¿Qué sostiene la aprobación de AMLO?

30/08/2019

https://elfinanciero.com.mx/opinion/alejandro-moreno/que-sostiene-la-aprobacion-de-amlo

Alejandro Moreno

Las encuestas que se dieron a conocer esta semana sobre los niveles de popularidad presidencial coinciden en que López Obrador cuenta con un nivel de apoyo entre 60 y 70 por ciento. Podríamos decir que desde que inició el gobierno, la popularidad del mandatario pasó de ser muy alta a alta, y que en ese nivel se ha estabilizado desde hace ya varios meses. El Presidente rendirá su Primer Informe a la nación así, con una aprobación alta y estable.

¿Qué sostiene la aprobación del Presidente? Antes de formular una respuesta, es importante recordar que la popularidad presidencial no necesariamente es un indicador de buen o mal gobierno; lo que indica es cuánto apoyo popular tiene un presidente en un momento dado. Ese apoyo puede tener diversas explicaciones, y el desempeño de gobierno es tan sólo uno de ellos.

En el libro The Macro Polity, publicado hace una década y media, Robert Erikson y sus coautores listan una serie de aspectos por los cuales consideran que la gente en Estados Unidos aprueba o no a un presidente. Una razón es que, efectivamente, evalúan su trabajo, pero la evaluación no se limita a resultados tangibles. También se incluyen las percepciones de si el Presidente luce competente y en control de las cosas.

Si este aspecto tiene aplicación a México, podríamos decir que la mayoría de la gente aún no ve resultados concretos en diversas problemáticas que les interesa resolver: el manejo de la economía, la seguridad y la corrupción sacan notas negativas. Sin embargo, la mayoría percibe al Presidente como capaz, competente y en control de la situación. La mayoría de los encuestados valoran positivamente su liderazgo y su capacidad.

Un segundo aspecto de la popularidad es el grado de acuerdo o coincidencia con lo que propone el Presidente, qué rumbo y qué políticas debe seguir el país. Ante la inseguridad, la mayoría de la gente cree que la Guardia Nacional es la apuesta correcta. Ante la corrupción, la honestidad del Presidente va por delante. Ante la economía, la idea de que hay que favorecer a todos y no a unos cuantos difícilmente encuentra oposición. Las cancelaciones a estancias infantiles y programas sociales han generado una mayoría de opiniones negativas, pero, curiosamente, éstas no se han traducido en desaprobación. Aun entre quienes se muestran inconformes con esas medidas, la aprobación al Presidente es mayoritaria.

Un tercer y último aspecto es un tema de identidad. No todos, pero sí la mayoría de los mexicanos se identifica con él. López Obrador ha sido muy efectivo en cultivar una imagen de sencillez, de integridad, de trabajo y, quizá lo más importante, que le importa la gente, el pueblo. Esa reputación es uno de sus activos más potentes como líder político y seguramente la defenderá al máximo. El sentido de identificación de la gente con él es invaluable, y esa es una de las mayores carencias que tiene hoy la oposición.

Si acaso se mueve en los siguientes meses, la aprobación podría ir recalibrando el peso de esos y otros posibles factores. Hoy por hoy, creo que el acuerdo y la identidad pesan más que la evaluación. En otras palabras, la empatía está pesando más que los resultados. Veremos si eso cambia.

Por lo pronto, la reciente encuesta de El Financiero muestra que el apoyo al Presidente es alto en general, pero es más alto entre las mujeres, entre los segmentos de mayor edad y con menor escolaridad. Por denominación religiosa, al Presidente lo aprueba el 66 por ciento de los católicos, el 85 por ciento de los cristianos evangélicos y el 54 por ciento de quienes no profesan ninguna religión. Además, la aprobación supera el 70 por ciento entre quienes asisten a servicios religiosos con frecuencia, y cae a 60 por ciento entre quienes no van nunca a las iglesias o templos. Así los públicos más afines al Presidente.

Long Before Epstein: Sex Traffickers & Spy Agencies

August 23, 2019

Elizabeth Vos reviews the unsavory history of intelligence agencies providing protection to child sex-trafficking rings.

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/08/23/long-before-epstein-sex-traffickers-spy-agencies/

By Elizabeth Vos
Special to Consortium News

The alleged use of sexual blackmail by spy agencies is hardly unique to the case of Jeffrey Epstein. Although the agencies involved as well as their alleged motivations and methods differ with each case, the crime of child trafficking with ties to intelligence agencies or those protected by them has been around for decades.

