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.

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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.

On the E.U.'s Initiative for Ukraine

In March, 2025 after the U.S. had direct talks with Russia on ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the E.U. stepped up its game in helping Ukraine militarily. This was also in the context of a trade war between the E.U. and U.S., which did not make transatlantic relations any better. The E.U.’s increasing emphasis on military aid to Ukraine and the related publicity inadvertently showcased how federalism could be applied to defense and foreign policy differently that it has in the U.S., wherein the member states are excluded, since the Articles of Confederation, when the member states were sovereign within the U.S. confederation. Although both manifestations of early-modern federalism have their respective benefits and risks, I contend that the E.U.’s application of federalism to the two governmental domains of power is more in the spirit of (dual-sovereignty) federalism, even though serious vulnerabilities can be identified.

The full essay is at "The E.U. and U.S. on Defense and Foreign Policy."

On the Impact of Personalities on Diplomacy: The Case of Trump and Zelensky

One of the many advantages that democracy has over autocracy (i.e., dictatorship) is that the dispersion of political power among elected representatives and even between branches of government (i.e., checks and balances) reduces the impact that one personality can have on diplomacy. Even in a republic in which power is concentrated in a president or prime minister, one personality can matter. Given the foibles of human psychology, the risks associated with a volatile personality “at the top” in a nuclear age are significant. Kant’s advocacy of a world federation includes a caveat that world peace would only be possible rather than probable. Given the probability of anger and associated cognitive lapses in even an elected president or prime minister, a world order premised on absolute national sovereignty is itself risky; hence the value of a semi-sovereign world federation with enforcement authority. The impromptu press conference between U.S. President Trump and Ukraine’s President Zelensky on February 28, 2025 demonstrates the risks in countries being in a Hobbesian state of nature (i.e., not checked by any authority above them).

In the Oval Office at the White House, “a remarkable scene was unfolding. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance had begun berating their guest, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a hitherto unseen public implosion of a key global relationship.”[1] The implosion was between two people—the two presidents—rather than of the alliance itself, but the former was indeed capable of impacting the latter. Put another way, two people, rather than two countries, were arguing. “The state is moi” is not a relation of identity in a republic. That it was a host who was shouting and berating a guest went largely unnoticed in the press, in part because the host was on the offensive in pivoting from an (orchestrated?) question from a journalist; his question contained the insult that Zelensky’s wearing of his military uniform in the sacred Oval Office was disrespectful even though Elon Musk had worn t-shirts there even that month. Unlike Musk, Zelensky was at war—one caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Showing visual comradery with generals and troops by wearing a uniform is laudatory rather than indicative of an intent to disrespect other presidents. Ironically, Trump had installed flags of all of the U.S. military branches in the Oval Office.

In short, the Ukrainian president may have unwittingly walked into a pre-arranged “turkey shoot.” That Trump had his counterpart thrown out of the White House—the invitation to lunch notwithstanding—evinces not only anger, but sheer rudeness in place of hospitality. That such human foibles could upend a deal between two countries even though one stood to gain access to rare earth-minerals with commercial applications and the other country was in dire need of a third-party to broker an end to the devastating war. The political philosophy of international business, wherein commercial interests reduce the likelihood of war, was implicitly reputed as Trump shouted accusations at his guest.

What enraged Trump was Zelensky’s claim that if the U.S. (and the E.U.) don’t stand up to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia would not stop with that country. As in the case of World War II, an ocean could not keep the U.S. out of war as Hitler was invading countries. That Zelensky had a valid point was utterly missed by the angered American president. Adding insult to injury, Trump refused to let his guest speak, and Vice President Vance accused Zelensky of being ungrateful, even though the president had thanked America for its military aid on several occasions.[2] Any implicit disrespect in Zelensky’s military garb in the Oval Office was more than made up for by the dignity of that president in constraining himself from insulting Trump and Vance. In contrast, it was Vance’s rudeness and Trump’s verbal hostility toward a guest that were below the dignity of the American presidency and the sacred room.

