Castigating NGO’s: An American Israeli-Surrogate on Gaza Reconstruction

Besides international law, international organizations, or NGOs, function internationally beyond the reach of the nation-state. From the standpoint of national sovereignty, the sheer existence of the NGO as an institutional arrangement can be viewed as a potential threat and thus smartly to be expunged. One strategy that a country’s government bent on protecting national sovereignty could use to discredit NGOs is to label them using the turbo-charged “T” word, even in the case of an NGO that is oriented exclusively to providing humanitarian aid. By 2026, Israel had decimated the infrastructure and buildings in its occupied Gaza strip, and Russia had been bombing residential buildings in Kiev and other large cities in Ukraine for four years, so it could not be said that humanitarian aid was not needed in the world. Parts of Africa ravaged by draught and war, such as in Somalia, were also in vital need of humanitarian aid. To discredit NGOs providing such assistance, whether in terms of shelter, food, or medicine, meant being open to the charge of callous disregard for the suffering of very large numbers of people.  The case of Gaza—in particular, the position of the Trump administration on NGO’s being involved in the reconstruction of the strip—demonstrates the harm that is involved in turning the NGO institution-type into a controversial and even suspicious thing in order to do the bidding of a belligerent ally while removing a potential external threat to national sovereignty.

In a closed-door meeting in July, 2026 with European and Arab government officials in Brussels oriented to how nearly €900 million would be distributed to reconstruct the Gaza strip, “US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, called for a radical overhaul of financial support for Gaza.”[1] Although he was not an official of the U.S. Government, he doubtless had the U.S. President’s backing in calling for a fundamental shift from the UN’s standard approach in order to “turn the tide” against the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and other NGOs that the U.S. and Israel believed were aiding Hamas.[2] In fact, Kushner dismissed outright the Gaza aid initiatives carried out so far as being “designed step by step by NGOs and terrorists.”[3] It would certainly be news to the UN that UNRWA was actually so tainted. Of course, Kushner and his two task masters meant to discredit the very existence of the United Nation. The day before, U.S. Secretary of State Rubio had announced that the U.S. would attempt to dismantle the International Criminal Court in what could be interpreted as a wider mission to discredit international law itself and thus give carte blanche to any country’s unimpeded sovereignty.

Even though Kushner sought to discredit the UNRWA and NGO’s in general, he can be viewed as ethically compromised in that he was, whether in effect or intent, representing Israel, or at least the position of its prime minister, Ben Netanyahu, that the UN was to be a target. Domestically in the U.S., Kushner was widely viewed as partisan, for he was married to President Trump’s daughter and, more directly, was on Trump’s Board of Peace, “the controversial body . . . expected to oversee the Strip’s reconstruction.”[4] That mega-project likely included lucrative financial investments by the Trump Organization and Kushner’s own investment firm related to prospective luxury resorts on the Gaza-coast. Furthermore, Kushner was a close friend of Netanyahu and thus would likely have been doing his partisan bidding as well, especially in casting suspicion on a UN agency as aiding groups that Israel considered to be “terrorist.” In his speech, “Kushner made a clear link between the current humanitarian aid system and the indirect financing of Hamas, claiming that a consistent flow of money has fallen into the hands of Hamas, which used it to buy weapons, build tunnels, and develop rockets.”[5] It is no accident that Israel was accusing “UNRWA of connections with terrorist groups” even though the UN agency had denied “diverting any aid.”[6] Of course, decimating an entire strip the size of Gaza, which included entire cities, could be considered terrorism because civilians tacitly deemed by apartheid Israel to be “subhuman” had been targeted by Israel’s military, and thus government. Therefore, Kushner’s application of the “T” word is itself indicative of his one-sided stance, and therefore of his questionable credibility even besides the financial interest of his firm, in directing, in effect, the international reconstruction effort that was formally launched at that very meeting.

The significance of Kushner’s (and thus America’s and Israel’s governments’) complaint goes beyond the reconstruction of Gaza under American and Israeli supervision, for in castigating a UN agency and other international NGO’s, Kushner can be interpreted as attempting to sideline international organization itself. The unspoken assumption may be that anything beyond national sovereignty is inherently suspicious, or at least a threat to such sovereignty. Moreover, any potential external obstacle is best taken out, or sidelined, in the interests of national sovereignty. Such a strategy protects national actors who are or may be aggressive internationally, as evinced in 2026 by the U.S. in Iran, Israel in Gaza, the West Bank, and even Lebanon, and Russia in Ukraine. It was no accident, in other words, that international organization itself would be sidelined by the Trump and Netanyahu administrations. At the time, the ICC had a warrant out for Netanyahu’s arrest. Whereas the U.S. had been instrumental in the founding of the UN and thus could be regarded as betraying the international body, the U.S. had not ratified the Rome Statute and thus could attack the ICC from the outside, and U.S. Secretary of State Rubio had recent done just that. Again, Netanyahu's fingerprints could be seen upon careful enough inspection.

Therefore, the problem with Kushner’s speech is not merely that he was acting as Israel's surrogate in attacking the UN; even more important is the fact that he included even the UN itself in his attack on NGOs, and was thus urging the collapse of the post-World-War-II global order that had stood for international law rather than unimpeded absolutist national sovereignty. It is indeed telling that “(d)isarming Hamas was a central theme of Kushner’s speech”[7], as this emphasis was undoubtedly as per the wishes of his Israeli friend, Ben Netanyahu, who had been behind the decimation of Gaza and the homelessness of over a million residents. It should not be forgotten that the purpose of the meeting was to begin the task of turning €900 million into real construction “on the ground,” especially as the Gazans had already been relegated to tents and would soon be forcibly sent to heavily-guarded concentration-camp-like compounds in Gaza built by Israel and reminiscent of other camps  on another continent at another time. 