Some cases include the 1950s -1970s Kincora scandal and the 1981 Peter Hayman affair, both in the U.K.; and the Finders’ cult and the Franklin scandal in the U.S. in the late 1980s. Just as these cases did not end in convictions, the pedophile and accused child-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein remained at arms’ length for years.

“For almost two decades, for some nebulous reason, whether to do with ties to foreign intelligence, his billions of dollars, or his social connections, Epstein, whose alleged sexual sickness and horrific assaults on women without means or ability to protect themselves… remained untouchable,” journalist Vicky Ward wrote in The Daily Beast in July.

The protection of sex traffickers by intelligence agencies is especially interesting in the wake of  Epstein’sdeath. Like others, Epstein had long been purported to have links with spy agencies. Such allegations documented by Whitney Webb in her multi-part series were recently published in Mintpress News.

Webb states that Epstein was the current face of an extensive system of abuse with ties to both organized crime and intelligence interests. She told CNLive! that: “According to Nigel Rosser, a British journalist who wrote in the Evening Standard in 2001, Epstein apparently for much of the 1990s claimed that he used to work for the CIA.”

Vicky Ward, who wrote on Epstein for Vanity Fair before his first arrest, and claimed the magazine killed one of her pieces after Epstein intervened with the editor, Graydon Carter said in a Tweet that one of Epstein’s clients was Adnan Khashoggi, an arms dealer who was pivotal in the Iran Contra scandal and was on the Mossad (the Israeli intelligence agency) payroll. This was also noted in a book “By Way of Deception” by former Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky.

The Times of Israel reported that Epstein was an “active business partner with former prime minister Ehud Barak” until 2015, adding: “Barak formed a limited partnership company in Israel in 2015, called Sum (E.B.) to invest in a high-tech startup…. A large part of the money used by Sum to buy the start-up stock was supplied by Epstein.” 

Webb wrote he “was a long-time friend of Barak, who has long-standing and deep ties to Israel’s intelligence community.” On the board of their company sat Pinchas Bukhris, a former commander of the IDF cyber unit 8200.

Epstein’s allegedly protected status was revealed by Alexander Acosta, the former U.S. attorney in Miami who gave Epstein an infamously lenient plea deal in 2007. Acosta, who was forced to resign as President Donald Trump’s labor secretary because of that deal,  reportedly said of the case: “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone.”

Kincora Boy’s Home

Several cases in the unsavory history linking intelligence agencies and sex scandals put the allegations against Epstein in context. Among these was the U.K. Kincora Boy’s Home, where at least 29 boys were reported to have been targeted at the Belfast, Northern Ireland, facility from the mid-1950s until the late 1970s, until it was shut in 1980. It also involved the alleged protection of child sexual abusers at the home and among their clients.

The Irish Times wrote that “destitute boys were systematically sodomized by members of Kincora staff and were supplied for abuse to prominent figures in unionist politics. The abusers – among them MPs, councilors, leading Orangemen and other influential individuals – became potentially important intelligence assets.”

The Belfast Telegraph also quoted former Labour Party MP, Ken Livingstone, who said: “MI5 wasn’t just aware of child abuse at Kincora Boys’ Home – they were monitoring it. They were getting pictures of a judge in one case, politicians, a lot of the establishment of Northern Ireland going in and abusing these boys.”

Three staff were eventually convicted of sexually abusing minors, which included the housemaster William McGrath, a loyalist “Orangeman” and allegedly an MI5 agent, according to the Belfast Telegraph in July 2014.

Although the U.K.’s Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry ultimately found  “no credible evidence” to support the allegations, two former U.K. intelligence officers maintained their claim of MI5’s involvement: Brian Gemmell says he alerted MI5 to the abuse at Kincora and was told to stop his investigation; and a former army intelligence officer, Colin Wallace, “consistently claimed that MI5, RUC special branch and military intelligence knew about the abuse at Kincora and used it to blackmail the pedophile ring to spy on hardline loyalists,” according to The Guardian.

The Irish outlet, An Phoblacht, wrote: “The systematic abuse of young boys in the Home and the part played by the British intelligence organizations to keep the scandal under wraps ensured that one side of the murky world of Unionist paramilitarism and its links to the crown forces was kept out of the public domain for years.”

