Daniel DePetris
@DanDePetris
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@DefPriorities , syndicated foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Writer for Newsweek, the Examiner and the Spectator. Adopted citizen of Mexico.
NYC & New Rochelle, NY.
Joined April 2014
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We hear nothing about Afghanistan anymore. Some of the same people who were on a soapbox last August have quickly moved on. Just goes to show you that their concern wasn’t about the Afghan people per se, but about making withdrawal from a 20 year war as difficult as possible.
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Everybody complaining on Twitter about how humiliating and horrible the U.S. withdrawal is should direct their inquiries to the Pentagon, which had 18+ months to prepare an adequate retrograde and evacuation plan. If you gloss over this, you’re just playing politics.
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The dude has been writing the same op-ed for the last 15 years, and the case is as bad today as it was when he first made it.
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Literally everything Iran is doing right now—enrichment to 60%, assembling 10x the stockpile of enrichment, installing/using faster centrifuges, limiting IAEA access—wouldn’t be happening if the U.S. remained a party to the nuclear deal you think is horrible.
Iran in a position to produce fuel for a single bomb in “as short as one month.” So you’re saying that the JCPOA didn’t actually slow Iranian breakout time? Iran didn’t give up its nuclear capabilities? Sunsets were a good thing?
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The whole “U.S. troops can’t leave because Afghanistan will plunge into civil war” argument is kind of strange. It’s as if people have forgotten Afghanistan is currently in a civil war and arguably has been since the Soviet invasion in 1979.
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Putin has managed to push Germany into spending 2% of its GDP on defense, pressure the Brits to crack down on Russian money, budge Switzerland toward reassessing its neutral-on-all-things status, and turn Viktor Orban into a supporter of refugees. Miracle worker.
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Dude has written the same piece, every week, for the last 15+ years.
It's beyond time that Biden acknowledges Iran is behind all the violence in the Middle East. It's clear to me that Iran will not stop unless they are held accountable. And that hasn't happened. Biden must stand up to Iran before it's too late.
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Just a reminder: NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization, not North Atlantic, South China Sea, and East Asia Treaty Organization.
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Over the past 96 hours, hawks have come out of the woodwork. Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton, Bret Stephens, and the WSJ editorial board have all come out for an aggressive U.S. response. All four have a horrendous record on foreign policy. Why should we even listen to them?
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For those who want to keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan, I’m curious: until when? I keep hearing about “responsible withdrawals;” that the time isn’t right, etc. Please specifically define what the “right time” is. Because as far as I can tell, it’s based on unrealistic conditions.
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Ukraine joining NATO is the reddest of red lines for Russia. It’s not about Putin. No Russian president would support it. We need to stop obsessing over Putin’s personality and start recognizing that Russian foreign policy is motivated by things like security & geography.
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21 years later:
Bush is painting.
Wolfowitz is being interviewed by the Hoover institution.
Frum is now a public intellectual.
Bolton is on TV every 10 minutes.
Cheney is viewed as an older statesman who is now palatable because he hates Trump.
Such accountability.
It's 21 years since George W. Bush's infamous “mission accomplished” speech became a symbol of premature victory and Western hubris. From my archive this week, the chain reaction caused by Saddam Hussein's defeat in Iraq, and a warning from history about the “day after” in Gaza.
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The weird thing about the strikes in Yemen last night is that while many officials recognize they’re unlikely to deter the Houthis or change their calculus, they still argue that “something” needed to be done. That, in a nutshell, is one of the problems of U.S. foreign policy.
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I tripped over my shoelaces and slammed by knee on the corner of the table. At first, I thought the Iranians succeeded in their plot to sideline me from biking for a week. But I then realized I’m a klutz.
#SusanCollins
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The last time Congress voted to authorize war, the year was ‘02. At that time, GWB was President; Ashanti had the No. 1 song; & Fraser was still on TV.
Yet when it comes to removing troops from countries as intractably violent as Somalia, some lawmakers have a freak out.
