corporate overlords, and one that looks to the sustainable future rather than seeking to recreate a gilded past based on plunder.

Creating such a system will require far more comprehensive and strategic changes in policy than antagonistic and erratic tariffs. Many of the key reforms that will be needed are inward-facing, such as a more progressive and simpler tax code, an expanded welfare state, and stronger labor protections, especially those that can address the challenges we will soon face with rapid automation. But these internal measures will only succeed if we reform the external economic and geopolitical environment so markets are not insulated from democratic control and wealth cannot buy impunity.

This shift in the external environment will require a corresponding shift in U.S. foreign and international economic policy. A post-neoliberal economic agenda that works for all Americans should, at a minimum, reflect the following four goals: a fairer trade system that gives states more flexibility in balancing the interests of trading partners with national priorities; an industrial policy that emphasizes good-quality jobs and economic mobility—including in the services sector—at least as much as strategic competition and national security; international coordination to stop regulatory arbitrage and tax avoidance; and a new approach to U.S. foreign assistance and diplomacy focused on equitable distribution of global goods and building worker power.

This agenda will only succeed if Americans can relax the grip of oligarchs and their old guard allies on our institutions. This will not be an easy task and will require perseverance in achieving long overdue reforms, such as amending the federal bribery statute to better reflect commonsense understandings of corruption (which successive Supreme Court decisions have essentially defined out of existence), imposing stricter ethics rules on U.S. officials, and importantly, reforming our country’s campaign finance rules, which have created a political system that is more responsive to a small group of economic elites than to the needs of the majority.

There is no question that the old neoliberal theology that dominated U.S. economic policymaking for decades has failed American working people, steadily siphoning the fruit of their labor disproportionately upward to an elite with the power and influence to game the system. Some amount of creative destruction was long overdue. But we shouldn’t be fooled by Trump’s approach, which simply reproduces the worst aspects of the old order while doing nothing for working people. We need a new economic model that truly puts them at the center.

Read in Foreign Policy. 

 

Trump’s Predatory Capitalism Does Nothing for America’s Workers 

Trump’s Planned Gutting of State Department Will Hurt Americans and U.S. Interests

(WASHINGTON, DC) — In response to reports that the Trump Administration plans to cut the State Department’s budget by half and close critical missions and offices, Center for International Policy Vice President for Government Affairs Dylan Williams released the following statement: 

“The Trump Administration’s plan to slash the funding and functions of the State Department is nothing less than an assault on American diplomacy. Following the administration’s unconstitutional efforts to hollow out foreign aid, this move will further decimate U.S. influence and standing in the world, undermining our fundamental security and other critical interests. 

“Coupled with the administration’s intention to dramatically increase military spending, this decimation of the State Department also serves as a clear indication that it is prioritizing militarism over diplomacy. Donald Trump has said he wants to be a president who ends wars, but moves like this will make that much more difficult.”

CIP Logo Wordless Transparent

How is Taiwan Reacting to the Trump Administration? Four Experts Visited Taiwan to Find Out

Executive Vice President Matt Duss joins Christopher S. Chivvis, Stephen Wertheim, Brett Rosenberg for a conversation on geopolitical changes in Taiwan. They visited Taipei and met with Taiwan’s officials and thought leaders. In this episode of Pivotal States, they share their takeaways and delve into the United States’ policy challenge in Taiwan.

Watch the full interview on Pivotal Sates. Check out transcript excerpts below:

Christopher Chivvis:
So anyway, given all of that, we thought it would be a good idea to go to Taiwan, which is really sort of at the center of the maelstrom here, and try to get a sense of what it looked like from the island itself. There’s obviously tons of different issues that we can talk about and that we did talk about on the trip. You’ve got the state of Taiwan’s own democracy, the nature of its domestic politics. You’ve got the condition of cross-strait relations, and then finally, since it’s Taiwan, the military dimension is always really important.

But if it’s okay with you guys, I thought we might just start with domestic politics and then move to the larger strategic questions.