Zelensky’s point that American could eventually be drawn into another European war is valid—this point should be made perfectly clear. It was not Zelensky who was risking another world war; rather, it was Trump’s lack of emotional self-control that made such an event more likely, for Trump’s rash cancelation of the agreement for U.S. military and diplomatic help in exchange for access to rare earth-minerals in Ukraine made it more likely that Russia would absorb the Ukraine militarily and perhaps then go into the Baltic states and perhaps even Poland. It was Hitler’s invasion of Poland that brought Britain into war with Germany, and that in turn involved the U.S. militarily in its lend-lease agreement with Britain. Trump did not grasp this point that Zelensky was making, and this cognitive lapse in turn triggered Trump’s temper. This is precisely why a world-order founded on absolute national sovereignty is dangerous.

As titillating as a brawl is to watch, I contend that a wise electorate looks beyond such flash-points to keep one eye on fundamental implications. The structure and foundation of the world order was vulnerable to rash personality conflicts between presidents of sovereign countries even in the context of war, especially since post-World War II institutions such as the UN were waning given their lack of enforcement authority. Fortunately, the world was shifting off of the bi-polar hegemony of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War, and it was not lost on the E.U.’s foreign minister, Kaja Kallas, who wrote on the day of the brawl, “Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge.”[3] She even reminded the world that Russia, not Ukraine, was the aggressor, as Trump implicitly contracted this point in accusing Zelensky of risking World War III by not being grateful. A world order in which the U.S. is the world’s “police department” was, fortunately, becoming antiquated, for, given President Trump’s lack of emotional self-control, such a unipolar structure with the U.S. at the hub was indeed dangerous, given the impact that personalities can have on diplomacy.

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1. Kevin Liptak and Jeff Zeleny,”Inside the 139 Minutes that Upended the US-Ukraine Alliance,” CNN.com, March 1, 2025, italics added.
2. Daniel Dale, “Fact Check: 33 Times Zelensky Thanked Americans and US Leaders,” CNN.com, February 28, 2025.
3. Malek Fouda, “European Leaders Unite Behind Ukraine Following Trump-Zelenskyy Confrontation,” Euronews, February 28, 2025.

The United States: Complicit in Genocide

In December, 2024, Amnesty International, a highly reputed human rights international organization “found sufficient basis to conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip.”[1] The International Criminal Court (ICC) had recently issued arrest warrants for a former defense minister and the sitting prime minister, Ben Netanyahu, and the UN’s high court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) had also ruled that Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank violates international law. When Amnesty’s report came out, the ICJ was considering whether to declare a genocide in Gaza. Considering the series of determinations against Israel in Gaza, did it matter that the ICJ had not yet ruled specifically on genocide? Formally yes, but the currency of formal rulings and determinations regarding Israel based on international law had lost considerable de facto value, given Israel’s ongoing infliction of such widespread and dire suffering on civilians in not only Gaza, and Russia’s attacks in Ukraine (the ICC had already issued an arrest warrant for Russia’s sitting president. Oddly, news that Israel was committing an apartheid genocide seemed at the time to be old news, whereas that the U.S. was complicit, as an accomplice in providing the weapons, in a genocide was news.

So even legalists can let themselves hold that Israel was indeed treating the Palestinians in Gaza (and even the West Bank) to a genocide, and thus that the United States Government was acting as an accomplice by continuing to sell weapons to Israel used in Gaza. Agnes Callamard, the Secretary General of Amnesty International, said at the time of the organization’s resounding report, “Amnesty International’s report demonstrates that Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These acts include killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.”[2] It may be said that Amnesty had uncovered the true motive of the Israeli ministers of state in destroying residential housing such that over 2 million Gazans were by then in camps and in restricting how many food trucks could enter Gaza even as famine existed in 2024. As harsh as this determination is, it is not clear that a report even with damning findings would “serve as a wake-up call to the international community” even though Callamard said it would.[3]