In the U.S., the New York State Select Committee On Crime in 1982  investigated nationwide networks of trafficking underage sex workers and producing child pornography. Dale Smith, a committee investigator, noted that call services using minors also profited from “sidelines,” besides the income from peddling prostitution.  Smith said they sold information “on the sexual proclivities of the clients to agents of foreign intelligence.” Presumably, this information could be used to blackmail those in positions of power. Smith added that one call service sold information to “British and Israeli intelligence.”

The Hayman Affair

Another U.K. scandal included allegations that Sir Peter Hayman,  a British diplomat and deputy director of MI6, was a member of the Pedophile Information Exchange (PIE).

Police discovered that two of the roughly dozen pedophiles in his circle had been writing to each other about their interest in “the extreme sexual torture and murder of children,” according to The Daily Mail.

In 2015, The Guardian reported that former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had been “adamant that officials should not publicly name” Hayman, “even after she had been fully briefed on his activities….formerly secret papers released to the National Archives shows.”

Still, Hayman was unmasked as a subscriber to PIE in 1981 by M.P. Geoffrey Dickens, who also reportedly raised the national security risk of Hayman’s proclivities, implying they were a potential source of blackmail sought by intelligence agencies.

The British tabloid The Mirror reported that intelligence agencies, including the KGB and CIA, kept their own dossiers on U.K. establishment figures involved with PIE and the abuse of minors, to blackmail the targets in exchange for information.

Hayman was never charged for his association with PIE: The U.K. attorney general at the time, Sir Michael Havers defended the decision and denied claims that Heyman was given special treatment.

Labour Party MP Barbara Castle allegedly gave a dossier she compiled on pedophiles in positions of power to U.K. journalist Don Hale in 1984 when he was the editor of the Brury Messenger. Hale alleged that soon afterward, police from the “Special Branch, the division responsible for matters of national security,” raided his office and removed the Castle dossier. They then threatened him with a “D-notice,” which prevented him from publishing the story on the threat of up to 10 years in prison. 

The Finders Cult

Another group accused of trafficking children, which had links to intelligence agencies, was the “Finders” cult. In 1987, The Washington Post reported that two members were arrested in connection with the alleged abuse of six children. Investigators found materials in Madison County, Virginia, which they said linked to a “commune called the Finders.”

Besides nude photographs of children, a Customs Service memo written by special agent Ramon Martinez refers to files “relating to the activities of the organization in different parts of the world, including “London, Germany, the Bahamas, Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Africa, Costa Rica, and Europe.”

Martinez’s memo notes that a Finders’ telex ordered the purchase of two children in Hong Kong. Another expressed interest in “bank secrecy situations.” The memo also documents high-tech transfers to the U.K., numerous properties under the Finders’ control, the group’s interest in terrorism, explosives, and the evasion of law enforcement.

Martinez describes the swift end to his investigation. He wrote that on April 2, 1987, he arrived at the Metropolitan Police Department and was told that all the data was turned over to the State Department which, in turn, advised MPD that “all travel and use of passports by the holders was within the law and no action would be taken. Then he was told that the investigation into the Finders had become a CIA internal matter. The MPD report was classified, not available for review” and “No further action will be taken.”

Martinez was not the only person with unanswered questions. The U.S.News & World Report wrote that N. Carolina Rep. Charlie Rose (Dem.), chair of the House Administration Committee and Florida’s Rep. Tom Lewis (Rep.) asked “Could our own government have something to do with this Finders organization and turned their backs on these children? That’s what the evidence points to,” says Lewis, adding that “I can tell you that we’ve got a lot of people scrambling, and that wouldn’t be happening if there was nothing here.”

The leniency showed by the State Department and the fact that the CIA would designate the investigation of the Finders group as “an internal matter” raises serious questions. What motive might have driven the CIA to associate with or protect a child abuse ring?

The Franklin Scandal

The Franklin Scandal erupted in 1988, centering on a child-trafficking ring operating in Omaha, Nebraska, by Lawrence E. King Jr., a former vice-chairman of the National Black Republican Council: It was alleged that children were provided to politicians in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, among other illegal activities.

