Antony Blinken, a veteran Washington foreign policy hand and longtime consigliere to the president-elect, will be nominated secretary of State this week, most major media are reporting.

Blinken previously served as deputy secretary of State and deputy national security advisor to then-President Barack Obama and national security advisor to then-Vice President Joe Biden. He has worked off-and-on for Biden in some capacity for decades, dating back to the president-elect’s marathon tenure in the U.S. Senate.

Blinken claimed territory as Biden’s chief foreign policy advisor early in his primary campaign for president, and never let go. He stayed notably close as Biden went from prohibitive front-runner to a forgotten man to then the comeback kid; Biden secured the nomination just as the planet began to shut down amid the Coronavirus catastrophe. 

Blinken’s selection echoes other early choices by the president-elect. The future White House’s political staff is already chalk full of veterans of Bidenworld, including Ron Klain as chief of staff and Mike Donillon as senior counselor. A relatively newer face with the president-elect, 2020 campaign manager Jennifer O’Malley Dillion, has been tapped as deputy chief of staff. 

But Blinken is the first loyalist whose installation requires Congressional consent.

Blinken’s nomination is seen as likely to succeed whether the Republicans triumph in Georgia in January — and hold the Senate — or not. The apparent naming of Blinken also comes as President Trump is technically contesting the election, while his campaign suffers legal defeat after legal defeat and his team of attorneys has been revealed to be in utter shambles. The blowout between the Trump and Biden teams means the transition process has not formally begun, though leading Republicans are increasingly cutting off Trump from further avenues of denial. Considered a hawkish centrist, the choice of Blinken is a relief to the American foreign policy establishment, as well as those in the GOP willing to turn the page. Top Republicans such as Sens. Mitt Romney and Marco Rubio have signaled they’ll play ball on nominees that are conventionally seen as mainstream. 

Blinken beat out Sen. Chris Coons, from Biden’s home state of Delaware, who would likely have been confirmed, as well— senators are loath to sabotage the nominations of one of their own. Sen. Chris Murphy, of Connecticut, would have attracted the ire of Iran hawks. 

The leadership of the interventionist Foundation for the Defense of Democracies hailed the choice of Blinken, as it attempts to persuade the incoming administration to toe the line on Iran; the outgoing Trump administration had a de factoregime change policy on Tehran. Susan Rice — who is controversial among Republicans, and was national security advisor under Obama, as well as runner-up to be Biden’s running mate — was again denied Foggy Bottom, as she was in 2012. Veteran State hand Nicholas Burns, who served George W. Bush (and Clinton) but has since crossed over more explicitly to Democratic circles, was also passed over.

America’s would-be top diplomat was trained in the family business. Blinken is the son of Donald M. Blinken, a titan in the investment banking business and President Bill Clinton’s man in Budapest; Blinken is also the nephew of Alan Blinken, Clinton’s ambassador to Belgium, and the husband of Evan Ryan, who served as an assistant secretary of State under Obama.

The putative support for Blinken from outfits such as FDD gives some foreign policy realists the willies. Former Trump national security advisor H.R. McMaster, now with the outfit, told CBS on Sunday that President Trump’s plotted withdrawal from Afghanistan was “abhorrent.” But the organization, officially non-partisan, heavily staffed the Trump administration and is unlikely to be nearly as welcome by Biden’s team. The organization was a leading antagonist of the Obama administration — and raised hackles over the 44th president’s nuclear deal with Iran, which Biden backed and has pledged to re-enter. 

The Trump team is working hard in its waning days to tie Biden’s hands on Iran — unveiling a barrage of new sanctions and deepening its critique of the regime as terroristic. Saudi Arabia’s man in Turtle Bay, U.N. ambassador Abdallah Al-Mouallimi, told Fox News this weekend that Biden would not be “naive enough” to re-enter the old deal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said U.S. re-entry into the original agreement is unacceptable. In recent hours, he is said to have flown to Saudi Arabia to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the most powerful man in Riyadh. If so, it is considered their first known meeting— an encounter made more palatable in the region by the Arab-Israeli normalization process pushed hard by the Trump administration.