Because Israel had likely “heard it all before,” and so had the world with respect to the rather extreme vengeance of the Israeli Knesset, as if the millions of Gazans had all been culpable in Hamas’ killings and kidnappings in 2023 as Israel’s president had said back then, Amnesty’s report is perhaps more striking in how it characterizes the role of the U.S. than in finding indications of a genocide in Gaza. “States that continue to transfer arms to Israel at this time,” Callamard went on, “must know they are violating their obligation to prevent genocide and are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide.”[4] At the time, the U.S. was the most glaring or significant of the accomplices, though the E.U. was hardly blameless. Even though it had been no secret in the United States that President Biden was strongly in favor of selling weapons that had been and could be expected to be used by the Israeli military in Gaza, the complicity in Israel’s genocide had not hitherto reached the consciousness of public discourse in America.

As for the fine print, Amnesty noted in its report that the organization had “examined Israel’s acts in Gaza closely and in their totality, taking into account their recurrence and simultaneous occurrence, and both their immediate impact and their cumulative and mutually reinforcing consequences. The organization considered the scale and severity of the casualties and destruction over time. It also analysed public statements by officials, finding that prohibited acts were often announced or called for in the first place by high-level officials in charge of the war efforts.”[5] The effort was neither shotty nor unsystematic, and it took “into account the pre-existing context of dispossession, apartheid and unlawful military occupation.”[6] The report’s basic conclusion is that the Israeli government was intent on eradicating Palestinians in Gaza (for they could not leave!).

The fecklessness of international law had been readily apparent, given the obvious lack of any legal enforcement mechanism; that the U.S. had played a major role in the genocide was not often realized and digested. It may be a factor in President Biden’s very low approval ratings and the fact that Kamala Harris lost Michigan while Jill Stein of the Green Party did noticeably well there—Stein long having been a recurrent presidential candidate with no hope of winning but very useful nonetheless in providing voters with a way to vote against their government being complicit in genocide. As startling as this sounds, its exuberance would surely fade and the inherent weakness of international law once again become the undercurrent of discontent not only in the U.S., but in the E.U. as well. Amnesty’s report can be interpreted as saying: Yes, it can get this bad—this painful—in a world in which international law is law in name only (i.e., sans regular enforcement).

1. Amnesty International, “Amnesty International Investigation Concludes Israel Is Committing Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza,” Amnesty.org, December 5, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.

The ICC Indicts Israeli and Hamas Officials: On the Perils of Absolutist National Sovereignty

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Ben Netanyahu, former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and the military commander of Hamas on November 21, 2024. With the world having had centuries wherein national sovereignty has been the basis of the international order, the heads of national governments could be expected to instantly bolt from just being indicted by an international court. Since the world woke up in 1945 to learn of the Nazi atrocities against Slavs (20 million), Jews (6 million), intellectuals and gays, whether murdered in concentration camps or on the proverbial street, as well as reading as years went by of Stalin’s mass-graves from his government’s mass-murders of Ukrainians, Poles, and even Russians, the hegemonic doctrine that the sovereignty of a state should be absolute has been barely subject to any resistance. So, when the ICC has issued arrest warrants, it has been up to national governments around the world to enforce the warrants by arresting the heads of other governments charged with having violated international law. This weakness in the constraint on what would otherwise be absolutist national sovereignty attests to the marginal degree to which that doctrine has actually been questioned since 1945. In other words, the international order can be said to occupy a rather uncomfortable ‘betwixt and between’ position with respect to whether the sovereignty of countries should be constrained internationally. Not until international law comes complete with real enforcement powers will the world be able to say that heads of governments (and of state) are no longer in a state of nature as described by Thomas Hobbes in his tomb, Leviathan.  

