Crashing the War Party

According to journalist Matthew Petti's number crunching, 31% of English-speaking media have been using the phrase "Hamas-led Health Ministry" since Oct. 17. Before that day, only 7% were using such a phrase. What happened? Petti points to the Oct. 17 explosion at the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, the perpetrator of which has not been independently confirmed. He said civilian casualty counts were not only second-guessed by the Biden administration but questioned because the ministry was "Hamas run." Repeating this led to the Western media pick-up of the phrase. Not only does linking the ministry and its data to the militant group delegitimize both, it serves a broader insidious narrative that Gazans and Palestinians are Hamas, which serves Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's interests in justifying the relentless bombing of civilians. Petti talks to Kelley and Daniel about this and the broader responsibility of the Western media in the coverage and interpretation of these complex issues on the ground today.

More from Matt Petti:

Media amplified US, Israeli narrative on Palestinian deaths, Responsible Statecraft, 11/20/23

The international pressure on Israel that really matters comes from the Middle East, Analyst News, 10/19/23

Why does Egypt fear evacuating Gaza? Responsible Statecraft, 10/13/23

America's Broken, Lurid View of Foreign Wars, Reason magazine, 10/12/23

Experts are now speculating that America's reputation in the world, particularly in the Middle East, is taking a hit worse than when it invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003. Giorgio Cafiero, head of Gulf State Analytics and a keen observer of politics in the region, tells the podcast this week that President Biden is becoming more hated than George W. Bush during that era. This threatens to get even worse each day that the Israeli bombardments continue and more Palestinian civilians are killed (as of this writing, it is well over 11,000, nearly half of them children). Meanwhile, Arab leaders, especially those in the Gulf States with ties to both the U.S. and Israel, are coming under increasing pressure by the Arab Street to do more than just rhetorically signal their anger and displeasure with Tel Aviv and Washington.

In the first segment, Kelley & Dan talk about the big Biden-Xi Jinping meeting in San Francisco this week: a nothingburger or a real step forward for diplomacy? 

More from Giorgio Cafiero:

Consequences Of The Israeli War On Gaza, News Looks, 11/14/23

Will Turkey-Israel ties reach breaking point amid Gaza war?, The New Arab, 11/14/23

Will UAE hurt Russia with export controls to please the US amid Israel war? Al Jazeera, 11/7/23

China and Israel have enjoyed serious ties. What happens now? Responsible Statecraft, 11/3/23

A popular narrative after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and ensuing retaliation by Israel has been that the U.S. had dropped the ball because it had 'pivoted away' from the Middle East over the last three administrations. That is simply not true. According to our guests this week, CATO researchers Jon Hoffman and Jordan Cohen,  Washington has maintained a status quo in the Middle East that had become untenable. It has been fueling the region with weapons; making deals with dictators in Saudi Arabia and Israel at the expense of the Palestinian issue, and ignoring the growing violence and tensions in the occupied territories. We talk about this and more as the violence threatens to spill over to other parts of the region, which will embolden those in Washington who want us to have a bigger, not a smaller footprint there.

More from Jon Hoffman and Jordan Cohen:

Emergency Aid or Budget Trick? Assessing Biden’s $100 Billion Spending Request, Jordan Cohen w/ Dominik Lett, CATO, 10/20/23

Biden's Middle East Deal is a Disaster, Jon Hoffman, Responsible Statecraft, 9/27/23

Many Arms and Little Influence in the Middle East, Hoffman and Cohen, War on the Rocks, 8/23/23

Counter-revolutionary? A deeper look at Israel’s relationships with Arab autocrats, Responsible Statecraft

There are currently 2,500 American troops in Iraq and another 900 in Syria. Their bases have come under repeated fire in both countries since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel. According to Pentagon officials, Iranian-backed militias are to blame, and they expect more as fighting ramps up in Gaza and the West Bank. Adam Weinstein, a senior fellow on Middle East issues at the Quincy Institute and an Afghanistan War veteran, spoke with Dan and Kelley this week about how vulnerable these troops are today. He also talked about the risks of the war expanding to Lebanon and the possibility of Iran and neighboring Arab nations, along with the U.S., getting dragged into the conflagration. 

In the first segment, Kelley and Dan talk about the reaction of the Global South and Arab state leaders to the events in Israel and how the international community seems to be fracturing, once again, against U.S. desires for consensus.

More from Adam Weinstein:

Iraq as it Is, with Steven Simon, Foreign Affairs, 9/27/23

‘The Return of the Taliban’ Makes Sense of Afghanistan’s Misery, Foreign Policy, 7/19/23

How to Withdraw From Iraq Within Five Years, with Steven Simon, Quincy Institute, 5/9/23

In this special episode, Kelley and Dan update the headlines from the Gaza strip and talk about how U.S. policy in the region has become increasingly effective in terms of pushing for a two-state solution and helping to restrain the more extreme impulses of the Israeli government ahead of the Hamas attacks on Israel and retaliatory strikes in Gaza over the last week.

In the first segment, we talk to Mark Hannah, senior fellow of the Eurasia Group Foundation about the organization's recent polling, Views of US Foreign Policy in a Fragmented World, which finds strong public opinion in favor of diplomacy with Iran and Russia, declining interest in fighting a forever war in Ukraine, and an interesting uptick in support for military intervention against China in defense of Taiwan.