The late former state Sen. John Decamp alleged in his book “The Franklin Coverup” that a special committee of Nebraska, Legislature launched a probe to investigate the affair, which involved King being indicted for embezzling money from the Franklin Credit Union. The committee hired former Lincoln, Nebraska, police officer Jerry Lowe, whose reports  suggested that King was involved in “guns and money transfers to Nicaragua,” and was linked with the CIA.

James Flanery, an investigative reporter at The World Herald who reported on the scandal,  told associates that King was “running guns and money into Nicaragua,” and that the CIA was heavily involved.”

Like many scandals before and since the Franklin case ended with no prosecution of the perpetrators. However, Paul Bonacci, one of the alleged victims, was indicted for perjury. He had alleged that he was sexually abused as a minor in Nebraska and around the country where he was flown by Lawrence King.

In 1999, the Omaha World Herald reported Bonacci was awarded $1 million in damages due to his lawsuit against King and other alleged perpetrators. Decamp, who was Bonacci’s attorney, told the newspaper “Obviously, you don’t award $1 million if you don’t think he (Bonacci) was telling the truth.”

Given the history of child trafficking rings that were allegedly connected with or enjoyed the protection of intelligence services, it is possible that similar claims about Jeffrey Epstein is something the authorities, though unlikely, should investigate.  

Elizabeth Vos is a freelance reporter and regular contributor to Consortium News. 

New Study: China Would Beat US Military in the Pacific

by Dave DeCamp Posted on August 26, 2019

https://original.antiwar.com/Dave_DeCamp/2019/08/25/new-study-china-would-beat-us-military-in-pacific/

The United States Studies Centre (USSC), a research center based at the University of Sydney in Australia released a study titled, "Averting Crisis: American Strategy, Military Spending, and Collective Defense in the Indo-Pacific." The study makes the argument that the US would not be able to defeat China in a military confrontation in the Indo-Pacific.

The USSC is funded by the Australian government, over the past five years one percent of their budget came from the US government and eight percent came from "US-based foundations, companies or individuals."

The three researchers whose names are on the study are part of the USSC’s Foreign Policy and Defence program. The program lists its partners as the Australian government, The US defense company Northrop Grumman, the French defense company Thales and the US State Department.

The study says the US is disadvantaged in the region because of, "ongoing wars in the Middle East, budget austerity, underinvestment in advanced military capabilities and the scale of America’s liberal order-building agenda."

The researchers often cite the 2018 Department of Defense’s National Defense Strategy (NDS). The NDS share the researcher’s concerns with respect to the Indo-Pacific region and shows a desire to prioritize the threats of China and Russia. The NDS says, "China is leveraging military modernization, influence operations, and predatory economics to coerce neighboring countries to reorder the Indo-Pacific region to their advantage."

The researchers spend a lot of time on the US defense budget. The study says, "Repeated failures by Congress to pass regular and sustained budgets has hindered the Pentagon’s ability to effectively allocate resources and plan over the long term."

Both the House and the Senate just passed a $2.78 trillion two-year spending budget. $1.48 trillion of that is for military spending, which is more than half. The US spends more on the military than any other nation, spending more than the next seven countries combined. China comes in second but still spend less than half of what the US does. It is not hard to pass increases in military spending through Congress.

The study blames an outdated "superpower mindset" for the US not prioritizing China as its main threat and continuing costly and wasteful wars in the Middle East. The researchers recognize how the wars in the Middle East have put a strain on the US military. But the idea of building a stronger military presence in the Indo-Pacific region to confront China is also a "superpower mindset." Countries like Australia have relied on the US to protect their interests in that region since World War II.

The ANZUS treaty was signed in 1951 between the US, New Zealand and Australia to ensure collective security between the three nations. The treaty ensures a collective response to an attack on the nation's interests in the region. It was signed out of fear for a resurgent imperial Japan. Australia and New Zealand lost faith in protection from the British after they surrendered Singapore to the Japanese during World War II. New Zealand was effectively frozen out of the deal after they banned nuclear-powered and armed ships from entering their waters in the 1980s.

After explaining the decline in the US military’s technology and defenses in the region, part four of the study says, "The state of the US military and it's questionable ability to execute a strategy of conventional deterrence in the Indo-Pacific should be of grave concern to policymakers in Australia and other like-minded countries." They argue for a NATO-like coalition in the region, "Contributing to a regional balancing coalition designed to prevent this eventuality by deterring conflict in the first place is, for Canberra, the next best strategic policy option in the wake of America’s now-defunct uncontested military primacy."