The concern, for some, over Blinken is not that he is a wild-eyed radical. Rather, it is that his policy views are emblematic of a broader rot within the American establishment— an establishment which has closed ranks in recent days to oppose moves such as leaving Afghanistan. Blinken was among those in the Obama administration, including Secretary of State John Kerry, who advocated privately for ramped-up military action against Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad. Obama, after considerable oscillation, eventually rejected such an enhanced policy during his second term. The decision was to the disappointment of those like Kerry— as well as Blinken, who would one day be named the next Democratic secretary of State. Blinken’s critics also note that he was staff director for the Senate Foreign Relations committee in 2002– when Biden was its chairman and the upper chamber, including the future president, assented to the Iraq War. Blinken’s devotees insist, however, that he seeks — as previous administrations have tried, and failed — to focus less on the Middle East and place U.S. attention squarely on China.

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Last week, the president asked what options there were for attacking one of Iran’s nuclear facilities:

President Trump asked senior advisers in an Oval Office meeting on Thursday whether he had options to take action against Iran’s main nuclear site in the coming weeks. The meeting occurred a day after international inspectors reported a significant increase in the country’s stockpile of nuclear material, four current and former U.S. officials said on Monday.

The president’s Iran obsession has been one of the few consistent things in his foreign policy views over the last five years, and it has been one of the most dangerous. Even though he clearly lost his re-election bid, he was still entertaining the possibility of launching an unjustified and illegal attack on another country in the closing weeks of his presidency. It seems that he brought this up because of a reported increase in Iran’s stockpile of nuclear material, which was a direct result of his decision to renege on the JCPOA and wage an economic war on Iran while it was still fully complying with the deal. Having created the problem, he was considering making it far worse by launching an attack that would guarantee war with Iran. The episode is alarming for what it says about the president’s judgment and the possibility that he might try to start a war before he leaves office, and it encapsulates much of what has been wrong with his foreign policy.

Trump’s hostility to the nuclear deal makes no sense if he were really interested in preventing Iran from building nuclear weapons. Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon and it has not had a nuclear weapons program for 17 years, but attacking them for modest increases in their stockpile of nuclear material would be a good way to encourage them to do just that. In addition to being illegal and wrong, attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities would be colossally stupid if discouraging their government from developing nuclear weapons were the real goal. The president has ordered illegal military attacks against another government several times before. His openness to ordering another such attack reflects not only his knee-jerk hawkishness, but it also once again proves his contempt for the Constitution and international law. It is good that he was dissuaded from ordering the attack this time, but it shows how close the U.S. and Iran still are to a completely unnecessary war because the president violated a successful nonproliferation agreement two and a half years ago.

Benjamin Armbruster pointed out that the article, while valuable, contained a number of mistakes and framed the story in a bizarre and misleading way:

Unfortunately, that’s about where the usefulness of this report ends, as the piece engages in what many call “threat inflation” by painting a misleading picture of Iran’s nuclear program, ignoring key context —such as what might be motivating Iranian behavior — and dancing around the fact that this is a crisis of Trump’s own making.

The article makes it seem as if Trump’s willingness to order an attack is somehow reasonable. The report says, “The episode underscored how Mr. Trump still faces an array of global threats in his final weeks in office.” In fact, the episode showed how the president could become a threat to international peace and security over the next two months. There is no threat coming from Iran’s nuclear program, so there is nothing that could conceivably justify military action against their facilities. The idea of bombing Iran has become so normalized in our foreign policy debates that people tend to forget that it would be an act of unprovoked, criminal aggression by one state against another. If we are ever going to have a more restrained foreign policy, we have to insist that preventive war is an absolutely unacceptable option that should never be considered.

On this edition of Empire Has No Clothes, Kelley, Daniel, and I speak to Justin Logan of the Center for the Study of Statesmanship. He discusses why the Middle East isn’t that important and whether anyone has the faintest idea what to do about China. We also talk about the final days of Donald Trump’s presidency, troop withdrawals and a possible bombing of Iran.