In the case of Israel and Hamas, the nature of their respective crimes is such that the doctrine of absolute national sovereignty can legitimately be discarded and replaced by a doctrine of relative national sovereignty. The ICC’s judges said there were “reasonable grounds” that the three defendants bore “criminal responsibility” for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity since October 7, 2023,[1] when Hamas murdered 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped a couple hundred more. In (over) response, or retribution as “punishment,” the Israeli military had killed over 44,000 residents of Gaza and made over a million more homeless by the time the ICC issued its warrants. Israel even dropped bombs on the tents being used by the homeless residents. The scale alone of the suffering can be seen as an indictment on the doctrine of absolute sovereignty, which had been able to protect more than one head of a national government in the world.

In fact, during the very month in which the ICC announced the three warrants, Russia’s President Putin signed a revised, more flexible government policy on when the country’s military could use tactical nuclear weapons and was still having the military bomb civilian targets. Even the U.S. Embassy in Kiev was no longer safe from becoming a target. To be sure, the ICC had already issued an arrest warrant for Putin, but it was an easy matter for him to avoid being arrested. Netanyahu too could be expected to easily evade capture. Besides being able to stay in their respective countries, they could safely visit the respective allies. Often missed is the hesitancy that other, third-party governments, have in arresting the heads of other governments. Besides not wanting retaliation, it is easy for a country’s government to ignore the ICC’s requests. The ICC’s enforcement mechanism has been, in short, like a bad joke.

The weakness of the E.U. federal system only made the arrests of the three defendants within that territory especially unlikely. Put another way, that the ICC would have to depend on the E.U. to hold its states accountable demonstrates just how weak the court’s enforcement mechanism was when the court issued the warrants. Hence, the BBC noted at the time, “Netanyahu and Gallant do not face any immediate threat of prosecution.”[2] Even though “if either of them set foot in any [signatory country to the ICC’s jurisdiction], the two men “must be arrested and handed over to the court.”[3] The E.U.’s foreign minister, Josep Borrell, “said the ICC decision was binding on all E.U. member states.”[4] Nevertheless, “Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said . . . he would ignore an arrest warrant issued by [the ICC] for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”[5] Orban’s refusal to recognize the validity of federal law would imperil the E.U. were his decision to go against the E.U. requirement to eventually become the norm with respect to E.U. law in the state governments; it could turn into something akin to the Nullification Crisis in the early 1830s in the U.S., when it too had a young federal system and had to contend with South Carolina’s Nullification Acts. Orban’s disrespect for E.U. law (including regulations and even directives, which the states have some discretion in implementing) is a microcosm of the disrespect for international law (and arrest warrants) that had become the norm at the global level by 2024; otherwise, coalitions of countries would have literally pushed Putin out of Ukraine and Netanyahu out of Gaza, as the U.S.’s coalition had pushed Saddam Hussain out of Kuwait in the early 1990s.

It is precisely such a lack of respect for the international court and international law itself that led Netanyahu’s office to condemn the ICC’s warrants against the prime minister and the former defense minister as “antisemitic.”[6] Of course, the warrant against the commander of Hamas’s military was not said to be a case of prejudice against Muslims. In fact, Gallant, the former Israeli defense minister, objected that the ICC was placing “the State of Israel and the murderous leaders of Hamas in the same row, and thus legitimizes the murder of babies, the rape of women and the abduction of the elderly from their beds.”[7] The ICC was not legitimizing the events of October 7, 2023 because the court issued a warrant for a Hamas high official too.