The study says that Australia should also limit their involvement in the Middle East and refocus on the Indo-Pacific. The study reads, "Military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq continues to consume a disproportionate share of the Australian Department of Defence’s operating budget." The study also recommends Australia and its allies should, "Establish new, and expand existing, high-end military exercises."

Hypersonic weapons are the new threat the Pentagon has been hyping. "I think it’s clear that in the realm of hypersonic we are playing catch up, especially relative to the Chinese. We need to be able to not only match but to overmatch, especially the Chinese," a Pentagon engineer told CNBC. The USSC study mentions China’s hypersonic capabilities, a weapon their partner Northrop Grumman has announced the development of.

When looking at a lengthy study like this one, it is important to keep in mind where it is coming from. The Australian government and the defense companies partnered with the USSC no doubt have an interest in increasing and maintaining a large US military presence in the Indo-Pacific.

The Washington Times reported on the study, without mentioning the USSC’s affiliation with the Australian government and Northrop Grumman. The Times article hyped up the Chinese threat. The opening paragraph reads, "The US no longer enjoys military supremacy in the Pacific, a shocking new report claims, and China is now fully capable of launching a surprise attack that would easily overwhelm American forces."

This study raises the question, why does the US have such a strong military presence in the region? China has no presence around the US mainland and only has one official foreign military base in Djibouti. Although the US is in the midst of a trade war with China, they are still each other’s top trading partners.

The US just made a deal with Taiwan to sell them 66 fighter jets. China’s foreign ministry spokesman said the arms sale "constitute severe interference in China’s internal affairs." Beijing still considers Taiwan to be a part of China, the US is the only thing standing in the way of reunification (or annexation depending on your view). In July, the US sailed a warship through the Taiwan strait, increasing tensions with China.

Recent protests in Hong Kong have the US government’s fingerprints all over them. China accused the US of being involved, although officials in Washington deny it and President Trump tweeted that he "can’t imagine why" the US would be blamed. The taxpayer-funded nonprofit National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has had a strong presence in Hong Kong. The NED has long been an instrument for US regime change operations.

In 2018 the NED ran programs in Hong Kong titled, "Expanding Worker Rights and Democracy," "Promoting Engagement of Fundamental Rights," and "Strengthening Democratic Institutions and Human Rights Protection."

The US aggression towards China has not provoked a response from them, demonstrating they might not be the big threat the USSC study makes them out to be. The "superpower mindset" that plagues the foreign policy establishment in Washington needs to be dismantled. US military hegemony in the Indo-Pacific only benefits the defense contractors and foreign governments who sponsored this study.

Dave DeCamp is an assistant editor at Antiwar.com and a freelance journalist based in Brooklyn NY, focusing on US foreign policy and wars. He is on Twitter at@decampdave.

Lindsey Graham’s Blank Check. Why a Defense Agreement with Israel Would be a Disaster for Americans

PHILIP GIRALDI • AUGUST 22, 2019

https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/lindsey-grahams-blank-check-why-a-defense-agreement-with-israel-would-be-a-disaster-for-americans/

Two world wars began because of unconditional pledges made by one country to come to the assistance of another. On July 5, 1914, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany pledged his country’s complete support for whatever response Austria-Hungary would choose to make against Serbia after the June 28^th assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria by a Serbian nationalist during an official visit to Sarajevo, Bosnia. This fatal error went down in history as Germany’s carte blanche or “blank check,” assurance to Austria that led directly to WW I.

In September 1939, World War II began when Great Britain and France came to the assistance of Poland after the German Army invaded, fulfilling a “guarantee” made in March of that year. What was a regional war, and one that might have been resolved through diplomacy, became global.

One would think that after such commitments were assessed by historians as the immediate causes of two world wars, no one would ever consider going down that road again. But that would be reckoning without Republican Senator Lindsey Graham who has been calling for a “defense treaty” with Israel since last April. In his most recent foray, Graham announced late in July that he is seeking bipartisan support for providing “blank check” assurances to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and is hoping to be able to push a complete defense treaty through the Senate by next year.

In making his several announcements on the subject, Graham has been acting as a frontman for both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and also for The Jewish Institute for the National Security of America (JINSA), which wrote the basic document that is being used to promote the treaty and then enlisted Graham to obtain congressional support.