Matthew Duss:
I’d say, knowing kind of a little bit about Taiwan’s domestic politics, but not a lot, I think we were able to dive in at a much, much deeper level that I really appreciated. And in a way, the positions of the two parties on the various domestic versus foreign policies are almost counterintuitive. The KMT, this is the Chinese Nationalist Party that literally fought a war against the Communist party and retreated to the island of Taiwan and still nominally claims to be the rightful government of all of China, and yet they are the ones who have the ongoing conversation with the CCP. Any channels that the Taiwanese government has are basically through the KMT. The DPP is much more forward-leaning in terms of an independent Taiwanese identity separate from the Chinese mainland. And yet, even though it seems a bit more hawkish on the foreign policy side, when it comes to domestic issues, gay rights, women’s rights, a whole range of things that we associate with progressive politics here in the United States.

… I thought that was really interesting. Yeah. And I do think it’s important always to understand as much as possible the domestic drivers of any country’s politics, because ultimately, that is what, in democracies, politicians — I hate to break it to people — are mainly concerned with. How do I get re-elected? How do I stay in power? How do I manage my own political coalition? So that’s something that we have to contend with as we try to come to our own decisions about U.S. policy.

Brett Rosenberg:
And I was struck as well by, there’s obviously this polarization between the two parties, but there was an understanding that the public I think is much closer to where the DPP’s view is on the cross-strait approach, not necessarily in terms of a hawkish approach, but in terms of, we’re already an independent sovereign nation.

Matthew Duss:
Yeah, I mean, I think it was not that this person was charged with activities, like they were ideas that were expressed, that were deemed so harmful to the security of Taiwan. And obviously that is a huge problem. The same with the recall effort. It’s a foundational principle of democracies that you respect outcomes of elections when they don’t go your way and you try again next time. Obviously we see echoes of all these problems here in our country. We should be humble about that. But it does really show the increasingly zero-sum nature of their politics. That’s the phrase that kept ringing around in my head as we heard both sides describing the other.

Christopher Chivvis:
Bunch of unreasonable radicals was sort of the impression that you got from talking to the KMT.

Brett Rosenberg:
We had one person refer to the DPP as the DEI party, clearly importing in some American…

Matthew Duss:
I think that’s really important to understand the domestic side, but also the strategic impact of it on Taiwan’s security and its relationship with the U.S.

Christopher Chivvis:
And I think it was really clear when we were there, and I completely agree that that’s a really excellent summary of the strategic situation. We often think about the defense side of it, getting Taiwan to do more for its defense. Obviously that’s what we’ve been asking of our European allies. There’s good reasons for that. But in this case, as you pointed out, there’s a flip side to it, which is Taiwan also needs to be demonstrating that diplomatically, it’s willing to go out of its way in order to ensure that we avoid having to come to its rescue, that we avoid having to get into that war with China that would be so destructive.

But, you know, so we asked several times our interlocutors, especially on the DPP side, you know, how they felt about cross-strait dialogue. This would be trying to return to the constructive discussions that were going on between Beijing and Taipei from the early 1990s up until around 2016. And just I’ll say off the bat, it’s clear that China bears a lot of the responsibility for why these fell apart, but we were in Taiwan, so we were trying to get their sense of it.

Matthew Duss:
I think it’s a bit more concern, and just as Brett said, they had clearly heard that line, but they were a bit more, I guess, sanguine about the fact that, no Taiwan does have cards that Ukraine does not. TSMC being the most obvious example. But there’s two sides to that. They need to be able to deter an invasion and if necessary withstand it, fight back, things like that. But two, they need to be able to prove to the United States that they have cards so as to then bring the US in.

Brett Rosenberg:
Exactly. And the question of whether Taiwan can prove its worth to the United States in a way that convinces them to commit fully.

Matthew Duss:
Yeah, I mean, I think there are definitely elements of what Stephen and Jennifer wrote in their piece, stronger investments in Taiwan’s defense, certainly investments in its own resilience. One of the things we haven’t mentioned yet is there’s apparently an effort now to extend the amount of time that is required for national service for all young Taiwanese. Right now it’s about four months, which one person referred to as just a kind of summer camp where they go and hang out and do drills, and that’s their-

Christopher Chivvis:
Shot a rifle once or twice.