Perhaps the operative question is when humanity would be spared such inhumanity even in cycles, and look forward to international and thus unbiased humanitarian aid and reconstruction. Discrediting international organizations, and especially the UN, was not the way to build confidence globally that any such turn-around would be coming anytime soon. Given Israel’s sordid role in Gaza and the enabling by the Trump administration, those two countries arguably should not have had such a large role in a €900 billion project in Gaza. Afterall, Israel’s occupation itself of Gaza was in violation of the UN, to which Israel was, at least on a de facto basis, still a member.

---

1. Vincenzo Genovese, “Exclusive: US Wants ‘a New Approach’ to Rebuild Gaza, Kushner Told EU Ministers,” Euronews.com, 16 July, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

Trade or Foreign Policy: The E.U. on Illegal Israeli Settlements

During the summer of 2026, the E.U. found itself at one point trying to make the unnecessarily arduous and utterly artificial distinction between trade and foreign policy as if they were mutually exclusive. This task was foisted on the Council of Ministers due to the domain-specific application of the state veto, which is to say, the requirement of unanimity. The sheer artificiality was outdone only by the absurdity of any of 27 states still being able to veto proposed federal law and policy in some but not all policy domains, and thus hamstring the E.U. even when the good of the whole, supported by the vast majority of states and E.U. citizens, supported action on the federal level. The global context at the time with respect to international relations belied a stark separation of trade from foreign policy.

In declaring a recommencement of a naval blockade on Iranian ports on July 13, 2026, for example, U.S. President Trump also said the U.S. would “be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security” to ships passing through the Hormuz Strait.[1] As a countering move of rhetoric, “Iran’s military command insisted it would not allow the US to ‘interfere’ in the key conduit for oil and gas, while also warning its Gulf neighbours—who have borne the brunt of Tehran’s attacks—against cooperating” with the U.S.[2] Clearly, trade itself, and especially protecting its conduit, can be seen as being closely intertwined with foreign policy in this case. The rising price of oil was clearly on Trump’s mind, especially with the “midterm” elections less than four months away, but also standing up to the Iranian military attacks on ships in the strait was also a probable motive, rather than merely to make “toll” money on shipping in the Middle East. In other words, political economy, rather than just business and economics, best describes the interlacing of trade and foreign policy. 

In fact, historically, the field known today as economics spun out of political economy. Even in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, a non-mercantilist, regulative role of government in protecting competitive markets and even the role of the state in covering the “social” costs of capitalism, such as in providing housing and food to the unemployed, for example, are salient. Left to its own devises, a competitive market could concentrate into an oligopoly or even a monopoly as the refining industry did in the last quarter of the nineteenth century in North America, where oil was first discovered.

Therefore, it can be regarded as a legal fiction of sorts that the E.U. would treat a legislative proposal to ban trade with Israeli settlements, such as covered most of the land in the West Bank by 2026, illegally according both to international and E.U. law, as a matter of trade rather than foreign policy so only qualified majority voting rather than the unanimous consent that is necessary on foreign-policy proposals would be needed to pass the Council of Ministers. Referring to that council, the E.U.’s federal foreign minister Kallas reported, “The option that got the most support was banning the trade with the illegal settlements.”[3] She was referring to the E.U.’s states, which are represented both in the European Council and the Council of Ministers, similar to U.S. states being represented in the U.S. Senate. In American parlance, the consensus among “senators” was to ban all trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, which by 2026 was down to the West Bank as Israel had razed Gaza to the ground in a holocaustic genocide. That the consensus was not instead to ban all trade with Israel as well as its illegal settlements, given the state-sponsored destruction of Gaza, is another question, which presumably would also qualify to be decided in the Council by qualified majority vote rather than unanimity, for trade even as foreign policy is still trade.

That the E.U. still made such a distinction as to the voting threshold in 2026 even as the Union was considering adding more states to the east even though foreign policy and trade had become so integrally related in international relations generally can be said to be artificial, and thus irrationally political rather than having merit in the functioning of the E.U.’s federal system. In fact, even at 27 states, the requirement of reaching unanimity on legislation and policy in the European Council and the Council of Ministers (aka Council of the E.U.) had already made it very difficult to pass even widely favored proposals due to Viktor Orbán’s “Euroskeptic” (i.e., anti-federalist) ideology. In other words, he was able to undercut the E.U. from within, and yet even months after his fall from power in the E.U. state of Hungary, the matter of subjecting the matter of deciding how to vote on whether to ban trade with illegal settlements was still arduous! Even though Kallas was the foreign minister of the E.U. (under the stealth misnomer of “High Representative” to satisfy anti-federalists), banning trade falls under trade primarily, and thus qualified-majority voting rather than unanimity. Perhaps a more robust, courageous, foreign-policy proposal worthy of human-rights and even just international-law proponents would have been to ban trade with Israel en toto, but even such a proposal would fall under trade and thus rightly be subject to qualified-majority voting. Moreover, with 27 states, and thus 27 political opinions of sitting governors, that the Councils still subjected any decision to unanimity especially after Viktor Orbán suggests that the need to distinguish trade from foreign policy anyway could and should have been obviated by common sense. 