More from Mark Hannah:

The Real Reason Ukraine Isn’t Ready to Join NATO, Politico, 9/18/23

Washington Should Divide, Not Unite, Russia and China, The National Interest, 9/14/23

Straight Talk on the Country’s War Addiction, New York Times, 2/18/23

It took the Ukraine war to show how broken the U.S. war machine really is. President Eisenhower warned about the military-industrial complex in 1961 and we know that it is ten times as worse as he even imagined. But after almost two years of war in Ukraine and tens of billions of American weapons transfers, we now know how limited -- if not dysfunctional -- the MIC really is. Yale scholar and lecturer Michael Brenes joins us to discuss how this happened historically, and what Washington might do to claw the industry back from the five mega-corporations that now dominate and control U.S. defense manufacturing and supply.

In the first segment, Kelley and Dan talk about the latest events in Gaza and Israel and bemoan the exploitation of the conflict by outside warmongers who want to drag the U.S. into a wider conflict with Iran.

More from Michael Brenes:

How America Broke its War Machine, Foreign Affairs, 7/3/23

The future of restraint after Ukraine, Foreign Exchanges, 12/19/22

Great-Power Competition Is Bad for Democracy, with Van Jackson, 7/14/22

The Ukraine War has exposed a lot when it comes to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — otherwise known as NATO. Aside from the "renewed mission" and "unity" that has emerged to help Ukraine confront the Russian invasion, there are downsides. NATO has a limited capacity of weapons stores and manpower and the US is taking on a disproportionate share of the leadership and resource sharing. Dr. Maitra Sumantra, a senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America, says it's past time for Americans to rethink further expansion and scaling back the US dominance of this organization. We talk about where the support exists for this kind of dramatic shift, and how resistant the political establishment here and in European capitals would be toward such change.

In the first segment, Kelley and Dan talk about the new UN-approved, Kenyan-led security mission in Haiti.

More from Sumantra Maitra:

Europe’s Revealed Preferences, The American Conservative, 10/423 

Britain's Military Enlightenment, The American Conservative, 8/14/23

Pivoting the U.S. Away from Europe to a Dormant NATO, Center for Renewing America, 2/16/23

We welcomed back to the show this week the co-hosts of Conflicts of Interest podcast, Kyle Anzalone & Connor Freeman, who both write and edit and support the Libertarian Institute. We ask them about the rancorous split among libertarians over Ukraine, a fissure not seen in the Global War on Terror. We also talked about signs of fraying support for a forever war situation in Ukraine, on Capitol Hill and outside the Beltway, increasing tensions between the U.S. and China, and the GOP presidential field.

In the first segment, Kelley and Dan chewed over the demise of Senator Bob Menendez, Egypt's man in D.C.

More from Kyle and Connor:

US-Backed SDF Militia Shells Positions Taken By Arab Fighters in Eastern Syria (Freeman), The Libertarian Institute, 9/27/23

White House Close To Providing Kiev With Cluster-Armed ATACMS (Freeman), The Libertarian Institute, 9/25/23

US Deploys F-16s to Romania for Patrols Over Black Sea (Anzalone), Libertarian Institute, 9/25/23

Ukraine Claims Sabotage Attack on Critical Russian Airbase, Provides Questionable Evidence (Anzalone), Libertarian Institute, 9/20/23

Ask anyone in Washington and they'll tell you, in varying levels of panic, that China is a threat to the United States. Some will say it's the greatest threat ever or, in military-speak, the "pacing threat." So who is right? And if China is a challenge or even a threat, to its neighbors if not America directly, then how does the Biden Administration rationally deal with that? 

We asked longtime China security studies expert Michael Swaine to join us this week to talk about current U.S. policy and whether or not it is going in the wrong direction. He tells us that the saber-rattling on both sides of the political aisle is risking a "radical deterrence" effect — in other words, there is a way to do positive deterrence that avoids war, not "radical deterrence," which drives you closer to real conflict. 

In the first segment, Kelley and Dan hash out their favorite headlines of the week, including Zelensky's visit to Washington, Biden's signing of defense security assurances for Bahrain (and possibly for Saudi soon, too), and Canadian accusations that the Indian government is linked to the assassination of a Sikh independence activist in British Columbia in June.

More from Michael Swaine: 

How to Break the Impasse in U.S.-China Crisis Communication, United States Institute of Peace,7/26/23

A Restraint Approach to U.S.–China Relations: Reversing the Slide Toward Crisis and Conflict,  with Andrew Bacevich, the Quincy Institute, 4/18/23

The Worrisome Erosion of the One China Policy, The National Interest, 2/27/23

A Restraint Recipe for America’s Asian Alliances and Security Partnerships, with Sarang Shidore, Quincy Institute, 11/18/22

This week, President Joe Biden announced that he was unfreezing $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds as part of a broader deal that involves an important prisoner swap. The deal has drawn howling from the usual suspects, those who believe any diplomatic course with Iran spells weakness and blunder. Sina Toossi, an expert in U.S.-Iran relations and senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, joined us this week to talk about the deal and how attempts by hawks to coerce regime change in Iran has actually made things worse, for all involved, including the people of Iran. We also talk about the legacy of Masha Amini, whose detention and death in jail a year ago sparked nationwide protests and societal turmoil, reaching the highest levels of the country's repressive theocracy.

In the first segment, Kelley and Dan talk about Ukraine and the latest 'red line' the White House has threatened to cross: giving long-range ATACM missiles to Ukraine.

More from Sina Toossi:

The US-Iran Prisoner Swap: A Breakthrough or a Band-Aid? Jacobin, 8/13/23

Iran's Supreme Leader opens space for possible nuclear deal, Responsible Statecraft, 6/14/23