Kushner's “mission impossible” Once again Jared Kushner is on a mission to the Middle East. US President Donald Trump's 36-year-old son-in-law and adviser is heading to the region to resume Mideast peace efforts, accompanied by Jason Greenblatt, a special representative for international negotiations, and Dina Powell, a deputy national security adviser. This team will meet leaders from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian Authority, a White House official said, adding that the discussions will focus on resolving the impediments to peace negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but will also cover combating extremism. So what is expected from the mission is more than Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, as was the case before. Kushner was in the region last June for just a few stops in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. The presence of Dina Powell is a new addition. It is well known that Kushner is a good friend of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. The Washington Post, reporting on the return of Kushner to the Middle East, noted that the trip comes about three weeks before Trump is expected to meet Netanyahu during the UN General Assembly session in New York in September. It is not clear if Trump will meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during the September gathering. Recently Kushner was a target of harsh criticism when an audio recording of a talk he gave to interns was leaked in which he criticised those who had worked for years on the peace process, saying “we don't want a history lesson. We've read enough books.” The terms “honest broker” and “two-state solution” are also no longer being mentioned in recent US official talks about Mideast peace. Holding our breath Meanwhile, with tensions rising with North Korea, Trump said the US military was “locked and loaded.” An expected and feared military (nuclear) confrontation between the US and North Korea was described as “catastrophic,” as world affairs guru Henry Kissinger warned in an article published in The Wall Street Journal on 12 August, saying that “unilateral pre-emptive military action by the US would involve a risk of conflict with China. The use of military force must be carefully analysed, and its vocabulary must be restrained. But it cannot be precluded.” Kissinger also stressed that “an understanding between Washington and Beijing is the essential prerequisite for the denuclearisation of Korea” and that “Tokyo and Seoul also have key roles to play.” The term “locked and loaded” used by Trump was popularised in the 1949 war film “Sands of Iwo Jima” starring the US actor John Wayne, and it refers to preparations for shooting a gun. Trump's bombastic rhetoric started on 8 August when he warned that “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” adding “they will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.” Trump's words echoed the tone of former US president Harry S Truman, The New York Times and others noticed, and reminded us of what was said in Truman's 1945 address announcing that the United States had dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima and urging the Japanese to surrender, warning that if they did not “they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.” “It's hard to think of a president using more extreme language during a crisis like this before,” said Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian, to The New York Times. “Presidents usually try to use language that is even more moderate than what they may be feeling in private, because they've always been worried that their language might escalate a crisis.” “Devil's Bargain” In any confrontational and polarising message coming from the president or the White House, Washington observers with no hesitation look for Steve Bannon's influence and impact. Bannon is the White House chief strategist and a strong voice for the alt-right in the administration. Last week many political commentators said Trump's “fire and fury” messages reflected or echoed Bannon's apocalyptic visions. “Trump wouldn't be president if it weren't for Bannon,” author Joshua Green mentioned. “Together, their power and reach gave them strength and influence far beyond what either could have achieved on his own.” Green is the author of the recently published book Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency. As a journalist at Bloomberg Businessweek, Green has observed both close up for many years, and he sees that Bannon is not going anywhere soon as happened with others of the president's men, noting “Bannon is the authentic connection to and representative of Trump's base politics.” In a podcast interview with Jonathan Capehart of The Washington Post he also said that “the one thing Trump fears most in the world is losing that connection and losing that support to his base, to his voters, and therefore, I don't think he's gonna push Bannon out.” Green mentioned in his book Bannon's “particular fascination” with French intellectual René Guénon and his book The Crisis of the Modern World (1927), wondering how that matched with Bannon's anti-Islamic views. Guénon as a young man was introduced to Islam and Sufism, moved to Egypt in 1930, and lived there as a devout Muslim known as Abdel-Waḥed Yahia, until his death in January 1951 at the age of 64. Satterfield is back Finally, David Satterfield, a veteran American diplomat, is coming back as the new acting US assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs. He will get his new position next month (September), replacing Stuart Jones, who left the department this month. Ambassador Satterfield until July 2017 served as director-general of the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) in the Sinai Peninsula, a post he assumed in July 2009. He was also chargé d'affaires to Egypt from August 2013 to January 2014. He is a former career senior foreign service officer of the United States, retiring after 30 years of US government service with the rank of career minister. Satterfield's Middle Eastern experience spans 35 years and also includes assignments in Syria, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and two tours in Lebanon. Among other positions, he served as director for Near Eastern affairs on the National Security Council, Middle East Peace envoy and special adviser to Libya. Almost seven months have passed, and of the 113 positions listed by the State Department, including deputy secretaries, assistant secretaries, undersecretaries and other senior officials, only 36 have been filled. Twenty-nine positions are occupied by holdovers from the former Obama administration, and 48 positions are vacant. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has proposed to Congress a 31 per cent cut to the department's budget and an eight per cent staff cut.