Listen to the episode in the player below, or click the links beneath it to subscribe using your favorite podcast app. If you like what you hear, please give us a rating or review on iTunes or Stitcher, which will really help us climb the rankings, allowing more people to find the show.

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The Trump administration is preparing to go through with the terrible idea of designating the Houthis as a terrorist organization:

The Trump administration is preparing to designate Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi insurgents a terrorist organization before leaving office in January, fueling fears the move will disrupt international aid efforts and upend United Nations-brokered peace efforts between the Shiite movement and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government, according to several diplomatic sources.

Designating the Houthis is a mistake on the merits. but It will make it more difficult to reach a negotiated settlement to end the war. It will make an already catastrophic humanitarian crisis even worse. All of this was true when it was being floated earlier this year, and it is still true today. On top of all that, there is good reason to believe that this decision is being made as a last-minute gift to the Saudis. It is also another attempt to tie the hands of the next administration:

“They have been contemplating this for a while, but Pompeo wants this fast-tracked,” said one diplomatic source. “It’s part of the scorched-earth policy the sour grapes in the White House are taking.”

The Trump administration’s Yemen policy has been a disgrace for the last four years, so it isn’t really surprising that they would do the wrong thing on their way out the door. This is just about the worst thing they could do after having already suspended U.S. aid to Houthi-controlled territory, which is where roughly 80% of the population resides. The U.N. special envoy has urged the U.S. not to do this, as have several of our allies and the Secretary-General of the U.N. Even the Pentagon and experts at the State Department are against doing this:

The U.S. Department of Defense and career experts in the State Department are said to be against the move. A coalition of international charities, meanwhile, are preparing a joint statement anticipating the designation, comparing the potential impacts to the famine in Somalia after the U.S. designated al-Shabab as a terrorist group in 2008.

The expected designation has already prompted evacuations of American U.N. staff and Americans working for other organizations from northern Yemen:

American staffers for the United Nations and some workers at nongovernmental organizations have been relocated out of northern Yemen in anticipation of the Trump administration’s possible terrorist designation for the Iran-backed Houthi rebels that is likely to complicate aid deliveries and further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis in the war-torn country.

Humanitarian relief organizations have pleaded with the administration not to designate the Houthis because of the serious impediments this would create in doing their life-saving work in northern Yemen. A designation would not do much to harm the Houthis, and it would do nothing to Iran, but it would punish millions of innocent Yemenis who are already suffering from widespread malnutrition, starvation, and disease. Yemeni civilians will be made to suffer simply so that the administration can cater to its despotic clients one last time:

“The lives of millions of vulnerable children in Yemen are already at risk—this policy will only deepen their suffering by further restricting humanitarian access to vulnerable communities. Recent evidence continues to point to a worsening malnutrition crisis for children,” said Janti Soeripto, the president and CEO of Save the Children. “Even if a humanitarian exemption is permitted, this designation will likely make reaching children and families more difficult and could also heighten security risks for our staff and hinder the fragile peace process.”

In addition to impeding the delivery of aid, a designation gives the Houthis no incentive to compromise and encourages them to keep the war going as long as they can:

“The reality is that the Houthis must be part of any final negotiated settlement to the conflict in Yemen, and designating them a foreign terrorist organization could be taken by the Houthis as a signal that they cannot achieve their goals at the negotiating table,” said Kate Kizer, the policy director for the advocacy group Win Without War.

“That’s a recipe for more war and suffering for the Yemeni people, not peace,” she said.

Designating the Houthis is the sort of senseless, harmful posturing that the Trump administration specializes in. It makes an end to the war less likely, it will further exacerbate the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, and it aligns the U.S. even more closely with the wretched client states that it has been supporting for the last five and a half years. Many more innocent Yemenis will needlessly die if the administration makes this designation, and the U.S. will bear responsibility for their preventable deaths.

With few exceptions, Congressional Republicans united in slamming President Donald Trump for his announced decision to reduce the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan to 2,500 by Jan. 15. One Republican senator even compared Trump’s Afghanistan  drawdown to the situation in Saigon during the Vietnam war.