That on 13 July, 2026, “a majority of member states . . . backed framing the measures as a trade rather than a foreign policy tool, which would avoid the need of all E.U. [state] governments to unanimously back the move” should have been enough because, simply put, banning trade is about trade, which is subject to qualified-majority voting.[4] The “move” should not have been needed in the first place, were enough Europeans convinced that the very existence of the state-veto in the Councils is an antiquated notion based on the former days before the E.U. when the states were fully sovereign, rather than semi-sovereign in a political union, which also has some governmental sovereignty. In fact, qualified-majority voting itself is an instance of such sovereignty because states on the losing end of such a vote must obey the decision nonetheless. 

Therefore, the very continuance of the state veto is predicated on denial. Put another way, the world was moving forward; why, then, were the E.U. state governments so utterly intractable, so beheld to their own power, even as the E.U. was poised to add even more states without first jettisoning the requirement of unanimity in the two councils that represent states? Perhaps the Parliament and the Commission should have been delegated more authority at the federal level until the states could get their act together in the two federal councils.

---

1. Aleksandar Brezar and Peter Barabas, “Trump Reimposes U.S. Blockade and Demands 20% Hormuz Shipping Fee,” Euronews.com, 13 July 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Mared G. Jones, “Full Ban on Israeli Settlement Trade Gets ‘Most Support’ from EU Countries, Kallas Says,” Euronews.com, 13 July, 2026.
4. Ibid.

Europe: Over- and Under-Represented in the G7

I contend that in having both federal and state-level officials attending the G7 international meetings, Europe is over-represented even as the E.U. itself is sidelined. At least this was the case at the meeting in June, 2026 in the E.U. state of France. The staying power of the seven countries comprising the Group could be considered as antiquated, given the relevance and importance of the E.U. in international relations. The very intractability of institutional arrangements (i.e., structures) even in the face of a changing political environment can thus be viewed as problematic. By implication, the exclusion of the E.U. from the United Nations international organization can be viewed as effectively relegating the UN as a structurally-frozen “has been” by the 2020s.

The relevance of the E.U. being at the G7 meeting in Evian-les-Bains can be ascertained by the public statements of federal officials just before the meeting. Speaking on E.U. sanctions against Iran, E.U. President Von der Leyen said that they would remain in force unless or until “real change” occurs “on the ground.”[1] The Iran War was on the itinerary at the G7 meeting, and so too was the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a topic very much on the E.U.’s radar screen.  Nevertheless, at a pre-meeting press conference with the head of the E.U. state of France, Emmanuel Macron rather than with the federal president, U.S. federal President Trump said that his administration would return its diplomatic focus back to Russia’s invasion now that the U.S.’s conflict with Iran had been at least temporarily discontinued. An implication from the visuals of Trump being at a joint press conference with the head of an E.U. state is that the latter could legitimately undermine Von der Leyen in negotiating independently with Russia on the matter of Ukraine. Of course, visuals have nothing to do with politics (i.e., political reality), I write heavily with sarcasm.

Furthermore, even though Macron was “keen to portray the G7 as united in the face of unfair Chinese competition,” international trade is an exclusive competency (i.e., enumerated power) of the E.U. rather than its states. In fact, on the very day on which the G7 meeting began, “E.U. Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic said . . . that EU-China relations needed a ‘reset’ and that engagement with Beijing had to deliver ‘concrete outcomes.’”[2] Noting that the status quo was no longer sustainable, Sefcovic said, “Our trading relationship with China has reached a point that requires a reset, not confrontation, but rebalancing.”[3] Macron would not be in charge of the rebalancing. To quote from the disgraced former head of France, Nicholas Sarkozy, Macron missed an opportunity to shut up; Sarkozy had made the statement in regard to a governor of one of the E.U.’s eastern states as if they were inferior. Such is the danger in the media giving the governors of large states such prominent positioning. It is thus no small measure that E.U. President Von der Leyen spoke before the meeting on the E.U.’s trade deficit with China; interestingly, even she tacitly undermined her position as a federal official in noting “that 2025was the first time in history that all 27 [member states of the E.U.] had recorded a trade deficit with China.”[4] It was the Commission, rather than the state of France, that was “currently looking into ways to diversity supply chains, boost domestic production of strategic sectors and address trade distortions, such as subsidies and coercion” by China.[5] Accordingly, Von der Leyen rather than Macron of France should have been prominent both publicly and at the meeting on the topic of trade with China from the standpoint of the E.U., of which France, as a state, is but a part. That Macron said at the time that he was “’optimistic’ that G7 leaders would reach an agreement on critical raw materials” can thus safely be relegated, for trade is an exclusive E.U. competency. If, as read it, Macron was referring only to the leaders of the seven countries and thus excluding his own federal president (whose competencies include trade!), then something was indeed amiss with the official membership list at G7 meetings. A strong argument can thus be made that the E.U. president, rather than any governors of E.U. states, should have been on the membership list.