Speaking to the press on a JINSA conference call, Graham said the proposed agreement would be a treaty that would protect Israel in case of an attack that constituted an “existential threat”. Citing Iran as an example, Graham said the pact would be an attempt to deter hostile neighbors like the Iranians who might use weapons of mass destruction against Israel. JINSA President Michael Makovsky elaborated on this, saying, “A mutual defense pact has a value in not only deterring but might also mitigate a retaliatory strike by an adversary of Israel, so it might mitigate an Iranian response (to an attack on its nuclear facilities).”

JINSA director of foreign policy Jonathan Ruhe added that “An Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear program would not activate this pact, but a major Iranian retaliation might. – An Israeli unilateral attack is not what the treaty covers, but rather massive Iranian retaliation is what we are addressing.”

Israel has long been reluctant to enter into any actual treaty arrangement with the United States because it might limit its options and restrain it's an aggressive pattern of military incursions. In that regard, the Graham-JINSA proposal is particularly dangerous as it effectively permits Israel to be interventionist with a guarantee that Washington will not seek to limit Netanyahu’s “options.” And, even though the treaty is reciprocal, there is no chance that Israel will ever be called upon to do anything to defend the United States, so it is as one-sided as most arrangements with the Jewish state tend to be.

As the agreement between the two countries would be a treaty ratified by the Senate, it would be much more difficult to scrap by subsequent administrations than was the Iran nuclear deal, which was an executive action by President Obama. And clearly, the statements by Graham, Makovsky, and Ruhe reveal this treaty would serve as a green light for an Israeli attack on Iran, should they opt to do so, while also serving as a red light to Tehran vis-à-vis an ironclad US commitment to “defend” Israel that would serve to discourage any serious Iranian retaliation. Given that dynamic, the treaty would be little more than a one-way security guarantee from Washington to Jerusalem.

Furthermore, in outlining what circumstances would trigger US intervention on Israel’s behalf, the JINSA/Graham document cites, inter alia, “the threat or use of weapons of mass destruction.” It also allows Netanyahu to call for assistance after defining as threatening any incident or development “that gives rise to an urgent request from the Government of Israel.” It appears then that Netanyahu could demand that the US attack Iran should he only perceive a threat, however vague that threat might in reality, be.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been claiming Iran is “three to five years” and “possibly weeks” away from a nuclear weapons capability since 1992 and pushing Washington to attack Iran so he obviously would welcome such a treaty for strategic reasons as well as shore up his upcoming re-election bid. President Trump, with whom Graham has discussed how the agreement would work, has a similar interest in appearing strong for Israel to help his own campaign in 2020.

It is worth noting that in 2010 Netanyahu ordered the Israel Defense Force (IDF) to prepare to strike Iran but ‘Israel’s security chiefs refused: Gabi Ashkenazi, the head of the IDF, and Meir Dagan, the head of the Mossad at the time, believed that Netanyahu and the Defense Minister Ehud Barak were trying to “steal a war” and the order was not carried out. The attacks were also rejected by two ministers, Moshe Yaalon and Yuval Steinitz, which left Netanyahu without the necessary majority to proceed.

Ashkenazi claimed in a 2012 interview about the episode that he was convinced that an attack would be have been a major strategic mistake. Meir Dagan said in 2012, after leaving his role as Mossad chief, that a strike would be “a stupid thing” as the entire region would undoubtedly be destabilized, requiring repeated Israeli and American interventions.

And there are other issues arising from a “defense treaty.” Defense means just that and treaties are generally designed to protect a country within its own borders. Israel has no defined borders as it is both expansionistic and illegally occupying Palestinian land, so the United States would in effect be obligated to defend space that Israel defines as its own. That could mean almost anything. Israel is currently bombing Syria almost daily even though it is not at war with Damascus. If Syria were to strike back and Graham’s treaty was in place, Washington would technically be obligated to come to Israel’s assistance. A similar situation prevails with Lebanon and there are also reports that Israel is bombing alleged Iranian supply lines in Iraq, where the US has 5,000 troops stationed.

The real problem is that the Trump administration is obsessed with regime change in Iran, but it has so far been unable to provoke Iran into starting a conflict. Graham’s proposed treaty just might be part of a White House plan to end-run Congress and public opinion by enabling Israel to start the desired war, whereupon the US would quickly follow in to “defend Israel,” obliged by treaty to do so. What could possibly go wrong? The correct answer is “everything.”