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“The joint resolution, sponsored by two senators from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum...is a rare effort by Congress to claw back its war powers from the executive branch.”
#SandersLeeYemen
#Yemen
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An Israeli invasion of Gaza is going to be hell. It’s already hell. But what comes after could be just as worse, particularly if the Israelis find themselves sucked into re-occupying and administering a territory with 2.3m Palestinians. What’s the plan for the day after? 🧵
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I can totally understand President Zelensky’s anger about NATO refusing a No Fly Zone. The guy is under an extreme amount of pressure, is seeing his country attacked, and probably hasn’t slept in a week.
But NATO is still right to rule it out. It’s not a responsible option.
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The war in Gaza and all the depravities associated with it shows there is no rules-based order, despite what U.S. policymakers and establishment think tankers parrot on a daily basis. It’s Kool Aid we drink before going to bed at night.
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Interesting. Ehud Barak once approached Hosni Mubarak and basically asked him if the Arab states would be able to take over Gaza once Hamas was crushed, perhaps for a short 3-6 month period.
Mubarak’s response: Gaza is your problem.
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-NATO’s eastern flank boosted.
-EU moving away from Russian energy.
-Russia more dependent on China.
-Finland/Sweden flitting with NATO.
-Nord Stream 2 dead.
-Germany & Italy’s Russia policy hardened.
-Germany shocked out of its defense malaise.
Putin the “chess master.”
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Please tell me: what does “winning” in Ukraine look like? I’m asking because I sense a lot of officials, lawmakers, and pundits are throwing the word around without fully defining what it means in the context of Europe’s worst war in about 80 years.
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We’re told that if Russia wins in Ukraine, Poland and the Baltics are next despite the fact that they’re all NATO members.
We’re also told that the best way to safeguard Ukraine’s sovereignty is by granting them NATO member state status.
There’s an inconsistency in the logic.
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21 years ago today, the U.S. committed its worst foreign policy mistake in generations. That’s bad enough. But the fact that some of the architects of the Iraq War are still treated as authorities shows just how unaccountable the U.S. foreign policy industry really is.
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Secretary Pompeo’s certification that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are doing everything possible to minimize civilian deaths in Yemen is not only grossly inaccurate. It also happens to be an insult to the American people’s intelligence. My piece.
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Zelensky has two choices, it would seem: 1) negotiate on Russia’s terms (basically a surrender) or 2) choose to fight and risk Kyiv getting destroyed. The first option is humiliating, but spares innocent life. The second is bold but reckless. That’s where we are.
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As you continue to see columnists like Max Boot, Jennifer Rubin, David Frum, Robert Kagan, Bret Stephens, Kristol & Hayes ruminate about how terrible U.S. withdrawals from Syria & Afghanistan are, remember these were the same geniuses who thought we could turn Iraq into Germany.
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A word to the wise.
If you’re worried about what trillions of dollars in infrastructure spending will do to the national debt but are perfectly fine shoveling $750 billion (and counting) PER YEAR into the U.S. defense budget, then you really aren’t concerned about the debt.
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If Nikki Haley decides to run for President in 2024, that’s her right.
But be warned: her foreign policy platform is going to be an awful mix of reflexive humanitarian interventionism, maximum pressure & incessant references to “leadership” & “resolve.”
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The Saudi intervention in Yemen has entered its eighth year. Riyadh confidently predicted the operation would be over in weeks. Instead, it dragged out into what has long been the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, turning Yemen into a cauldron of death, poverty, and hunger.
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The transcript of George Bush’s interview with the 9/11 Commission has been declassified. The man was out of his depth.
“The President said he was worried about Saudi Arabia. He did not want it to become an al Qaeda country. Nor did he want it to form an alliance with Iran.”
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• The “Biden defense budget” is $886 billion, the largest ever requested.
• It’s moronic to think the U.S. needs $886 billion to defend itself.
• A bigger defense budget doesn’t necessarily buy more security and could actually be an enabler of stupid policy.