As rational as such an argument may be, the staying power of existent institutional arrangements is formidable. The E.U. could thus enjoy being represented several times over by governors of E.U. states at international meetings and even organizations including the United Nations. Governmentally, the fact that the E.U.’s federal system includes dual sovereignty, wherein both the states and the Union enjoy some governmental sovereignty, just as in the case of the U.S. wherein its states too hold residual sovereignty, means that the president of the E.U. should have an official place at the table and sit opposite U.S. President Trump at pre-meeting press conferences. Furthermore, that the U.S. could not be represented in multiples by having governors of large states also have official places at international meetings means that it is only fair that the governors of large E.U. states also be excluded. My argument is thus based as much on the fairness that is implicit in symmetry as on the relevance of the E.U. on the topics of the G7 itinerary at the meeting that ironically took place in the E.U. in June, 2026.

---

1. Jorge Liboreiro et al, “G7 Summit: US to Focus Again on Ukraine after Deal with Iran, Trump Says,” Euronews.com, 15 June 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

Security Council Vetoes Styme the UN: Oil in the Strait of Hormuz

The United Nations was intended to obviate war, and failing in that mission, at least to safeguard economic trade especially if doing so staves off anticipated belligerent action by countries seeking to restore compromised trade. In 2026, when Iran’s stoppage of the one-fifth of the world’s oil that would otherwise go through the Strait of Hormuz triggered a military threat by the U.S., Russia and China vetoes a resolution in the Security Council aimed at reopening the strait and thereby obviating an escalation in the military fighting between the U.S. and Iran. Because not even a lopsided vote in favor—11 in favor, two against, and two abstentions—could activate the U.N. in its principle role of peremptorily obviating war by protecting trade, we can conclude that the organization had indeed effectively collapsed and could not be reformed from within, given that five members of the Security Council retained veto power. Meanwhile, military aggressors in the world were able to fill in the power-void left by the collapsing post-World War II world order to render might-makes-right the status quo in the twenty-first century.

At the time, an E.U. media outlet opined that it was doubtful that even if the resolution had been adopted, it “would have impacted the war” because the wording had been “significantly weakened in a bid to get Russia and China to abstain rather than veto it.”[1] In other words, the existence of the veto power in the Security Council was responsible for the impotence of the UN in protected trade and reducing pressures for war. Just that “Iran’s chokehold during the war . . . sent energy prices soaring around the world” should have been enough of a justification for UN protective action in the strait, but not even that rationale was enough for the UN to be able to use its own forces to protect oil tankers through the strait.[2]

Because higher oil prices were in Russia’s economic and thus military interests as that country continued its four-year invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s use of its veto exploited a conflict of interest, and yet the UN had no means of blocking such a use of a veto-power even though Russia’s invasion violated the UN’s charter, which bars offensive military action being inflicted by one country on another country. In other words, the UN could not even stand up to a blatant conflict of interest whose exploitation enabled further violations of the UN’s own charter.

With Israel continuing its holocaustic genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza, the U.S. having invaded Venezuela to capture its president, and Russia still invading Ukraine, the interest of the global family of nations in establishing an international governmental organization without vetoes and with its own enforcement power was so clear that the lack of any such formative action can itself be reckoned as signaling a problem. In other words, knowing that the post-1945 global order was collapsing while military aggressors were getting away with establishing might-makes-right as the new global default, governments nonetheless failed to actively create a new order institutionally so that could be the new default. That the very concept of international law was rapidly being treated as mere guideline rather than law demonstrates just how serious the UN’s de facto collapse was, and yet not even an informal coalition of governments seriously proposed an international institution—whether an organization or government—to pick up the slack and counter Putin, Netanyahu, and Trump. My point is that the inaction of the bystander governments is itself a choice, which could have been different, especially given the proliferation of war crimes and crimes against humanity being incurred at the time. The political inertia internationally favored malicious national leaders and the false belief that the UN was still operational as per its mission.  

---

1. Gavin Blackburn, “Russia and China Veto UN Resolution Aimed at Reopening Hormuz Strait as US Deadline for Deal Looms,” Euronews.com, 7 April, 2026.
2. Ibid.

Distortions of Political Perspective in Foreign Affairs

When the human mind becomes too affixed to a political ideology, rather it is “right,” “center,” or “left,” one way that the excessive attachment can be seen by other people is by perspectival distortion. A very basic illustration of this cognitive-perceptional lapse is when someone claims that only X but not Y is problematic even though both X and Y can be criticized using the same or even related criteria. Besides the fact that ideology is inherently partial rather than wholistic, “sins of omission” concerning X or Y (but not both) due to a cognitive-perspectival distortion, which in turn comes from the partiality of any ideology, can easily be viewed as unethical in virtue of being patently unfair as well as self-serving, ideologically. This very abstract paragraph sprang from news reports of U.S. Senator Linsey Graham referring to Iran’s Khamenei as a Hitler-figure while giving Israel’s Netanyahu a pass even though by January 11, 2026 when Graham spoke, the large-scale killing and suffering of a people had easily dwarfed the few thousand Iranian protesters who had been killed on the street. Even mentioning an equivalence would have been sufficient in terms of which leader comes closer to being a 21^st century Hitler. As a result, the U.S. senator’s credibility undoubtedly took a hit—except, interestingly, to people sharing the senator’s foreign-policy ideology. This too flags political ideology itself as problematic for the human mind.