There are currently roughly 4,500 U.S. service men and women deployed in Afghanistan.

Republicans described the drawdown plan as “precipitous” and “unilateral” — even though the war in Afghanistan has been proceeding for 19 years, Trump promised the drawdown during his 2016 campaign, and the proposed plan leaves a residual force in Afghanistan.

“A rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan now would hurt our allies and delight the people who wish us harm,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday.

Speaking from the Senate floor, McConnell said a U.S. drawdown would “embolden” the Taliban and give al-Qaida “a big, big propaganda victory and a renewed safe haven for plotting attacks against America.”

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) slammed the decision to withdraw and said the Trump administration has “yet to explain why reducing troops in Afghanistan… is a wise decision for our national security interests.”

“You can’t simply unilaterally draw down troops,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), a member of the Armed Services Committee. “I think it’s a serious mistake to unilaterally walk away.”

Sen. Marco Rubio, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, compared the drawdown to Vietnam.

“The concern would be it would turn into a Saigon-type of situation where it would fall very quickly and then our ability to conduct operations against terrorist elements in the region could be compromised,” said Rubio, in a brief interview with Politico. “That’s my primary concern right now.”

Rubio’s bizarre statement, which implies that the U.S. should have kept fighting in Vietnam, is representative of the disjointed responses from GOP members of Congress. They’re not clear on what the U.S. should, or can, achieve by remaining in Afghanistan — but they’re certain that withdrawing will lead to another 9-11.

The aim of the war in Afghanistan, launched just after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, was to destroy al Qaeda. The war’s aims soon mushroomed to include conquering the Taliban and creating a Western-style democratic Afghan government capable of ruling and protecting the Afghan people.

Over 2,300 Americans have died in Afghanistan. The U.S. has spent $2 trillion on the war. Yet today, the Taliban controls more territory than it did when the U.S. invaded in 2001. By some estimates, Kabul controls only a third of Afghanistan’s 407 districts.

Last February, the U.S. and Taliban agreed that the Taliban must renounce al Qaeda and terrorist attacks as a precondition for a U.S. withdrawal. That hasn’t happened. In October, Afghanistan had its highest civilian death toll in over a year.

“It is imperative, for our own national security, that a counter-terrorism force remain in Afghanistan until conditions warrant their removal. A counter-terrorism force in Afghanistan is an insurance policy against another 9/11,” said Trump confidant and hawk Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Graham then explicitly rejected the terms of the withdrawal agreement the U.S. made in February saying he is  “hopeful but very suspicious of any efforts by the Taliban to reject al-Qaeda in any meaningful way.”

“Withdrawing troops rapidly might make some people feel better, but it won’t be good for American security,” wrote veteran Rep. Dan Crenshaw. “We will be right back in the same place as pre-9/11. No deterrence, no situational awareness, vulnerable to emboldened terrorists.”

Crenshaw and many Congressional Republicans are ignoring some key facts.

Since 2001, U.S. forces have killed Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.

Today, “al-Qaeda is in crisis” and “is no longer capable of conducting large-scale attacks,” according to Christopher C. Miller, the new acting secretary of defense and recent director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

Although the Taliban hasn’t been vanquished, it is unlikely to risk the territorial gains it has achieved by allowing Afghanistan to launch a 9-11 style terrorist plot.

Despite the united images conjured by so many Republicans in their response to Trump’s drawdown announcement, the facts provide little grounding for their fears.

What in the world is going through the mind of Donald Trump? That question might have been asked at any time in any place over the past five years, yet it has special weight today, given that it involves matters of war and peace.

First there was this, from the New York Times on Monday:

President Trump asked senior advisers in an Oval Office meeting on Thursday whether he had options to take action against Iran’s main nuclear site in the coming weeks. The meeting occurred a day after international inspectors reported a significant increase in the country’s stockpile of nuclear material, four current and former U.S. officials said on Monday.

A range of senior advisers dissuaded the president from moving ahead with a military strike. The advisers — including Vice President Mike Pence; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; Christopher C. Miller, the acting defense secretary; and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — warned that a strike against Iran’s facilities could easily escalate into a broader conflict in the last weeks of Mr. Trump’s presidency.