Matthew Duss:
Right, right. Exactly. And to extend that to one or two years as a lot of other countries do. But also it’s just understanding that, I mean, given the various scenarios, the kind of least bad scenario is what we have now with a few changes as we just mentioned. Also having a president of Taiwan who is really willing to try harder to have engagement with Beijing, which Taiwan does not have now, unfortunately. I think that would be good, that opens possibilities in talks with Beijing, but also I think that would have benefits in terms of US public opinion and global opinion as well. And I do think that matters, but I think coming from a DC perspective, the idea of just there’s not much we can do and we should keep this unsatisfying status quo is not a very attractive argument either there or here. And yet, that is I think probably the best option.

Stephen Wertheim:
Actually, when you poll Americans, only thirty-some percent say that they would support coming to the direct defense of Taiwan against a Chinese attack. That’s a fairly low number if you compare that to the number that say that they would support defending a NATO ally, including the Baltic States.

Matthew Duss:
Yeah, it’s a significant gap in perception. So from Taiwan’s perspective, I think they believe they have more support from the U.S. than might actually exist, and that’s concerning.

Matthew Duss:
Right. No, it’s ripe for political actors on either side to disturb that status quo and political actors from the United States as we’ve seen in the recent past. But I was really struck by one conversation we had with a kind of progressive left DPP-affiliated journalist and activist.

Christopher Chivvis:
This was in that bar. The Home Run Bar. That was fun.

Matthew Duss:
Right, exactly. Who clearly was pro-independence. And then we asked, “Okay, so what’s the pathway?” And he said, “Well, there’s no path right now to achieving this.” So there’s at least a pragmatic-

Christopher Chivvis:
Which was surprisingly realistic for someone who was so aspirational about it.

Matthew Duss:
Right. A level of pragmatism to say, “Well, at the moment, there’s no path to this.” And that was one of the most interesting things I think we heard.

Matthew Duss:
The announcement of a rise in the defense budget is definitely a part of that. The announcement, all the things that Brett talked about, I think is a part of that. So again, I wouldn’t overstate the amount of alarm, but I do think some people were perhaps a bit too relaxed and placing a bit too much stock in this kind of idea that, “Oh, Americans will always support Taiwan because maybe Americans when you poll them. But the question is will they punish a politician or a president who changes that?”

CIP Logo Wordless Transparent

Israel’s Invasion Seeks To Keep Syria Divided

By Alexander Langlois, a Contributing Fellow at Defense Priorities and analyst focused on the Middle East. Follow him on X @langloisajl and BlueSky @langloisajl.bsky.social.

The collapse of former President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024 ushered in a generational political transition in Syria. Yet, as the country works to rebuild and heal after nearly 14 years of brutal conflict, Israel appears dead set on malignly stymieing Syria’s transition, territorial integrity and continuity, and basic sovereignty. 

Indeed, Israel is pressuring Syria today under the guise of protecting minority groups in the country. The effort constitutes an extension of Israel’s “periphery doctrine” and “alliance of minorities” strategies – long central components of Israel’s broader regional effort to bolster its security through alliances with potential shared enemies of Sunni majority states. As such, Tel Aviv aims to operationalize real or perceived minority concerns in Syria to justify clear violations of its northern neighbor’s sovereignty, advancing its overarching security interests. Such efforts risk reigniting Syria’s civil conflict and should be rejected by the international community.

Israeli Violations of Syrian Sovereignty     

Less than one day after the Assad regime collapsed on December 8, Israel quickly moved to secure its interests inside Syria. IDF soldiers captured the Syrian side of the disengagement zone along the disputed Israel-Syria border separating the illegally occupied Golan Heights from the rest of Syria. It has since captured and illegally occupied numerous towns in southwest Syria’s Quneitra Governorate – the country’s second-smallest province, which contains the Golan Heights.