On the Fox News’ program, “Sunday Morning Futures,” Graham urged regime-change in Iran. “If I were you, Mr. President, I would kill the leadership that are killing the people,” Graham said.[1] On the very same day, activists said that “Iran has killed at least 544 people and even more are feared dead.”[2] That Because Graham had very recently joined President Trump on a flight on Air Force One, the senator’s statements had likely been planned in order to prepare the American people a possible American military action to remove Iran’s dictator, whose democratic legitimacy was probably as great as Putin’s in Russia given all of the hand-picked “opposition” candidates.

Although Graham’s statement, “You gotta end this,” can be thusly construed as having really come from Trump himself, that the line applied even more so to what the Israeli government had been inflicting in Gaza for years by then and yet Graham did not mention this obvious point evinces the sort of ideological distortion that can so easily flag a politician’s credibility. 

With the Qatar News Agency reporting also on January 11, 2026 that the death toll in Gaza had reached 71,412, with 171,314 injured (and with entire cities destroyed, perhaps over a million people homeless and hungry), it is significant that Graham referred to Iran’s leader as a “modern-day Hitler” without even mentioning even the possibility that the holocaustic genocide still going on in Gaza qualified Netanyahu, a war criminal still wanted by the International Criminal Court, for the same infamous title.[3] In fact, with some high officials of the Israeli government having stated that death is not enough for the residents of Gaza—all of whom being presumably culpable for Hamas’ attack in October, 2023 in which less than 1,500 Israelis were killed and/or taken hostage—the holocaustic, extra-suffering, extension from “mere” genocide arguably qualified Netanyahu and his henchmen as democratically-elected “Nazis” for wanting to exterminate a subjugated people. Even though Iran’s government could claim to have been democratically elected through a legal fiction of “opposition” candidates pre-selected by Iran’s highest body of clergy, the case of Israel demonstrates that a democracy is capable of conducting a holocaust, or at least a genocide. Incidentally, German’s President Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor in 1933, so Hitler came to power in a democracy, so the distinction between autocracy and democracy with regard to going on to perpetuate crimes against humanity (and war crimes) is not as clear as politicians such as Lindsey Graham would like to suppose.

Essentially, Graham ignored the elephant in the living room—the invisible elephant in plain view—while abhorring just over 500 Iranian protesters having just been killed. This slight, I contend, was no oversight, and it demonstrates just how culpable political ideology itself can be when firmly held by the human brain. The resulting distortion, or warping, can enable even enormous suffering and death unleashed by a state with impunity. By implication, no one power in the world can be counted on to play the role of the global “policeman.” Rather, the U.S. could go in to protect the Iranian protesters while another large power, such as China, could go in to exterminate the Israeli troops in Gaza, and perhaps even in the West Bank. This would be superior to a partial action, but even more superior would be a world federation with enough delegated military power of its own or on call to protect civilians in any country or occupied territory, and thus fairly, in which the scale and severity of unmitigated and unjustified atrocities committed by a military reach a threshold.

Lest a world federation with limited governmental sovereignty checkable by a qualified-majority of countries, whether sovereign states or political unions, seem too far-fetched, it is worth reflecting on the enabling by large-scale organizational management (i.e., efficiency) and military technological “progress” (i.e., bigger, more powerful weapons) of the drastically increased scale and severity of the genocidal holocausts of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Eichmann’s application of efficiency to the network of trains going to and from the concentration camps, and the Israeli ability to bomb or bulldoze each and every building even in large cities in Gaza demonstrate just how large the destructive capacity of humans directed at entire peoples can be. So the value that a world federation—one that would be unlike the UN and the ICC in that enforcement powers would be included—in the 21^st century is much greater than in the eighteenth century when Kant wrote his treatise on perpetual peace. In that book, the European philosopher argues that the establishment of a world federation would make world peace possible but admittedly not probable. Although such odds may apply three centuries later, human nature remaining constant, the need for a world federation has become much greater. 

The President Trump’s government giving Netanyahu’s Israeli government a pass and negotiating with Russia’s Putin on the  latter’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, while extracting the sitting president of Venezuela and hinting that Iran might be next is so dogmatic in the sense of being arbitrary from a global rather than self-interested perspective that leaving the world order in the hands of impotent international organizations (i.e., the U.N. and the ICC) can be considered to be downright reckless. The ideological and related self-centered vulnerabilities of the human mind, together with the enhanced scale and severity of the infliction of suffering and even death, render a world-order based on absolute sovereignty at the nation-state and political-union levels as antiquated, and yet we continue to rely on just such an order. That’s the idea.

1. Lee Moran, “Lindsey Graham Urges Donald Trump to Kill ‘Modern-Day Hitler’ in Iran,” The Huffington Post, January 12, 2026.
2. Jon Grambrell, “Death Toll in Crackdown on Protests in Iran Spikes to at Least 544, Activists Say,”

3. Lee Moran, “Lindsey Graham Urges Donald Trump to Kill ‘Modern-Day Hitler’ in Iran,” The Huffington Post, January 12, 2026. On the report on Gaza, see QNA.org (accessed January 13, 2026).

On the Role of Federalism in Foreign Policy on Israel and Iran

As U.S. President Trump was drawing a line in the proverbial sand by stating repeatedly that Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons, E.U. foreign commissioner (i.e., minister) Kallas warned the world that military involvement by the U.S. in the military spat going on between Israel and Iran would “definitely drag” the entire Middle East into the conflict.[1] Accordingly, she “made clear the European Union would not back America’s armed intervention.”[2] By the way she came to that public statement, the U.S. could take a lesson in how to optimally utilize federalism such that all of its parts shine, rather than just those at the federal level.