Just when you think you’ve got Trump’s foreign policy figured out, you’re leaning on Mike Pompeo to stop the bombs from flying. Trump, of course, has always exempted Iran from any restraint he might show in the Middle East. The likely site of his proposed strike, Iran’s Natanz facility, has beefed up its uranium stockpile significantly since the president pulled out of the nuclear deal back in 2018. In other words, Trump himself provoked the very threat he now itches to address. Escalations beget further escalations. How many times must the old realist adage be vindicated?

The tub-thumping towards Iran makes even less sense when paired with this:

President Trump is expected to order the U.S. military to withdraw thousands of troops from Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia by the time he leaves office in January, using the end of his time in power to significantly pull back American forces from far-flung conflicts around the world.

On its own, this isn’t especially surprising. The United States earlier this year negotiated a deal with the Taliban to remove its troop presence from Afghanistan. Iraq, too, has been on the president’s downsizing list, and the parliament in Baghdad back in January voted out our military entirely. The Pentagon has also been drawing down Special Operations troops in Africa, as Trump pounds the table for a full Somalia pullout. All this is in keeping with his expressed contempt for pointless Middle East wars as well as the desire among some in the establishment to at last achieve the chimeric pivot to Asia.

Still, a broader and accelerated withdrawal in the lame-duck period is nothing if not ambitious. So why the schizophrenia? Why at the same time that we’re drawing down are we on the cusp of a war with Iran?

Some on the left have posited that Trump is a kind of pan-national Joker, wanting only to create chaos, to watch the world burn on his way out. But that seems too cute by half.

First, with regard to Iran, my guess is that Trump has been talking to his dear friend Bibi Netanyahu. That isn’t fever-swamp leering at Israel: the Times notes that in 2008, “Israeli officials, concerned that the incoming Obama administration would seek to block it from striking Iran’s nuclear facilities, sought bunker-busting bombs, bombers and intelligence assistance from the United States for an Israeli-led strike.” Bush turned Tel Aviv down (!), opting instead for a cyber-attack, and today, Netanyahu faces a similar situation. Joe Biden has pledged to reenter the nuclear deal with Iran and take a less maximalist position towards Tehran. It makes sense Israel would want to do whatever damage it can before that comes to pass. And Netanyahu is surely well aware that Trump has a habit of listening to the last person in his ear.

Second, the fact remains that Trump isn’t going anywhere. Whether he launches his Trump TV network (which I imagine as a kind of love-child between One America and QVC) or mounts another presidential run in 2024, politics is his family business now. And for Trump, politics has always been a covenant between himself and his customers, his voters. They elect him; he delivers what they want. And he’s all too aware that one of his most distinctive promises, bringing the troops home, has been largely slow-walked. Hence the deal with the Taliban; hence the sudden pullout from Germany, with spiting Angela Merkel only a nice bonus.

Of course, here at TAC, we support the withdrawals and oppose the attempted Iran war. Such predictability is no doubt why none of us are making the calls in this seething Gotham we call America. The truth is that Trump isn’t the Joker; he’s the isolationist we deserve if not the one we need right now. And if he can pull off these latest withdrawals without leveling Iran in the process, he’ll get credit even from me.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., allied himself with the White House and those calling for a swift exit from Afghanistan on Tuesday.

“I write to express my support for President Trump’s plan for the prompt withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan,” Hawley wrote to the acting Defense secretary, Christopher C. Miller. “The costs of the war in Afghanistan continue to mount, and they are borne disproportionately by working Americans. … For these reasons, majorities of Americans, including veterans of the war itself, have long called for an end to the war in Afghanistan. Yet most of our nation’s policymakers have ignored them.”

Hawley’s signaling is significant because it runs counter to the political assault on the Hill by Republicans to stop President Trump’s plot to exit from the troubled theater in his administration’s closing days. On Monday, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell expressed, in no uncertain terms, his vociferous opposition to a further drawdown: “A rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan now would hurt our allies and delight the people who wish us harm.” 