Israel’s decision to invade Syria coincided with a sweeping bombing campaign across the country. In an estimated 480 strikes, Israel targeted the former Syrian Arab Army’s military infrastructure and assets, including bases, weapons stockpiles, aircraft and military airports, and supposed chemical weapons sites. The goal of the operation, according to Israeli officials, was to eliminate any Assad regime weapons that could fall into the wrong hands. These strikes continue today.

Yet Israeli officials originally stressed that these operations would be temporary, mindful of both the illegality of their actions and global public opinion against its broader regional operations over the last 16 months. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu then claimed on December 17, 2024, that Israeli forces would remain until an arrangement that “ensures Israel’s security” would be put in place. This announcement reflects a substantially deeper and more nefarious goal, as Tel Aviv couples national security rhetoric with expanding operations over time. 

In this regard, Israeli leaders view Syria’s new rulers – senior leaders from the former Al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – as an immediate threat along their occupied northern border in the Golan. For Israel, the thought of another Islamist militia or armed entity on their border reflected the ongoing threat from Lebanese Hezbollah in southern Lebanon – a threat they largely eradicated in 2024.

That military operation in Lebanon highlights a drastic shift in Israel’s military strategy since the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023. Given the brutal success of Hamas’s operation in breaking through Israel’s security systems that have long blockaded Gaza, the military establishment in Israel adopted a strategy of enhanced border security on a national scale – namely by rejecting the most remote threats along those borders through the use of military force. 

As such, Israel continues to expand its illegal occupation of southern Syria. Israeli Defense Minister Katz announced an indefinite occupation of the newly captured Syrian territory on January 28. Then, on February 23, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that the southern Syrian governorates of Quneitra, Dara’a, and Suwayda remain demilitarized, threatening the use of force should Damascus deploy in these areas. 

The threat effectively nullifies any sense of Syrian sovereignty while extending the Israeli exception to international law further into Syria and just miles from the capital of Damascus. Israeli officials have amplified ethno-sectarian tensions across the country to bolster those threats, claiming Israel’s self-proclaimed role in protecting Syria’s minority groups – including Alawites, Kurds, Druze, and Christians.

In one particularly telling instance, Israel repeatedly insisted it would use military force to protect the Druze, a major minority group in southern Syria – particularly in Suwayda Governorate. Tel Aviv cited so-called violations against the Druze in Jaramana, a densely populated and ethnically diverse suburb of Damascus with a sizable Druze population. 

Working with small and disparate Druze groups, the Israelis argued that Druze spiritual and political leaders supported an alliance – something that Druze leaders immediately and publicly rejected. Unfortunately, this did not prevent days of violence between Damascus’s new security forces and some of these minor Druze factions, resulting in many deaths.

Understanding the risks, Syrian leaders have criticized Israel’s actions without escalating the situation. This position reflects Damascus’s weakened state. Indeed, it is in no position to challenge Israel or the broader West as it hopes to garner sanctions relief necessary for a successful transitional period. With its military and economy in shambles, it can ill afford a conflict with a rogue Israeli state that will simultaneously eradicate any hope to rebuild the country and provide for its people.

Israel’s Intentions in Syria

Ultimately, Israel’s efforts post-Assad are designed to create facts on the ground that advance their interests now and in the future. Tel Aviv expects some form of negotiations with Damascus that will dictate state-to-state relations for generations should the transition succeed. Thus, the Israeli government is collecting as many bargaining chips as possible ahead of potential talks.

To put it lightly, this approach is dangerous. Israel appears willing to induce ethno-sectarian infighting within Syria to ensure the transition fails to produce a territorially contiguous Syrian state. It is doing so by co-opting minority fears in a country where the previous regime used sectarianism to sow distrust throughout the population in a classic autocratic divide-and-rule strategy that left Syria’s social fabric destroyed.

Israel likely hopes to use this pressure to induce a series of concessions from Damascus under the threat of collapsing the state, resulting in the balkanization of Syria. In this context, the goal is to prevent any serious threat to Israeli interests or territory from inside Syria. As such, Tel Aviv could hope to dangle full recognition as an alternative – an item Assad was previously negotiating alongside a break from Iran in exchange for sanctions relief and a general Western acceptance of his victory in the war.