The E.U.’s foreign minister made her public statement after having hosted a video conference with state officials—one from each state government—who could represent their respective states in affairs beyond the E.U. She had also called her U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State Rubio, who “emphasized that it’s also not in their interest to be drawn into this conflict.”[3] Any daylight between Rubio’s position, that of the U.S. National Security Director, and President Trump is not relevant here; rather, that Kallas reached out not only to her counterpart in the U.S., but also to state officials in the E.U. can illustrate how federalism can be utilized in the formulation of a foreign policy in a federal system of public governance. Instead of being left out entirely, the E.U. state governments played a role without eclipsing Kallas’ role in the E.U. speaking with one voice. Even if some state officials in the meeting objected to the federal foreign minister’s statement, discerning a consensus would be sufficient for Kallas in her role. As a result, the E.U. could enjoy the benefits abroad from speaking with one voice.

In cases in which consensus on an issue does not exist, and some state officials are at loggerheads, Kallas could simply have abstained from commenting because the E.U. would not speak with one voice. Qualifying this quietism, however, is the condition in which the E.U. has an important strategic geopolitical or economic interest in an issue in foreign affairs and the interest of the E.U. should outweigh the lack of consensus at the state level, for the union is more than the aggregate of the political units (i.e., states) within the union. This judgment too should rest with Kallas in her capacity as a federal official.

A risk in involving officials from each of the 27 states regards any one of them exceeding one’s role as a state official by speaking unilaterally for the union publicly. Kallas should thus have the authority to restrict such pronouncements for the good of the union. A benefit of holding a meeting with the state officials is that after a consensus has been discerned, Kallas could ask them for some analysis of the international problem. Once benefit of federalism is that a federal official can draw on the expertise of relevant state officials, both in the politics and in geopolitical analysis as foreign-policy experts.

For example, Kallas stated that no one would benefit from a widening of the conflict in the Middle East. This point may not be true. The plight of the Gaza residents under the thumb of the Israeli army at the time could benefit from Arab countries entering the fray because their armies could possibly assume control of Gaza to feed and protect its residents. Put another way, the genocide was so one-sided (it could hardly be called a war) that were the U.S. to engage militarily against Iran, other Muslim countries could also become engaged and, as a byproduct, provide some balance in favor of the Palestinians in Gaza. That the E.U. was arguably more pro-Gaza than the U.S. was at the time may have meant that Kallas had a political incentive to suggest to the Arab governments in the Middle East that they could possibly take advantage of U.S. involvement against Iran to step in themselves on behalf of Gaza. If the U.S. Government had been paying brides to Arab countries (or to key officials therein) to keep them from intervening militarily in Gaza, the military involvement of the U.S. against Iran could be a game-changer, in effect forcing the hands of the Arab states to take action even if it means less U.S. money. State officials meeting with Kallas could perhaps have supplied her and each other with such analysis that in turn could have improved the substance of her public statement in terms of any impact on the players and spectators in the Middle East.

Kallas’ consultations both abroad and with relevant state officials can be viewed as a strategic competitive advantage of the E.U. over the U.S. because American federal appointees have not been in the practice of consulting with state officials who may have expertise in foreign policy and could relay and reflect foreign-affairs positions of their respective states. As commander-in-chief of an army, the head of state of a U.S. state should include foreign affairs in campaigning for office, as well as in serving in office. The chief executive and head of state of Texas, for example, is the regular commander-in-chief of the Texas National Guard. Lest such an army be relegated as insignificant, California’s Newsom raised hell when the federal president of the union, Donald Trump, officially borrowed California’s army to engage against protesters in Los Angeles in June, 2025.

In short, Kallas’ utilization of the E.U. federal system may be more optimal than Rubio’s utilization of only federal officials in the U.S. on foreign policy, such that the latter could take a lesson from the former on how to optimize federalism in foreign policy by more fully engaging more of the parts of the system. To be sure, the involvement of state officials risks state governments diverging publicly from a federal policy and thus undercutting it. But such a tension is part of federalism. Being able to speak with one united voice yet while accommodating the differences that naturally exist within an empire-scale union is not cost- or risk-free, but I submit that federalism is the best system for such unions, which in scale and qualities are distinct from (early modern) kingdom-level states that have their own federal systems. The heterogeneity of culture and ideology within an empire-scale federal union dwarfs such differences that exist within a state thereof. Federalism is thus more of a benefit to the former than the latter.

---

1. Jorge Liboreiro, “US Action Against Iran Would Fuel ‘Broader Conflict” in the Middle East, Kallas Warns,” Euronews.com, June 17, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

President Obama's Justification for Limited Military Intervention in Libya: Driving a Wedge between the Bushes

In the early evening of March 28, 2011, President Barak Obama addressed the American people and the world to explain his administration’s involvement in the international coalition that had been implementing a no fly zone over Libya while protecting Libyan civilians from their own ruler. He sounded much more like the first President Bush than the second in terms of foreign policy.  Similar to how the elder Bush had restrained himself from going all the way to Baghdad after he had joined an international coalition in removing the Iraqis from Kuwait, Obama said that directing American troops to forcibly remove Colonel Qaddafi from power would be a step too far, and would “splinter” the international coalition that had imposed the no fly zone and protected civilians in rebel areas of Libya. Interestingly, in taking the elder Bush’s route, Obama came out strongly against that of Bush II. Referring to the alternative of extending the U.S. mission to include regime change, Obama stated, “To be blunt, we went down that road in Iraq . . . regime change there took eight years, thousands of American and Iraqi lives, and nearly a trillion dollars. That is not something we can afford to repeat in Libya.”[1] In effect, Obama was exposing a fundamental difference between George H.W. Bush and his son by saying essentially the same thing as the elder Bush had done while excoriating the foreign invasion of his son. Yet Obama did not stop there. He added a theoretical framework that the elder Bush could well have used.