McConnell was joined by Michael McCaul, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, among others, in expressing his displeasure with recent developments in President Trump’s national security team. An embattled Trump has suddenly cleaned house at the Pentagon, in a maneuver widely described as essentially outlaw. 

Trump’s moves at DoD are seen as part score-settling— and part delivering on a major campaign promise. If he sticks the landing, Trump’s acolytes insist drawing down further in Afghanistan cracks the door open still wider for a potential 2024 repeat run. 

“You wrote recently, ‘All wars must end,’” Hawley wrote to Miller. “The time has come to end the war in Afghanistan. I urge you to stand with President Trump and bring our troops home as expeditiously as possible.”

Hawley has now staked out new territory, putting finishing touches on a Afghanistan policy he has been developing for some time. In September, he told this magazine: “It’s time for a strategic refocus. …We have spent too much time on adventures in the Middle East and elsewhere that do not serve our strategic aims and place enormous burdens on the class of working men and women who fight our wars.”

Notably, Hawley’s statements stand apart from other Republican senators, who are keen to enhance their bona fides to become the leader of a future, “realigned” Republican Party.

Echoing McConnell, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida told Politico: “The concern would be it would turn into a Saigon-type of situation where it would fall very quickly and then our ability to conduct operations against terrorist elements in the region could be compromised. … That’s my primary concern right now.”

But the leadership class in Republican Washington continues to mostly diverge from those reading the tea leaves on the future of the party. Rubio was not joined by Sen. Tom Cotton, who is traditionally seen as the most hawkish of the trio. Cotton has previously noted that he shares Trump’s frustration with the war. And Ted Cruz, another 2024 contender, has so far been silent. 

It finally feels like fall here in Washington, just in time for winter. And as the flannels come out along with the culturally ambivalent Starbucks holiday cups, a less familiar sight has also been spotted: Trump voters. They came to the nation’s capital last weekend for a big rally, where they showed support for the president’s claim that he was the rightful winner of the election.

And then they were attacked. Fox News reports:

In scenes captured on video, small groups of Trump supporters who attempted to enter the area around Black Lives Matter Plaza, about a block from the White House, were confronted by several hundred anti-Trump demonstrators who had gathered there.

Trump supporters who approached the area were harassed, doused with water, and saw their MAGA hats and pro-Trump flags snatched and burned, while counter-protesters cheered.

Videos show anti-Trump demonstrators shouting at families, sucker-punching people in the street, and harassing an elderly woman carrying a Trump flag.

Even the Washington Post, amid endless sneering at the Trump fans, essentially admitted that most of the aggressors were on the left-wing side:

When darkness fell, the counterprotesters triggered more mayhem as they harassed Trump’s advocates, stealing red hats and flags and lighting them on fire. Scuffles continued into the night as the provocateurs overturned the tables of vendors who had been selling pro-Trump gear and set off dozens of fireworks, prompting police to pepper-spray them.

On Twitter, the journalist Andy Ngo, who’s made a beat out of covering Antifa, posted video of the assaults: left-wing rioters intimidating an elderly couple, knocking an older man off of a bicycle, punching a woman in the back of the head, throwing a firework at outdoor-seated diners, shining lasers through windows at the Capital Hilton after unsuccessfully trying to storm the hotel lobby.

All this comes as a shock to those of us who thought Antifa was just an idea. That was how Joe Biden characterized the group during the first presidential debate, and while he technically had a point—Antifa does lack a central leadership structure and FBI Director Christopher Wray referred to it as an “ideology”—Biden’s purpose was clearly to minimize the threat. Remember, Donald Trump was filleted after that debate for telling the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.” Condemn white supremacists, the media commanded, as though Trump hadn’t done that four million times already. Given Antifa’s pattern of ideological bigotry and political violence, shouldn’t we now demand that Joe Biden denounce them?  I think presidents rhetorically parachuting in every time extremists act up is a bit cultish, but if that’s the standard, then it must be applied evenly.

