Politico: Congress pressures Trump to back down on Syria 'betrayal'

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is reminding Trump of supermajorities supporting a U.S. presence in Syria. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is threatening sanctions against Turkey in partnership with Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). And a bipartisan pair of Senate Foreign Relations Committee members are demanding administration officials testify before Congress. [...]

Lawmakers will also have multiple chances to weigh in on Trump’s foreign policy in the coming weeks and months, as Congress must pass its annual defense legislation as well as spending bills to fund the government. [...]

Republicans in Congress have shown a willingness to challenge Trump on foreign policy in a way they haven’t over most domestic issues or the president’s inflammatory rhetoric and controversies.[...]

Trump has faced several bipartisan challenges to his administration's relationship with Saudi Arabia after the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but opposition from McConnell has kept votes to restrict arm sales to Saudi Arabia and the U.S. involvement in Yemen's civil war short of a veto-proof majority.

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Politico: The Humiliation of Lindsey Graham

In his cruelest cut of all, he compared Trump with Barack Obama. “No matter what President Trump is saying about his decision,” wrote Graham on Twitter, “it is EXACTLY what President Obama did in Iraq with even more disastrous consequences for our national security.” [...]

For the past several years, Graham has transformed himself from one of Trump’s fiercest critics, into one of his most reflexive defenders. Even by the cynical and shape-shifting standards of Washington, Graham’s metamorphosis has been a thing of wonder. The senator once known as John McCain’s best friend in the Senate, transformed himself into Trump’s shinebox, willing to ingratiate himself with rationalizations and praise even as Trump became increasingly erratic. [...]

Despite Graham’s compulsive turd-polishing of the past few years, Trump didn’t even consult him before making the decision to abandon the Kurds. Graham, who had given up so much self-respect to prevent just this outcome, was not even in the room. He didn’t even get a text.

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In These Times: Here’s Exactly Who’s Profiting from the War on Yemen

Under President Barack Obama’s administration and, now, President Donald Trump’s, the United States has put its military might behind the Saudi-led coalition, waging a war without congressional authorization. That war has devastated Yemen’s infrastructure, destroyed or damaged more than half of Yemen’s health facilities, killed more than 8,350 civilians, injured another 9,500 civilians, displaced 3.3 million people, and created a humanitarian disaster that threatens the lives of millions as cholera and famine spread through the country. [...]

The war in Yemen has been particularly lucrative for General Dynamics, Boeing and Raytheon, which have received hundreds of millions of dollars in Saudi weapons deals. All three corporations have highlighted business with Saudi Arabia in their reports to shareholders. Since the war began in March 2015, General Dynamics’ stock price has risen from about $135 to $169 per share, Raytheon’s from about $108 to more than $180, and Boeing’s from about $150 to $360. [...]

According to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, the United States may not authorize arms exports to governments that consistently engage in “gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.” The Arms Export Control Act of 1976 stipulates that exported weapons may only be used for a country’s defense.[...]

Over the past decade, Saudi Arabia has ordered U.S.-made offensive weapons, surveillance equipment, transportation, parts and training valued at $109.3 billion, according to an In These Times analysis of Pentagon announcements, contracts announced on defense industry websites and arms transfers documented by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. That arsenal is now being deployed against Yemen.

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FiveThirtyEight: GOP Criticism Of Trump Is All Talk — But It Still Matters

Political scientists have done a great deal of research to figure out how much the president’s words matter — if they matter at all. Here’s what’s generally agreed upon: Presidential communication matters in a number of important ways. It can shape what issues citizens think about in the first place, how the public views the particular meaning or context of a major event, and provide important cues to partisans about where the party stands on a given issue.

Trump is facing a different dynamic than other presidents, though: He’s regularly contradicted by members of his own party on Capitol Hill. Take the president’s downplaying of Russian interference in the 2016 election. It will be harder for Trump to convince even most Republicans of these arguments as long as senators from his own party, like South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, keep saying there was interference. Indeed, a (small) majority of Republicans believe the U.S. intelligence agencies’ finding that Russia interfered.  [...]

On paper, Trump, particularly on foreign policy, can still largely ignore Congress and implement his agenda if he chooses. But in reality, he keeps backtracking. Take his interest in implementing a more pro-Russia foreign policy. We think the criticism from congressional Republicans is a big part of that hesitancy on Trump’s part. The verbal opposition from fellow Republicans tends to lead to an escalation of opposition against Trump. Criticism by fellow Republicans frees the press, always leery of appearing too liberal, to attack controversial Trump initiatives more directly. That bipartisan and media opposition helps move the public in these instances to oppose what Trump is doing. Facing such opposition, the president often retreats. [...]

When the White House said last week that it was considering allowing the Russian government to interrogate Michael McFaul, who was the U.S. ambassador to Russia under Obama, the Senate passed a 98-0 nonbinding resolution condemning the idea, which the administration had by then disavowed.

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The Atlantic: Rand Paul's Maneuver Against Endless Wars

Senator Rand Paul is trying to pressure his colleagues in Congress to reassert power over where the United States wages war. Should U.S. troops be fighting in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan? Should American drones carry out lethal strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and beyond? The Kentucky Republican wants the House and Senate to decide questions like that through new votes that force legislators to go on the record so that they are fully accountable to their constituents—and discharging the role enumerated for them in the U.S. Constitution.

In recent years, Congress has instead ceded such questions to successive presidents. For example, President Barack Obama waged war in at least seven countries under the auspices of an Authorization to Use Military Force that legislators passed shortly after 9/11, even though its language specifies “those nations, organizations, or persons” that “planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001,” a limit that has been oft exceeded. [...]

Why wouldn’t legislators jealously guard and assert their war power as the Framers of the Constitution anticipated? If Congress does finally assert itself this year, with House members and Senators going on record about where they favor and oppose the use of U.S. military force, voters will finally be able to support or oppose them on that basis. And the gap between elected officials and the public on waging war is wide.

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Jacobin Magazine: Passing the Baton

It’s an apparatus that was built by both parties. George W. Bush massively expanded the system after the September 11 attacks, taking measures that were at the time viewed as extreme and unprecedented. But Obama’s ready acceptance and expansion of this national security state upon coming to power has helped entrench it, while also making it more powerful than Dick Cheney’s wildest dreams. Now it’s in Trump’s hands. [...]

Anyone willing to trust President Obama with the power to secretly declare an American citizen an enemy of the state and order his extrajudicial killing should ask whether they would be willing to trust the next president with that dangerous power. [...]

Some were. After all, back in 2012, when the prospect of Mitt Romney becoming president was looming, the Obama administration rushed to establish rules around its totally lawless and oversight-free drone program in case he won. After Romney lost the election, these efforts again took a back seat. [...]

The targets for assassination appear to be currently determined through a process of intelligence gathering, then sent up the chain to be approved for killing. However, with no real oversight or legal limits on the program, it’s hard to see what would legally prevent President Trump from ordering the assassination of anyone he chooses. [...]

And in 2013, Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder declared that this power of extra-judicial assassination even extended to US soil. While “entirely hypothetical” and “unlikely to occur,” he wrote in a letter to Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, “it is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate … for the president to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States.”

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