The New York Times put the theory quite well. “The president said he was willing to act unilaterally to defend the nation and its core interests. But in other cases, he said, when the safety of Americans is not directly threatened but where action can be justified — in the case of genocide, humanitarian relief, regional security or economic interests — the United States should not act alone. His statements amounted both to a rationale for multilateralism and another critique of what he has all along characterized as the excessively unilateral tendencies of the George W. Bush administration.”[2] In other words, even in providing a basic framework, Obama was able to distance Bush the father from Bush the son.  Interestingly, Obama had awarded the senior Bush with the Metal of Freedom over a month earlier. I would be very surprised if Obama would award Bush the Son such a prize. In terms of foreign policy, the philosophical line in the sand clearly distinguishes the second Bush from both his own father and Barak Obama.

Of course, the President’s speech left his audience hanging in other respects. For instance, averting a large-scale massacre in Libya is in the U.S. strategic or national interest because of our humanitarian values as well as the proximity of Libya to the nascent upheavals in Tunisia in Egypt. So would not protecting a mass protest in Yemen, which is next to Saudi Arabia, or in Syria, which has particular strategic interest to the U.S. on account of Syria’s connection with Lebanon (and thus relevant for Israel) and Iran, also be in the American national interest?  The President could argue that neither Yemen (or Bahrain) nor Syria had come to the point where the civilians in a major city were at risk—but it could still be asked, what if?  Must there be a baleful hint of genocide in a city commensurate to the Libyan city of Benghazi for protesters to warrant invoking principled leadership with or without allies when a ruler has effectively lost his right to rule by having turned on his own people?

I contend that the President treated the U.S. strategic interest quite broadly by including the protection of large numbers of civilians against their own ruler, particularly when even the portent of carnage could destabilize emergent republics next door. Such interest is broader than questions such as, how the civilians would view the U.S. were they to gain power? and what effect would a new government have on Iran and Israel? Such questions pertain to a narrower conception of national interest—one that is much less of value to a country. Viewing the good will of protesters as an opportunity—essentially taking on the wider, humanitarian-inclusive, notion of national interest—Syria, Bahrain and Yemen become like Libya as soon as their respective protests and prospect of government brutality reach a certain threshold that Libya had surpassed. What that threshold is—meaning in terms of scale as well as brutality—is something the American Congress and President needed to decide. For had that been set, attention could have turned to the mechanism involved in forming an international coalition should a country cross the line.

Differing from Obama, I submit that the establishment of a threshold can be relied up such that principled leadership could be invoked by the U.S. even in the absence of partners at the outset. Such unilateralism would differ appreciably from that of Bush the Younger, whose invasion of Iraq was based on a criterion used for that one case alone (WMD).  In other words, unilateralism need not mean capriciousness or impulsiveness. A humanitarian threshold undergirded by a strategic interest in there being a world wherein rulers serve rather than violently turn on their own people can justify not only international coalitions, but also instances of principled leadership.

---

[1] Helene Cooper, “Obama Cites Limits of U.S. Role in Libya,” The New York Times, March 28, 2011.

[2] Ibid.

Savage Beatings in a Government's Toolkit: A Case of Pathology Writ Large

The psychology of someone acting on behalf of or in line with a government in beating another person who has not done or said anything personally against the beater is perplexing. The transmission of anger towards what a group stands for onto a particular human being who may be just walking has not been uncommon in human rights lore; even so, the component of strong emotion in the beating itself is bizarre; it may evince a pathology affecting some people when they think about, or engage in, the political domain. So considering violence against the nonviolent as a government tool that depends on the pathology is also problematic.

To attend the funeral in December, 2009 of Hossein Ali Montazeri, who was the 87 year-old spiritual leader of the Iranian reformist movement, and therefore a dissident leader to the Iranian Government, mourners poured out in thousands into the streets leading to the mosque. However, anti-riot police and plainclothes pro-government Basij militiamen had blocked the area. Parlemannews reported at the time that the Basij beat people, including women, and used tear gas and pepper spray to disperse the crowds. One witness told a reporter,  ”Tens of thousands gathered outside for the memorial but were savagely attacked by security forces and the Basijis.” That witness also said baton-wielding riot police clubbed people on the head and shoulders, and kicked men and women alike, injuring dozens.  “I saw at least two people with blood pouring down their face after being beaten by the Basijis,” he said.[1]

Attending a rally by U.S. presidential candidate Don Trump in 2016, I was stunned while watching a muscular military man stomp on a protester even though she had done nothing to that man in particular, such as shout or spit at him. Why such anger in the stomping, I wondered at the time. It was as if the man's trigger had malfunctioned. To be mad at a message of protest is not in itself to be angry at other persons at an interpersonal level.  

While a government could be justified in responding to violence with violence, to use violence where there is none in opposition suggests that violence is a tool in the government’s toolkit for changing behavior or political positions. This tool depends on the existence of the pathology at an interpersonal level.  It depends on people who view other people as being less than human—even as a kin to dogs—on account of having different opinions and even principles.  