I’m not about to deny that Trump is part of the problem here. By refusing to admit he’s lost the election, by pretending he can somehow make up that many votes in that many states, he’s once again playing the part of civic pyromaniac. Trump is like Mickey in the sorcerer’s hat, conjuring up forces that can’t be controlled (not that he would if he could). And he has not an atom of credibility when it comes to condemning the use of force against protesters. But it’s also true that protests break out practically every day in D.C. Immigration supporters, Tea Partiers, antiwar activists, Black Lives Matter—all have had their say on the National Mall, Lafayette Square, and beyond. I’ve gone to investigate sidewalk demonstrations near The American Conservative‘s offices only to return with no earthly idea as to what was being protested. I could probably walk down Constitution Avenue right now chanting in Pig Latin with a bucket on my head and get at least a few people to follow me.

The Trump supporters had the same right to peacefully demonstrate as did those other causes. Instead they were set upon by a front that many in the political class would prefer to eclipse out of the national conversation. And what happened next? The Proud Boys, as it happens, were standing by, and started fighting back, causing blood to literally spill into the streets. It’s worth repeating: if one side or the other doesn’t feel like they can safely raise their voices, they’ll turn to those with muscle, and our politics will continue its 1930s momentum to the margins. Antifa might be an idea, but there’s material to that form, and we ought to stop pretending otherwise.

Tyler Cullis urges the incoming Biden administration not to fall for the “sanctions wall” trap being set by Iran hawks:

The so-called “flood” of sanctions being prepared in the coming weeks is more of the same. These sanctions are not designed to change Iran’s behavior or to deter it from conduct anathema to U.S. interests. Instead, the whole point of the sanctions is to set a trap for the Biden administration.

The Biden administration would do well not to fall into this trap. Absent immediate steps to undo the damage wrought by Trump and reinvigorate the JCPOA through a compliance-for-compliance agreement with Iran, President Biden will face the same crisis that prevailed in the lead-up to the JCPOA where Iran’s nuclear program built in step with U.S. sanctions.

Iran hawks in and outside the Trump administration have been explicit that their goal in continuing to pile on more sanctions on Iran is to tie the hands of the next president and prevent him from reentering the JCPOA. They have touted this as their “sanctions wall,” and they have been very proud of their obstructionism. The trouble for the Iran hawks is that they have made no secret that they are acting in bad faith that it should be a simple matter for Biden to undo their work fairly quickly. While many of the Trump administration’s new designations ostensibly target Iranian individuals and institutions with non-nuclear sanctions, the stated purpose for imposing them has been to help scuttle the JCPOA. This makes them nuclear sanctions by another name:

Important point here on Iran: the use of non-nuclear sanctions was a domestic political move to limit options for future diplomacy, and accordingly a Biden administration can reverse them by appealing to that well-documented reality. https://t.co/UQeJwYOroG

— John Allen Gay (@JohnAllenGay) November 11, 2020

Took a screenshot of this one…

Exhibit A that Trump-era “non-nuclear” sanctions are actually about preventing continuation of the Iran Deal and are therefore nuclear sanctions under a different name, which are prohibited by the agreement

h/t @JarrettBlanchttps://t.co/kQEqwISfn1

— Dylan Williams (@dylanotes) October 26, 2020

Trump’s Iran chief boasting new “non-nuclear” sanctions will make it harder for Biden to restore the Iran Deal is compelling evidence that they’re really nuclear sanctions under a different name, making it easier for Biden & Congress to treat them as suchhttps://t.co/KSeqemH6QI

— Dylan Williams (@dylanotes) October 26, 2020

The JCPOA provides a mechanism for resolving disputes between the parties. It will be straightforward enough for the Biden administration to reenter the deal and use this mechanism to bring both the U.S. and Iran back into full compliance. The JCPOA can be fully salvaged provided that Biden is willing to follow through on his commitments to do so. Despite Iran hawks’ desperate efforts to throw up roadblocks to stop Biden from dismantling the “maximum pressure” campaign, their own bad-faith maneuvering has all but guaranteed that the “sanctions wall” will crumble and fall.