The court found reasonable grounds that Hama’s Deif was “responsible for the crimes against humanity of murder; extermination; torture; and rape and other form[s] of sexual violence; as well as war crimes for murder, cruel treatment, torture; taking hostages; outrages upon personal dignity; and other form[s] of sexual violence.”[8] While this may seem duplicative, crimes against humanity are legally distinct from war crimes. Regarding Netanyahu and Gallant, the court found reasonable grounds to believe that they “each bear criminal responsibility for the following crimes as co-perpetrators for committing the acts jointly with others: the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”[9] If the Israeli government officials still needed an explanation for why the court was putting them in the same criminal category with the Hamas official, perhaps contrasting 44,000 dead and over 1 million homeless with 1,200 dead and only a few hundred homeless (i.e, taken as hostages)—many of whom had been able, unlike the Gaza residents, to return to find a house or apartment building still standing. Just the fact that Israeli officials objected to the equivalence in the ICC’s charges leveled against Israeli and Hamas officials even though Israel’s military response had been disproportionately aggressive and destructive suggests just how warped human judgment can be, and just how dangerous the doctrine of absolutist sovereignty is as applied to national governments under which government officials can act with the sense of impunity from international law having “teeth” internationally. Even that such a misplaced doctrine had by the 21^st century become a part of the status quo in the global order does not bode well for human nature, which the doctrine contradicts.  That both the presidents of Israel and the United States called the ICC arrest warrants against Israeli officials “outrageous” boggles the mind, given the scale of destruction wrought by Israel in Gaza.[10] Put more directly, a species capable of such mental feats devoid of reason should not grant absolute sovereignty to any human being. Giving absolute sovereignty to people heading a government that has nuclear weapons is a bad idea, and yet the world, out of fear, has not stood up to keep that from continuing.

Given the salience of greed the thirst for power that are so indelible in human nature, the U.S. was still selling military weapons to Israel and the Biden administration had not courageously resisted the notoriously strong American Israeli lobby (the AIPAC). So the U.S. Government had a vested economic and political interest doing two things at the expense of human rights and international law: 1.) being the single veto at the UN Security Council against a resolution the day before that would have stipulated an immediate ceasefire, the removal of Israel’s military from Gaza, and the unconditional release of the hundred or so remaining Israeli hostages being held by Hama; and 2.) rejecting the ICC’s warrants for the two Israelis (but curiously not the one against the Hamas commander)—both in the same week! Countering the vested interest of the U.S., the E.U., a third party to the dispute/war, more objectively stated that all three warrants should be respected and enforced.[11] Given the magnitude of killing and destruction in Gaza, going much beyond the heinous acts of Hamas on October 7, 2023, the position of the E.U.’s foreign minister could indeed be viewed as being relatively objective, mature, and even ethical.

Lest it be objected (as it was by Israel and its enabler, the U.S.), that neither the U.S. nor the sovereign state of Israel had signed documents agreeing to be covered by the ICC’s jurisdiction, “the court [had] ruled in 2021 that it had jurisdiction over the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza because the UN’s secretary general had accepted the Palestinians” constitute a member of the UN.[12] Just because Israel does not recognize the Palestinians politically does not mean that the UN and the ICC could and should not do so.

Lest it be objected that the ICC, as a court of last resort, is “supposed to act when domestic courts cannot, or will not, genuinely investigate or prosecute serious international crimes,” Israel had had a bit more than a year to do so, but had not even charged Netanyahu of war crimes and crimes against humanity.[13] Especially given the judicial reforms that the prime minister had successfully had the legislature adopt, it would be highly unlikely that the judiciary would ever hold Netanyahu accountable even for corruption.

In short, like Russia’s Putin, Israel’s Netanyahu and the U.S.’s Biden conveniently rejected the very validity of international law, and perhaps that position is fair because law without an enforcement mechanism can only really be a resolution or policy befitting an international realm with no sovereignty having been delegated to it from the world’s countries, whose government officials have gotten used to enjoying the doctrine of absolute national sovereignty serving as the bedrock of the global order. Reading slowly through the detailed charges promulgated by the ICC might get a person to reconsider whether, given human nature, the world hasn’t made a mistake in allowing it to become the status quo and thus enjoy considerable inertia even in the face of horrendous atrocities in Gaza as well as Ukraine with the perpetrators—national governments and their respective officials—being able to act with the smug sense of impunity. It is a pity that the national governments adopted, whether explicitly or by not rejecting it in action, such flawed doctrine as an important geo-political element of the status quo. Even if the world comes to realize that the squalid doctrine has enabled abuses of power by national governments, the very nature of the status quo suggests that the doctrine will nevertheless still be likely to enjoy considerable inertia as the power behind the thrones because of the political (and even military) energy needed to dislodge the artifice.