The philosopher Kant wrote in the eighteenth century that the rational nature is of such value that anyone (or anything) having it should not be treated as merely a means, but also as an end in itself. To reduce a rational nature to an object to be savagely attacked is therefore unethical. This applies both to governments (and the officials thereof) and to the individuals who attack other individuals on behalf of governments. 

Besides this Kantian ethical analysis, it strikes me as odd to classify “savage beating” at a governmental tool alongside fiscal policy, treaties, and monetary policy. This represents a category mistake concerning just what it is to be a government tool.  To be sure, any government is ultimately founded on the lethal use of force applied to individuals. Even so, the assumption that violence against nonviolent individuals or groups is a government tool can be questioned as faulty. Alternatively, it could be assumed that violence only fits against violence. 

1. Associated Press, "Iran Police in Fierce Clashes with Cleric Mourners," Foxnews.com, December 23, 2009. 

The American-Iranian Agreement: Moving Mankind Past War

In an epoch of technological development, the relative dearth of political development as concerns international relations has been evident. In June 2015, Pope Francis advocated the establishment of a global institution having governmental sovereignty with which to combat the human contribution to climate change. Such a political development would be significant, given the long-standing default of sovereign nation-states and unions thereof. In July 2015, U.S. President Barak Obama announced an agreement with Iran that would keep that nation-state from develop nuclear weapons in exchange for the removal of economic sanctions. Just three years earlier, war had seemed unavoidable. I submit that Obama’s accomplishment can be thought of as a step toward rendering war itself as obsolete, or at least perceiving it as a primitive means of resolving disputes internationally. More subtly, the feat makes the sheer distance between the premises of war and those of diplomacy transparent. Paradoxically, this insight implies just how difficult a shift from a war-default to one that takes war as obsolete must be.

Even if diplomacy can deliver more than war, obviating the path toward war can require a lot of time and effort. “Today, after two years of negotiations, the United States, together with our international partners, has achieved something that decades of animosity has not—a comprehensive, long-term deal with Iran that will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” Obama declared in announcing the deal.[1] With Iraq still a trouble-spot in spite of the U.S. invasion and occupation, costing more than $2 trillion, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s two years of arduous work with Iran can be viewed as superior to war as a means of satisfying U.S. interests—not to mention that of the international community.

As difficult as it was for Obama to persuade a militaristic people to have faith in diplomacy as being capable of delivering more than war—a thankless task to be sure—he found himself having to defend even his campaign promise that he would talk to America’s enemies. When he first declared he would negotiate with adversaries, it was by accident. During a 2007 presidential debate, when asked if he would negotiate with adversaries as president, he made the unprompted declaration and explained it by discrediting the antithetical, war-default premise. “(T)he notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them— which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this [George W. Bush] administration—is ridiculous.”[2] Obama's premise obviating war is clearly far removed from his predecessor's war-premise.

Tellingly for what it reveals about where the American people stood at the time, the declaration that initial communication should not be conditional “set his campaign into a minor tailspin. ‘We did not expect him to say that,’ former Obama spokesman Bill Burton told The Huffington Post of that debate moment. ‘We were like, 'Oh my God. How do we walk it back? [Former Secretary of State] Madeline Albright’s attacking us!'’"[3] That a former Secretary of State would criticize the very notion of talking to adversaries is itself remarkable. Did she believe that not talking is actually punishment? What is it in American society that undergirds such an uncompromising, even childish, attitude that is so presumptuous or “entitled”? Malignant narcissism, such as can be found in spoiled children, may be behind the primitive level of social skills (which, not coincidentally, is in turn consistent with the mindset of war as the default “problem-solver”). In other words, the hypertrophic conditional regard (e.g., conditional love) may have been acceptable in American society. This point is in itself worthy of investigation.

From the not-speaking-as-punishment assumption, Obama’s mere overtures to Iran must have seemed radical, even ludicrous. “After just two months in office, Obama took the unconventional step of sending Iranians a holiday message on Nowruz, the Iranian new year. ‘For nearly three decades, relations between our nations have been strained,’ he said. ‘But on this holiday, we are reminded of the common humanity that binds us together.’ Shifting his focus from the Iranian people to the Iranian leadership, Obama looked into the camera: ‘My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us.’ . . . it was the first time since the dissolution of U.S.-Iranian relations [in the late 1970s] that an American leader publicly extended the offer of rapprochement.”[4] The sheer amount of time spent under the war premise would make the greeting seem radical even though from the antithetical diplomacy premise the overture could only be counted as a first step.

In conclusion, the ideational and attitudinal distance between the default—that of war as the preferred problem-solving device—and Obama’s premise that war itself can be surmounted by replacing it’s premises with those conformable to direct communication—attests to just how much time and effort is needed in political (as distinct from technological) development. That is to say, political development in the realm of international relations is not apt to come about as easily as technological development has since the early twentieth-century. Moving humanity off war is clearly no easy feat, and Obama’s accomplishment may have to withstand several relapses before the American people have sufficiently shifted their mindset to treat Obama’s premises as the default.

---

[1] Sam Stein and Jessica Schulberg, “How a 2007 Debate Gaffe Paved the Way for a Deal that Will Define Obama’s Legacy,” The Huffington Post, July 14, 2015.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.