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-
#Scaramucci
doesn't like
#Priebus
-Tillerson not getting along w/ WH
-McMaster isolated on NSC
-Trump doesn't like Sessions.
Got it?
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The war in Afghanistan is deep into its 18th year—which is strange, because the U.S. basically won the war and achieved its objectives in the first few months.
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By my count, the U.S. has 4 regime change campaigns currently ongoing—Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and Syria. All four have failed, yet all four continue. Are there any I’m missing?
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The U.S. wants the PA to control Gaza.
Netanyahu says no.
The U.S. wants Gaza’s territory to stay intact.
Netanyahu approves buffer zones in Gaza.
The U.S. wants more land routes into Gaza.
Netanyahu throws up impediments.
Channeling Clinton: Who’s the f— superpower here?”
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A new argument for supporters of continuing the forever war in Afghanistan: we have to stay. Otherwise the Pentagon will be sued!
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Also, here’s some more F-35s and 2,000-pound JDAMs.
Blinken urges an impartial investigation into the Israeli strike on a World Central Kitchen convoy. "The victims of yesterday's strike join a record number of humanitarian workers who've been killed in this conflict. These people are heroes. ....They have to be protected."
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DoD and State knew a withdrawal would happen since Feb 2020. This was set U.S. policy. They knew a withdrawal was a possibility as far back as 2018, when Zal Khalilzad started his talks with the Taliban. What were U.S. officials doing at that time? Answer: apparently nothing.
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If a war erupts in Ukraine, then Ukraine loses. It would be a bloodbath for the Ukrainian people.
The most pro-Ukraine position was always to prevent such a war from happening. Unfortunately, we chose to prioritize high-minded moralism over necessary geopolitical compromises.
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Before Russia’s invasion, neutrality for Ukraine was spat upon and treated as the metaphorical skunk in the garden party. Now, it’s seen as a common-sense proposal to end the violence engulfing Ukraine.
In reality, it was always a common-sense proposal.
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The word "deter" has lost its meaning. For instance, when you claim that strikes will "deter" a group but then say in the next sentence that you expect the group to continue attacking targets, then you're not deterring anything. Read a dictionary.
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Just for brevity: the U.S. has bombed Iraq, Yemen and Somalia in just the last 24 hours.
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McMaster on TV. Bolton on TV. Robert Kagan with a feature in one of America's top newspapers. Paul Bremer writing about state-building. Thiessen writing nonsense. Petraeus engaging in revisionist history. Condi Rice given a platform.
And you wonder why we keep making mistakes?
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Damn. Timber Sycamore, the CIA’s covert program to support Syria’s rebels, was a disaster.
Jordanians and Turks were caught stealing weapons from the pile and selling them on the black market.
Arms were seized by jihadists.
CIA-supported units were wiped out.
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I want to congratulate Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, Nikki Haley, Donald Trump, Brian Hook, and all those think tankers in Washington, D.C. who were so confident that replacing the JCPOA with maximum pressure would push Iran into “a better deal.” Well done, folks.
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Well, sure, if you don’t count Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, and the Sahel. What is a war, anyway?
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I realize this is unpopular to say, but U.S. sanctions are definitely having an impact on global energy prices. You can’t sanction three huge crude producers (Russia, Iran, and Venezuela) and think it’s not going to have an adverse effect at the pump. It’s silly to say otherwise.
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“Donald Trump wants a deal with North Korea. His national security adviser thinks the North Koreans can’t be dealt with. And North Korea thinks he’s “human scum.” Via
@michaelcrowley
&
@elianayjohnson
.
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To those outside of Ukraine who are concerned with what the Ukrainian government may give up in talks with Russia, I respectively say: it’s not your call. It’s easy to criticize “giving into Putin” when you’re sitting in a nice conference room in Washington, DC or London.
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I don’t know what kind of budget deal Biden and House Rs will strike. But the notion that the Defense Dept should be insulated from any spending cuts is absurd, and proponents of this position need to do better than the customary “the world is dangerous” pablum we so often hear.