Given that this so-called victory was anything but real, Israel is hoping to get the same or a similar outcome from Syria’s new rulers at gunpoint. At minimum, they likely hope for Syria’s recognition of Israel’s claim to the Golan Heights. Both goals are non-starters for Damascus, which would not dare risk its limited legitimacy during a highly unstable transition period by recognizing Israel or its illegal occupation and annexation of its territory. 

To be sure, Washington previously made offers their counterparts could not reject under US President Donald Trump’s first term in office – an effort that led to the infamous Abraham Accords. Morocco received US recognition of its sovereignty over Western Sahara; Sudan was removed from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list; and the UAE received numerous preferential deals. It is not unrealistic to assume Washington could bolster Israeli efforts to induce a false “peace” between Syria and Israel, especially given the former’s listing on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list since 1979. 

Still, Syria could turn to other countries for support – namely Russia and Turkey. The latter is particularly important as it represents Israel’s other major concern in Syria. Ankara directly and strongly backed the opposition during Syria’s civil war, aggressively demanding Assad’s ouster and positioning itself well in today’s post-Assad Syria as a result. Given the total collapse of Israel-Turkey relations today, both view Syria as a battleground in their growing competition for regional power and influence. 

Israel is working to ensure Turkey cannot realize its military goals in Syria. Ankara hopes to build multiple military bases in the country – something Tel Aviv worries could re-ignite Syria’s long-running role as a resistance front to its illegal occupation of Palestine and neighboring lands. 

In line with the Israeli goal to not allow real or perceived threats on its borders, it is working to prevent this potential future. Yet, just as its military operations could inadvertently produce a new rival state in Syria, Israel’s efforts to weaken the country will likely force Damascus to rely more heavily on Ankara. Thus, the short-sighted nature of Israel’s strategy comes into full focus.

Preventing a Disaster     

The international community cannot allow any regional actor to thwart or distort Syria’s transition in ways that could either upend the country or permanently tear it apart. Indeed, efforts should be focused on ensuring Syrians can lead their transition with minimal to no impediments – especially those that would harm Syria for another entity’s political gain. Washington can play a central role in this regard while retaining a light-touch approach to any post-Assad transition.

The Trump administration should temper Israeli actions in Syria, overtly and covertly pressing them to forego illegal military operations within and illegal occupation of Syria’s sovereign territory. This can be framed as supporting Israeli security – namely that occupying a neighboring country’s land creates long-term strife that could produce a Hezbollah-equivalent entity in Syria. Stressing that Syria is not interested in competition or conflict with Israel, and that Washington and Israel can work with regional partners to ensure that reality is sustained, should be central to this approach.

Washington should also coordinate with regional actors – particularly Turkey – to further ensure Syria does not remain a playground for regional and international actors to compete. Guaranteeing and supporting positive role for Ankara that does not use Syria to raise tensions with Israel is crucial in this regard as Israel views Turkish influence in the country with suspicion, if not hostility. Such efforts can bolster the parallel goal of reigning in Israel.

Finally, Washington should work with the new Syrian government to disincentivize any potential response that could escalate the situation and produce further Israeli encroachment on their territory. The United States still holds economic and diplomatic tools that can lightly steer the Caretaker Government in the best direction for Syria’s transition to succeed. Of course, this approach must reject micromanaged nation-building or any heavy-handed approach to Syria’s transition. Officials can openly back the Damascus government and gradually provide terror designation relief to reinforce this effort.

Ultimately, all states should support Syria’s political transition given the country’s geographic positioning as the “Heart of the Middle East” and out of respect for its people’s resilience and democratic aspirations after 14 years of war. Preventing unhelpful and short-sighted policies that harm that transition should be central to any actor with a stake in Syria today. Bargaining Syrian security for one of its neighbors will only produce more of the same instability that has plagued the Middle East for decades – a scenario no administration in Washington should promote or accept as pre-determined.

This post also appears on the IPJ Substack, read and subscribe here.