Foreign Affairs Trump Risks Stoking an ISIS Fire A religious framing for strikes in Nigeria could encourage blowback. When drawing parallels between the foreign policies of George W. Bush and Donald Trump, the focus has understandably been on the former’s Iraq policy and the latter’s Venezuela policy, which has culminated (thus far) in the kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.  But another parallel appears to be taking shape where Trump is going even further than his Republican neocon predecessor: invoking religion in the war against Salafi jihadism.  Trump deliberately timed the recent strikes on Nigeria to fall on Christmas Day, one of the most important religious festivities in Christianity. Following the strikes, he appeared to cast himself as the global protector of Christians from radical Islam represented by the terror group ISIS. “Tonight, at ‌my direction as Commander ‌in Chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ‍ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting ‌and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, ‌at levels not seen ‍for many years, and even Centuries! Under my leadership, our Country will not allow Radical Islamic Terrorism to prosper,” he declared in a social media post. Trump’s focus on Christian victims and his reference to the operation as part of the larger conflict against “Radical Islamic Terrorism” indicates a new anti-ISIS policy that extends beyond Nigeria to include other places where the terror group is active. This new policy views Salafi jihadism through a more religious anti-Christian lens. Irrespective of the accuracy of Trump’s proclamations, he has taken religious dogma in the fight against Salafi jihadis to levels not seen even during the Bush years in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. While Bush invoked the term “crusade”, this pales in comparison to Trump’s far more pronounced religious framing of the conflict. It is worth recalling how the Salafi jihadis took advantage of Bush’s choice of words to bolster their own narrative. “The Zionist-Crusader campaign on the nation today is the most dangerous and rabid ever, since it threatens the entire nation, its religion, and presence. Did Bush not say that it is a Crusader war?” declared the former Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in the early days of the Iraq War. Experts have noted how Bush’s “crusade” characterization was a possible factor—in addition to the war on Iraq—that bolstered enemy ranks, where individuals who otherwise did not fully embrace Al Qaeda’s Salafi-jihadi doctrine, nevertheless saw themselves participating in a defensive holy war against “crusader aggression.” Trump’s more explicit religious framing of the conflict with ISIS could prove to be just as detrimental, if not more, particularly should he decide to intensify military operations in the name of defending Christians against “radical Islamic terror.” This owes largely to the fact that ISIS defines its enemies on purely theological grounds, whereas Al Qaeda does not go to this extreme, notwithstanding the Salafi-jihadi ideology the two groups share. According to ISIS doctrine, Christianity—along with other faiths—is an enemy whose adherents deserve death, irrespective of geopolitical factors such as American support for Israel, which Bin Laden often cited. It is for this reason that the “ISIS era” witnessed deliberate attacks against Christians in various parts of the world, including against Arab populations in the Middle East. ISIS terrorism targeting religious festivities like Easter and Christmas is further proof of how the group behaves according to theologically based animosity. Hence Trump runs the real risk of playing into the hands of ISIS, much in the same way that Bush’s use of the term crusade played into the hands of Al Qaeda, and perhaps to an even greater degree. Given that Bush’s rhetoric is cited as a factor that allowed Al Qaeda to recruit new members by lowering the ideological bar to join its ranks, the possibility of a similar scenario unfolding with ISIS must be taken seriously, not least if Trump broadens military operations that could be easily cast as some form of a “crusade” anti-Muslim aggression. This could seriously undermine Trump’s presidency and foreign policy in more ways than one. A likely early casualty would be Syria, where Trump has invested heavily in propping up the interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa. Foreign fighters believed to harbor extremist tendencies occupy senior positions in the post-Assad Syrian army, and massacres against minorities demonstrated how many of the fighters operating under the umbrella of the state remain committed to Salafi-Jihadism in one form or another. After Syria joined the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition during al-Sharaa’s visit to Washington last November, ISIS urged the foreign fighters to join its ranks and break with the government in Damascus. There have already been signs that certain members of the Syrian state security apparatus reject allying with the United States against ISIS. While Trump attributed the Palmyra attack that killed two American servicemen and one interpreter last December to ISIS, the Syrian Interior Ministry stated that the perpetrator was a member of the security forces who was due to be dismissed from his job over his extremist views. Importantly this incident took place shortly after Syria joined the anti-ISIS coalition, as American servicemen met with their Syrian counterparts to discuss the fight against ISIS. This episode demonstrates how the ideological threshold to switch sides from al-Sharaa to ISIS is likely low, at least for some operatives working under the umbrella of the state. By framing the battle against ISIS as a Christian struggle against “radical Islamic terror” Trump risks lowering the bar even further, paving the way for ISIS to bolster its manpower and undermine the Syrian government which Washington is desperately trying to keep afloat. Perhaps more importantly, in openly posing as the global defender of Christianity and its adherents, it can be argued that Trump has effectively