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1. David Gritten “Arrest Warrants Issued for Netanyahu, Gallant, and Hamas Commander Over Alleged War Crimes," BBC.com, November 21, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Tansin Paternoster and Evelyn Dom, “European Leaders Give Mixed Reactions on Netanyahu’s War Crimes Arrest Warrant,” Euronews.com, November 22, 2024.
6. David Gritten “Arrest Warrants Issued for Netanyahu, Gallant, and Hamas Commander Over Alleged War Crimes.”
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.; Jaroslav Lukiv, “Biden Says ICC War Crimes Arrest Warrant ‘Outrageous,” BBC.com, November 22, 2024.
11. David Gritten “Arrest Warrants Issued for Netanyahu, Gallant, and Hamas Commander Over Alleged War Crimes.”
12. Ibid. 
13. Ibid.

 

U.S. “Foreign Aid” Enabling Pakistani Betrayal

Officials speaking on behalf of Pakistan’s government claimed that Pakistani officials did not know that Osama bin Laden had been living in Pakistan, and yet a Pakistani court sentenced a Pakistani to a 33-year prison sentence for treason in having conspired “to wage war against Pakistan” by aiding the CIA in its hunt for bin Laden.[1] If trying to find him constitutes treason, it follows that the Pakistani government was opposed to the Americans finding him. Meanwhile, that government accepted hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign aid from the U.S. Government.  The reaction of an appropriations committee of the U.S. Senate in 2012 was merely to cut $33 million from $800 million in foreign aid to Pakistan. It would seem that the U.S. Government wanted it both ways—to castigate Pakistan for essentially hiding bin Laden while seeking to retain some influence with the Pakistani government by bribing it with foreign aid.

That the Pakistani government linked the 33-year prison sentence to that government’s demand for an apology form the U.S. for an airstrike that accidently killed 24 Pakistanis is, according to Sen. John McCain, “beyond ludicrous.”[2] At the very least, the linkage violates the defendant’s human right to freedom, as he had nothing to do with the U.S. airstrike. Senators McCain and Levin claimed to be outraged, yet it is strange that the result is a paltry $33 million cut (out of $800 million of foreign aid to Pakistan).  If helping the U.S. Government find the man behind 9/11 constitutes waging war against Pakistan, then the U.S. itself can be faulted for continuing to give Pakistan anything. Demanding that it earn back the privilege of being trusted (a privilege given the aid) is not too much to ask, especially for $800 million (even less the $33 million).

Even if the U.S. Senate was not principled enough to act on principle, the interest if the United States can be distinguished from financially enabling a government that prosecutes citizens for “waging war” against Pakistan for having helped the U.S. in a mission that the Pakistani government itself had indicated it accepted (and would help, rather than hinder). It is not in one’s interest to consider the friend of one’s enemy as one’s friend. That is to say, the U.S. Government could have done better even in terms of its own interest, if it is defined as something broader than short-term manipulation of other governments by essentially bribing them. Such influence assumes that governments do not accept the “foreign aid” only to act against the “donor.”  Therefore, even from the standpoint of political realism, the U.S. Senate committee did not go nearly far enough in its fiscal policy of foreign relations. As a result, other governments must have gotten the message that it is possible to take the money and tacitly act against the United States.

1. Jonathan Weisman, “Senate Panel Holds Up Aid to Pakistan,” The New York Times, May 24, 2012.  

2. Ibid.