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Giving a U.S. defense guarantee to Saudi Arabia in the hope it will normalize relations with Israel is the diplomatic equivalent of trading your house for a nice pair of sneakers. It’s a dumb thing to even consider. For
@TIME
.
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Vilify the Iran deal as terrible.
Withdraw from the deal.
Slap sanctions lifted under the deal.
When Iran responds, say they are violating the deal.
Invoke snapback for Iran’s breaches, even though you stopped complying with the deal over 2 yrs ago.
Get laughed out of room.
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Translation: U.S. and European officials are suspicious of calls for peace talks that do not include a demand that Russia first lose the war before any talks take place.
Brilliant.
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It turns out we don’t need thousands of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to kill bad guys.
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One of George H.W. Bush’s best decisions was not marching on Baghdad after Iraqi forces were kicked out of Kuwait. Here’s his Secretary of State James Baker in 1996 explaining why Bush 41 made the right decision.
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There really is no excuse for this. If I was working in some inspector general’s office, I would probe the whole process in the lead up to the evacuation, the timeline for developing the plan, who was responsible for it, and whether bureaucracy slowed it down.
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This guy has about as much self-awareness as a 2 year-old at a funeral. I’m almost envious about it.
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Iraq owes Iran billions in unpaid electricity bills. But Baghdad is unable to pay Iran due to U.S. sanctions. Iran, tired of getting stiffed, decided to cut the power. Now Iraqis will have to deal with 120 degree heat.
For the U.S., an example of unintended consequences.
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I can’t overstate how great Biden’s ���forever exit” line was. He won’t admit it publicly, but this was a direct shot at the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which for years and years had a knack of convincing presidents the U.S. could leave Afghanistan “eventually.”
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We pay close to $82 million for a single F-35 joint strike fighter. So give me a break with the “ventilators are expensive, they cost $50,000 apiece” garbage. If we can purchase the world’s most advanced fighter-bombers, we can purchase more ventilators.
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How is Vladimir Putin going to resurrect the former Soviet Union with a military that can’t keep gas in their tanks, whose commanders are evidently incompetent at warfare, and whose troops are sabotaging their own vehicles so they don’t have to fight? Answer: he can’t.
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Wtf.
Trump says it was good to let the Turks attack the Kurds. "Sometimes you have to let them fight like two kids,” he tells rally in Dallas. “Then you pull them apart."
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This is unacceptable. The wind current is violating U.S. sovereignty and enabling China to peer into the private lives of Americans. We need another $50 billion in our $858 billion defense budget to address it—plus sanctions on wind, which is obviously China’s ally at this point.
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According to the Center for Public Integrity, Ari Fleischer made 109 false statements on the Iraq War.
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If Asian countries who depend on the Strait on Hormuz far more than the U.S. refuse to participate in this maritime initiative, Trump should make it clear that Washington will no longer serve as the primary security guarantor of this choke-point.
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It’s the height of irony that Pakistan, which sheltered and armed the Taliban insurgency for decades, causing so much pain and misfortune to Americans and Afghans alike, is confronting the now-Taliban government for hosting anti-Pakistani militant groups like the TTP.
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Navarro says the U.S.-China trade deal is dead. Larry Kudlow says no, it isn’t. Trump tweets that the deal is intact 20 minutes later. Meanwhile, Mnuchin says Trump is considering decoupling the U.S. and Chinese economies. What is happening?
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One of most serious errors in U.S. foreign policy, committed again and again, is assuming other countries—friends and foes alike—view the world as we do.
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War has become so normalized within the confines of the U.S. national security apparatus that we don’t even consider months-long air campaigns as worthy of the W-word label anymore (see Libya 2011; Red Sea/Yemen 2023-2024). It’s astounding if you think about it.
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Prigozhin will try to spin this entire episode as a victory of sorts. But the guy is going to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder. If Putin can ice enemies of the Kremlin in the U.K. and Germany, he can certainly do it in Belarus.
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How many times do we have to defer to the "experts" before we realize they are wrong?