declared the United States leader of the Christian world, as opposed to the “free world” slogan used by past presidents, including Bush in the Global War on Terror. The danger here is that this could make the United States that much more of a tempting target for ISIS, given its theological animosity. This threatens to shift the terror groups focus more towards the far enemy represented by the United States, after much this focus has been on the near enemy represented by Middle Eastern and African governments. Even if one were to assume that the terror group lacks the means to conduct an attack on the American homeland, would-be ISIS-inspired lone wolf actors could find an additional source of inspiration to spring into action. In other words, placing the fight against ISIS in a religious context also lowers the bar for lone-wolf and/or ideologically inspired attacks, which continue to pose a daunting challenge for state security agencies, as the recent attacks in Australia demonstrate. Whatever be the motivations behind Trump’s religious pronouncements in the war against ISIS, they are not worth the risk.  The post Trump Risks Stoking an ISIS Fire appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs Will Venezuela Define the Second Trump Administration? There’s little clarity and much risk in the near future in Venezuela. Presidents are drawn to foreign policy in part because courts and Congress won’t constrain them as they do on domestic policy. Presidential historians love ambitious foreign policies, and rank war presidents higher than peace presidents. So it’s understandable that presidents often look to make their legacies through foreign policy. In the postwar era, though, for every Reagan, there is an LBJ, a Bush, or a Carter. The lure of foreign policy is that it promises national greatness; the peril is that the foreigners get a vote, and things may be sketchier than people tell you. To use a Trumpian metaphor, what can seem like a clear shot to the fairway can wind up in thick rough. In Venezuela, the president who prides himself on being unpredictable has surprised again. In a well-executed night raid that took place under a full moon, a Delta Force team with FBI agents embedded captured the Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and brought him to the United States for trial on gun and drug charges. What the Trump administration seems not to have realized when the president took this decision is that they now own Venezuela. To be sure, their rhetoric since the raid has ranged widely. President Donald Trump initially promised that the United States would “run the country as long as we can until a safe, proper, and judicious transition” can take place that would ensure “peace, liberty, and justice” for Venezuelans. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was somewhat less grand—if less lucid—on Sunday, shrugging that, “What we are running is the direction that this is going to move moving forward, and that is we have leverage.” Thanks for that, Marco. The Trump administration has a choice to make. Do they want Venezuela to take a central—perhaps the central—place in the story of Trump’s second term? If so, there are real dangers. First, even relatively smooth transitions to democracy aren’t smooth. Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado described the essence of the Venezuelan state as a “criminal structure” in October, noting that in order to break it down, you need to cut the inflows of criminal money that comes from drug trafficking, from gold smuggling, for human trafficking, or the black market of oil… Venezuela has been destroyed in every possible way—you see it in our economy, in our security, in our national sovereignty, in, you know, in the public services, basic services that people require. Fixing all of this is a big project. It’s also not the kind of thing the United States excels at. Regardless, if the president continues to insist that his administration is running Venezuela, anything bad that happens in that country will be laid, justly, at the administration’s feet. They will find themselves asked constantly about this or that development, and, considering how frustrated the administration seems by the reasonable question, “What do you mean ‘run Venezuela’?” it seems unlikely they will welcome a steady stream of more detailed questions. The administration is left in a quandary. Does removing one person from atop the corrupt Venezuelan government fix anything? They appear to hope that Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, will act as a pliant satrap while they hang the Damoclean sword of a “second wave” of strikes over her head. But there is still the possibility that she chooses not to play ball, even if she would like to; she may well feel as though the security apparatus—which appears to be penetrated but largely intact—would not allow it. What then? Presumably Trump could launch his second wave, depose Rodriguez, and work to install the winner of the last election, Edmundo Gonzalez. But in that case, the problem of the security apparatus would remain, even more so than with Rodriguez, because the Machado program is a dagger aimed at the heart of this corrupt bureaucracy. Does the administration really want to be sorting through questions about all of this for the remainder of Trump’s second term? For their part, the American people appear uncharacteristically wary at the outset of the project. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that a third of the country supports the policy, a third opposes it, and a third isn’t sure. But an overwhelming number—72 percent—worry that the United States will “become too involved” in Venezuela. Outside of the South, the policy is already strikingly unpopular. Trump is the master of blustering his way out of trouble, but removing a foreign leader and promising to “run” that country could be tough to wriggle out of, even for him. The administration has three years left in office. What portion of that time do they want to spend putting Venezuela policy first? The post Will Venezuela Define the Second Trump Administration? appeared first on The American Conservative.