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John Yoo giving legal advice. Mike Pompeo giving Iran policy advice. Lindsey Graham giving Afghanistan policy advice. John Bolton giving advice about how to handle intelligence. What world are we living in?
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I’ve read what seems like a billion pieces on Trump’s withdrawals from Syria and Afghanistan & I’ve noticed a pattern: a lot of the experts quoted are establishment people who have been in Washington for decades. Are reporters allergic to restrainers (or a realists)?
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Petraeus says a continued U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan would have been sustainable.
How anyone could think that tens of billions of dollars, an uptick in U.S. casualties & thousands of Afghan fatalities…per year…could be sustainable is beyond me.
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This is awkward.
“Ventilators delivered by Russia to the United States to help treat patients of the new coronavirus were manufactured by a Russian company that is under U.S. sanctions...”
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It may be an unpopular opinion, but at some point, we're going to have to focus less on increasing the pain on Putin and more about how we—the U.S., E.U., Ukraine, and Russia—can deescalate things before the war gets even worse. Escalation, counter-escalation isn't sustainable.
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Biden has bombed the Houthis five times over the last week. Meanwhile, Congress is twiddling its thumbs on the sidelines, seemingly impervious to the power the Constitution grants it. In war and peace, we’ve become a de-facto monarchy.
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The war in Ukraine being described as an epic, global battle between democracy and autocracy is the biggest fraud perpetrated by the foreign policy elite since the phrase “rules-based order” was coined.
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The notion we can give MBS a crash course on human rights and turn him into a good, decent, honorable character strikes me as absurd.
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A reminder that there are tens of thousands of U.S. troops in the Middle East, all within range of Iran’s missile inventory should this thing blow up into a regional war (which I still believe Iran and Israel don’t want). The U.S. force presence is a liability, not an asset.
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The prime reason why I can’t stand the whole democracy vs autocracy framing in U.S. foreign policy is because Washington does, in fact, support autocratic powers when it believes doing so is in the U.S. security interest. There are too many examples to count, but one is Chad.
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Sorry, but if the cost of a Israel-Saudi normalization deal is a U.S. security guarantee for Riyadh, then count me out. The reward isn’t worth the cost. The last thing the U.S. should be doing in the region is serving as de-facto security guards for the royal family.
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I’m exerting maximum pressure on my girlfriend to get out of this mall. All the experts on relationships told me she would fold and give in to my demands. Instead, she has doubled down. And now I will be in this mall for another 2 hours.
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There’s something strange, but miraculous, happening in Yemen: for the first time since the war began over seven years ago, the country has gone a week without a single Saudi coalition airstrike. Will Yemen’s truce hold?
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Afghan troops are pulling out of cities without much resistance. It’s easy to knock them for being cowards. But let’s be real: if you were an Afghan grunt surrounded by the Taliban, watching your salary pocketed by some corrupt senior officer, would you risk your life?
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Tbh, I’m not totally clear on what the U.S. objective is in Ukraine. Aid Kyiv’s pursuit of total victory? Help Ukraine take as much territory as possible before talks begin? Bleed Russia in perpetuity? I’m guessing you would get different answers from different organs of the USG.
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Spare me the “Trump is legitimizing Kim” b.s. Did Eisenhower legitimize Khrushchev? How about when Nixon met Mao? Or when Reagan spoke with Gorbachev? Or when Clinton talked to Arafat? What about when Obama spoke with Rouhani & Castro?
You get my drift.
#TrumpKimSummit
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Lessons from America’s experience in Afghanistan:
1. When you achieve your initial objective, take success for an answer. Don’t move on to more goals that are unattainable.
2. Beware the sunk-cost fallacy.
3. Even the U.S. mil has limits.
We ignore them at our own peril.
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The U.S. base in al-Tanf, Syria, isn’t about ISIS. It’s about screwing with Iran’s supply lines in a country that Tehran has had a decades-long partnership with. This mission wasn’t authorized, is endless and entails a lot of risk to U.S. personnel (as we now see). Not worth it.
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